On B.o.B. and Flat Earth Truthers

B.o.B. thinks that the earth is flat, and that’s great.

Let me make this clear: I am aware the earth is round. Round, round, round, round, round. B.o.B. doesn’t agree with me, nor does Sherri Shepherd, nor do the members of the Flat Earth Society. And all of that is fine.

To be frank, whether the earth is round of flat is not a topic I’ve paid much mind to for the overwhelming majority of my life. It has little impact on my day-to-day life. Of course, if the earth were flat, there would be incredible differences in our climate and the Cubs probably would have won another World Series by now.

But let’s just say, hypothetically, that every stipulation the Flat Earth Society lays out that would theoretically make a flat earth possible do, in fact, exist. What would likely happen tomorrow is that I would wake up, make a pot of coffee, go to work, go to class, come home, and fall asleep. Or, put another way, not a damn thing would be different.

Of course, I can’t hold this apathetic attitude towards all scientific theories or questions, like climate change or fracking or the Cubs’ failure to win a World Series for over a century. In the amount of time I am allotted in a day, week, month, year or lifetime, though, I simply don’t have the capacity to consider the round vs. flat earth “question” the way that B.o.B. has. This is why, as crazy and regressive as B.o.B.’s thoughts are, I’m glad someone is thinking this much about something everyone takes for granted, even if it mostly just means he missed a couple second-grade science classes.

A common joke/lamentation I’ve heard about people who spout off these thoughts is something along the lines of, “Just think: this person gets to vote,” implying that because someone has an intellectual hole in one aspect of their life, that they can’t possibly possess intelligent thoughts in other areas. (Similar comments are made, mostly by Hitchens-esque antatheists, about the religious)

Let me personalize this again: I spend 7-10 hours a week during fall and winter watching professional football. I’m obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog and know far more about his backstory than I know about, say, what my own state’s governor’s policies on anything other than issuing states of emergency. My greatest scholastic achievement was graduating college despite co-creating a drinking game for the Antiques Roadshow.

Remind me again why I’m more qualified to pick an elected official than a rapper who thinks the earth is flat, but at least seems to have thought about it a lot.

Neil deGrasse Tyson said it best after dismantling B.o.B.’s flat earth arguments: just because he’s wrong about the shape of the Earth doesn’t mean we can’t like (or dislike) his music. B.o.B. is, after all, a rapper, and while this may not excuse his, uh, dated understanding of the world’s shape, it may call into question why exactly we care.