As a football player, I’ve been a fan of Vikings receiver Stefon Diggs from the moment he made his first impact on the NFL as a rookie in 2015. As a potential social-media troll, he may have even better chops. Unless he’s really not deliberately riling up his followers when he suggests that he agrees with NBA player Kyrie Irving’s view that the Earth is flat.
Yes, whether the Earth is flat has recently become a thing in the sports world. Irving may be trolling, too, and the ultimately genius of the approach (if it’s all an act) is that it points out the nature of the age in which we currently reside. Given the ridiculous factual claims that people are willing to blindly embrace as true, maybe it’s not ludicrous to think someone genuinely rejects the long-settled notion that the Earth is round.
The Big Lead has items on both Irving’s comments and the tweets from Diggs. My own assessment is that Diggs is having fun with the issue, but that Irving actually may believe what he’s saying.
Irving would hardly be alone regarding the lingering notion that the planet is pancake-shaped; a few minutes with Google unlocked plenty of evidence of others who reject the evidence that the world is round. The argument hinges on the notion that the spherical theory emerged as a way to supplant religion with science, since the Bible suggests that the world is flat.
The claim is less stunning given that the flat-or-round world generally has morphed into a place where the line between fact and opinion has been obliterated, and all that matters is what you believe.
I believe I now need a nap.