Didn’t we agree, like, thousands of years ago, that the earth is not flat? So what the hell is happening?

I mean… don’t get me wrong… I know that there are still people who genuinely believe the earth is flat. But they’ve always been… like… fringe of the fringe. Even most know Young-Earth Creationists agree that the earth isn’t flat! Like… if Ken Hamm agrees that the earth is not flat, then maybe… you know… that’s a piece of science we can all agree on, right?

So what the hell is going on? Why is famous person after famous person coming forward to say that they think is the earth is flat?

Even People magazine noticed this…

NBA star Kyrie Irving made headlines last week when he revealed that he believes that the world was flat, and surprisingly he’s not the only famous person who doesn’t believe the globe is … well, a globe.

Over NBA All-Star weekend, Irving’s comments became a hot topic of conversation, and even resulted in some gentle ribbing from fellow Cleveland Cavaliers player LeBron James. While Irving later said he found the reaction to his flat-Earth theory “hilarious,” he also said that his opinion on the shape of the world we live in shouldn’t really matter to other people.

“Does it matter to you that I believe the world is flat?” he asked reporters. “It really doesn’t matter.” Then he added, perhaps facetiously, “The fact that it’s a conversation, I’m glad it got people talking like this.”

While Irving’s comments supplied plenty of joke fodder, he is surprisingly not alone. Here’s a look at some other famous “Flat-Earthers.”

The first person they note is Tila Tequila which… well… isn’t surprising to anyone who’s been aware of her at all. She’s also an anti-Semite, White Supremacist Nazi, so… yeah…

Next is rapper B.o.B., which is already a known story because he called out Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Neil’s nephew then did a diss track response, parodying Drake’s “Back to Back” (the parody was called “Flat to Fact”).

Hilariously, the rest of the popular/famous people highlighted in the piece don’t actually think the earth is flat, so that’s kind of a bust.

But… recently, Shaquille O’Neal said he thinks the earth is flat. This attracted some attention, including Metro (note for some ableist language in that article), who broke down Flat Earth beliefs in a helpful 10-point list (again, some ableist language is used):

1. The Earth looks flat – so it must be flat

Honestly, this is one of their reasons – and the main one cited by intellectual heavyweight B.o.B. in his recent meltdown.

2. It’s cheaper to fake journeys into space than it is to journey into space

And a global conspiracy has been embezzling all that money ever since the 50s

3. Satellite photos are ‘easily faked’

And the global conspiracy has been doing so for five decades.

4. ‘Day’ and ‘night’ are created by the sun orbiting in a circle above, then beneath the North Pole

The sun also moves sideways – hence winter and summer. They think of everything!

5. People who think they’ve flown round the Earth have just travelled in a big circle round the North Pole

The Earth is like a pancake, with the North Pole in the middle, see.

6. It all stays together because there’s a big ice wall round the edge

The oceans don’t spill off because there’s a wall of ice – called Antarctica. The Flat Earth society admit to being ‘curious’ as to what lies beyond this.

7. Gravity doesn’t exist

Instead, the Earth is constantly accelerating upwards, so the force of gravity is like being pushed into your seat in a car, see?

8. Earth is accelerating upwards due to ‘dark energy’

It all tallies with Einstein, the maniacs boast, as Einstein whirrs gently in his grave.

9. Photos from aeroplanes look curved because of the windows

… and satellite shots look rounded at the edge due to the ‘spotlight’ under the sun, which is only a few thousand miles up.

10. An experiment proved that a six-mile stretch of water was flat

Except it didn’t really. It was famously misread by previous Flat Earthers, who weren’t the brightest crayons in the pack.

So… okay… perhaps it’s not so much a trend as it is the fact that these rare few have a louder voice with the modern internet and media. But still… this is just…

Sad…

At the end of the day, the earth actually being flat sets off what is perhaps the most unbelievable conspiracy in all of history… made unbelievable, mostly, by how long it’s been perpetrated. We’ve know the earth was not flat for literally millenia. This isn’t an idea cooked up in the past few decades. This is a conspiracy that humans overall have been perpetuating for thousands of years.

Sure, I’m not the supreme expert on humanity, but in my limited understanding of humans, calling that “implausible” might be the biggest understatement in existence. That would be far-reaching, expensive, and basically just plain impossible, not least because people would have discovered the edge a long time ago.

Has anyone fallen off the earth?

No? So what happens when someone reaches the edge? They… go around to the other side?

And where does the edge fall off to, anyways? Do they just float out into space, or something?

I need the whole edge thing explained.

And they do try.

My favorite is the giant ice wall, and, in short, no one has circumnavigated the earth north to south.

Of course, that’s not true. I guess they’ve never heard of Ranulph Fiennes and Charles Burton… or they think that’s a conspiracy, too. Here’s a map and some pictures of their circumnavigation, in case your curious…

As for that giant ice wall… wouldn’t that be discovered when circumnavigating east to west? People circumnavigate the equator all the damn time. So where’s that ice wall then?

This probably shouldn’t perplex me, but it does… in part because I could actually believe that Agent Orange and many of the others occupying the White House and Congress also think the earth is flat. They’re so anti-science already that it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch.

Almost makes me want to circumnavigate the earth myself, north to south and east to west. But a) I can’t afford it (who wants to fund me?) and b) even when I come back with video and picture proof, they’ll probably just say that I’m perpetuating the conspiracy.

There is zero evidence these flat-earthers would accept that the earth is round… even if they were taken into to space and allowed to view the globe for themselves, they would still find a way to insist the earth is flat.

Which… as I said… is sad…