A gigantic prank, or a sign of worse to come?
I suppose that in an increasingly fact-averse, science-denying world, I should not have been surprised to hear that the ranks of flat-earth believers are swelling rapidly (not to worry, they are still a teensy-beentsy minority). I admit I was, for an instant, a bit surprised, until I had this epiphany: oh yeah, the internet.
The internet has made possible the instantaneous widespread propagation of any—I emphasize ANY—crackpot idea that happens to resonate in certain susceptible minds.
What makes for a susceptible mind? There are a number of hypotheses (and mixtures thereof), but my favorite is sheer lack of imagination, as evinced by basketball great Shaquille O’Neal, who opined: “I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it’s flat to me,” he declared. “I do not go up and down at a 360-degree angle, and all that stuff about gravity.”
The O’Neal quote made me wonder if this Flat Earth resurgence might be part of an enormous prank. The Shack has demonstrated a pretty good sense of humor in the past.