Kyrie Irving apologies for wrongthink

The heretic has seen the error of his ways:

Kyrie Irving’s unexpected apology tour made a pit stop at the Forbes Under 30 Summit on Monday in Boston, where the Celtics point guard apologized for saying the Earth is flat.
“I’m sorry about all that for all the science teachers, everybody coming up to me, like, ‘You know I have to re-teach my whole curriculum,'” Irving said, according to Boston.com. “I’m sorry. I apologize. I apologize.”

Flat-eartherism is, of course, stupid. The earth's roundness was established before the time of Christ. It is stupid, but it is also completely harmless and fun. As Irving told the New York Times:

Can you openly admit that you know the Earth is constitutionally round? Like, you know that for sure? Like, I don’t know. I was never trying to convince anyone that the world is flat. I’m not being an advocate for the world being completely flat. No, I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s fun to think about though. It’s fun to have that conversation. It is absolutely fun because people get so agitated and mad. They’re like, “Hey man, you can’t believe that, man. It’s religious, man. It’s just science. You can’t believe anything else. O.K.?” Cool, well, explain to me. Give me what you’ve known about the Earth and your research, and I love it. I love talking about it.

What's strange about this case is that Irving apparently felt the need to apologize for his comments. (Whether he was compelled to do so, and how serious his apology was, is hard to discern from the story.) The point is, we apologize when we injure or offend someone. Who could possibly be harmed by a basketball player questioning the shape of the earth? And please, if you're tempted to say some variation of "the children" or "the school teachers," you may be dumber and more gullible than anyone who thinks the earth is flat.

The irony is that most of the people sneering at Irving probably do not know the approximate age or size of the earth. They probably do not know its composition or how it was formed or how the moon was formed. They probably do not know the earth's orbital speed or why the sun and the moon appear to be almost the same size in the sky. They probably have no idea how the ancient Greeks apprehended that the earth is a sphere, and they probably have no idea that the earth may contain, trapped in minerals beneath its surface, a reservoir of water three times larger than all the oceans combined.

As far as they are concerned, Irving must be punished for having wrong thoughts. This is not a search for truth, but a social shaming ritual.

Mass hysteria and sneering, self-righteous ignorance: welcome to the Current Year.