Opus 2023-224: Shared Ignorance

I am always amazed at the truth gaps that seemingly informed people have.  Often it is people who are self-styled informed rather that actual.  This hit me recently when listening to a discussion between Bill Maher and Vivek Ramaswamy.  They were having a great time.  Vivek got Maher to admit that Columbus might have made a contribution and then he shared his ignorance, probably as a result of a public school education.  They both were saluting Columbus’ valor in sailing into the unknown because everyone knew that they would sail off the end of the world.

This is ignorant.  It didn’t surprise me about Maher but I thought Ramaswamy was a bit more educated.  If you were a peasant farmer who had never been more than an hours walking distance from your cottage then you might think the world was flat.  Everyone else knew it was round.  The ancient Greeks did a good job of calculating the circumference.  Columbus knew that the Vikings had tried to plant a colony on what would become known as North America.  This is information that is readily available if you go beyond CNN.

This is ignorant if you know anything about science, geography and physics.  If the world were flat then the water in the oceans would be running off the edge.  In fact I have seen art work that shows these waterfalls.  Now I ask you, how long would it take for the water to run off so you could walk across what had been the Atlantic?  It is possible that the mid-Atlantic trench would have held a lake that would require a boat, but really, what would keep the water from disappearing?  

The next thing you know people will be trying to tell us that the world is going to boil.

homo unius libri