What Kyrie Irving and the Flat Earthers Believe

Questioning Something: The Flat Earth

The last time I remember questioning something I had thought to be true was when I heard Kyrie Irving talking about “flat earth.” Up to then I didn’t even know that this idea of the earth being flat like a record with a dome over top was a concept. But then I heard about that and I thought, “Well, that is strange… I wonder why he thinks the earth is flat.” Not being one to just dismiss any old statement by people, no matter who they are, I decided to research the subject a little bit. I have a friend who is in to fringe theories and so I emailed him about this flat earth idea and he responded right away with a message reading, “Oh yeah, I think it’s true.” He was serious. This was a person I respected and believed to be intelligent. After all, he was well-read and taught in a university. I stepped back a moment and thought, “Really? Flat earth? How? Why?” But now my interest was really piqued. I wanted to know more—what the idea was, how anyone could hold such a view, and what others who did not believe it had to say in response.

So the more I dug the more I found: it turns out that people who believe in flat earth tend to believe that NASA is lying about everything. They believe we never went to the moon—that it was all faked. They believe that the earth is not spinning, and they tend to believe that the edge of the earth is an ice wall, which we know to be Antarctica and that it wraps around the whole outer rim of the flat earth disc. What happened as a result of this reflection and experience is that I had to admit that the flat earthers raised some pretty interesting points but in the end I don’t understand nearly enough about science or physics or space or anything, really, to hold an opinion one way or the other. All I can say is that if Kyrie Irving wants to believe the earth is flat, more power to him.