Mad Mike, Rest In Peace

I was saddened to learn today of the death of Mike “Mad Mike” Hughes, who was among many other things a daredevil and a prominent flat earth proponent. He was killed in the line of duty when his homemade rocket crash landed with him at the controls. He had hoped to reach an altitude of 5000 feet (1524 meters), from whence he thought he could take pictures of the earth and show that it did not curve.

As I say, I am saddened. He was a colorful and eccentric figure, and the world needs more of those.

Still, there is something amazingly metaphoric here. His mission was to prove that the scientific conception of the world, and the laws of physics behind it, were at least flawed and maybe deliberate lies. In our present age, that is accepted and even encouraged—after all “everyone has the right to an opinion” and “reality is socially created.”

The problem is that the real world (which really is round) and the laws of physics are not so accepting of eccentricity as we might be, and in that real world reality steadfastly refuses to be socially created, no matter how certain are our professors of postmodernism and professional decriers of “Fake News” may be that it is.

And therein lies the great danger of dismissing reality as an illusion, for it may not agree, and its whims are truly deadly.

 

Michael Jay Tucker is a writer and journalist who has published material on topics ranging from the Jazz Age to computers. (Among his small claims to fame is that he interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)



 Tucker’s most recent book is Padre: To The Island, a meditation on life and death based on the passing of his own parents



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