Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World

by Tyson Yunkaporta

Thinking about the shape of the world Max describes and the thin skin around it, I reflect on the physics of our creation stories and the way rocks wear away over time into balls. I perceive a pattern in the universe whereby the most efficient shape for holding matter together is a sphere. I might say to the growing number of flat-earth theorists out there, “Blow me a flat bubble and I’ll consider your theory.” But that would be placing myself in a greater-than position, so I need to check myself and pay attention to them, remembering that there is always value in marginal viewpoints. So I listen to them online and realize that the sphere is not the final shape of this creation process. Our own galaxy began as a sphere and flattened into a disk, and the earth is gradually flattening itself too, as it spins like a lump of clay on a wheel. It’s only flattened by just over twelve miles at the poles so far, but it’s getting there. It’s a good thing I didn’t dismiss the flat-earthers out of hand; otherwise I might never have understood that properly. But what use could come from that kind of thinking? Well, a thought experiment might yield a few applications. Packaging, for example, might make more efficient use of space and resources if we considered that you can get a hell of a lot more into a small sphere than a big box. But then what would stop those spheres from rolling off the shelves? The flat-earthers resolve this—just squash the spheres down a bit. Thank you, flat-eart...