The earth is spherical in shape.

Overview I feel as though the debate was presented with a very clear emphasis on the expectation of quality arguments. The opponent has, by all accounts, failed in this and assumably is trolling. That said, I will respond to his argument this round. Should he fail to meet the rules set out by the debate in the following rounds, he can consider this a forfeit. What's worse, he can live with the knowledge that he just wasted my time, his time, the voters' time, and at least 4 different parties' bandwidth. Following that, I'll post my own argument. Opponent's Argument The opponent claims that Kyrie Irving, a man who went to Duke, says the earth is flat. He concludes that he [Kyrie Irving] must be correct, implying directly that the world is flat. We first note that this is an Appeal to Authority, a logical fallacy. [2] In this case, the fallacy exists because Kyrie Irving is not an expert on geology, geography, physics, cosmology, or literally anything even vaguely related to science. He's a basketball player, so one might argue that he has some basic understanding of kinesiology. Even still, that's unrelated to any science that considers the shape of the Earth. Additionally, in 2016 Kyrie decided to put his Duke degree "on hold" [3] and there have been no reports since indicating that he ever graduated. We must conclude that Kyrie Irving doesn't even hold a college degree. To conclude, Kyrie Irving isn't an expert because he went to Duke and he doesn't hold a college degree. There is no world in which his scientific opinion is so relevant that we should accept it at face value, without so much as his reason even being presented by the opponent. Fun Fact: Kyrie's actual argument is this, by the way: "For what I've known for as many years and what I've been taught is that the Earth is round, but I mean, if you really think about it from a landscape of the way we travel, the way we move and the fact that can you really think of us rotating around the sun and all planets aligned, rotating in specific dates being perpendicular with what's going on with these planets and stuff like this ... It doesn't come back. There is no concrete information except for the information they're giving us." [4] Kyrie's reasons for believing that the Earth is flat seems to be (a) he is unable to understand how orbits work and (b) he has only been told that there is a curvature, but he hasn't seen it himself. Orbital mechanics are not an easy topic when considered in detail, but the basic idea is pretty simple. Beyond that, one's inability to understand something does not preclude the ability for that something to be true. Also, the fact that one hasn't seen something doesn't mean that that something doesn't exist. One assumes that Kyrie also doesn't believe in air, the other side of the moon, Antarctica, atoms, molecules, viruses, bacteria, or food stamps. My Arguments Argument 1: Satellite Imagery This argument is one of the most important arguments when talking about the shape of the earth and, as such, it is often ignored. The argument is simple: There is a significant amount of satellite imagery of the earth, many of which demonstrate curvature. For instance, in this [1] gallery we see many images which clearly demonstrate the curvature of the earth. When one composites these images together, one sees that the Earth is spherical in shape. Multiple satellites have accomplished this from various positions in space, indicating that the Earth is "flat and circular" (when seen from the proper viewpoint), but instead is spherical. A look at any one of the composite images of earth or the few non-composite images of the whole earth shows that the earth isn't extremely elliptical, but instead *appears* to be a sphere. More can be said about this if needed. I imagine this won't be as talked about in a debate that isn't "round earth" v. "flat earth". I'm not going to present a second argument here and will only do so if needed. If I determine it is needed, it will be in the second or third round. Summary The opponent's argument doesn't stand up. If he fails to post 4,000 characters in the following round (as the rules demand) he has forfeited the debate and we can be done with this. Thanks for reading. Sources: [1] - https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov... [2] - https://www.logicallyfallacious.com... [3] - https://fansided.com... [4] - http://ftw.usatoday.com...