I just had the most mind-blowing conversation with a former colleague. Long story short, we're downsizing on our move and I'm trying not to send a whole bunch of perfectly good used furniture to the dump. I've contacted everywhere that I could theoretically donate it, and they're not taking any furniture. I've contacted every used furniture store, and they all say they're overstocked. One told us, "I'm going to sit here and take this exact phone call all day today." So I reached out to my contact list on my phone to see if anyone needed anything for free.
One person, whom I guess I haven't talked to much lately, ends up saying they could use something and I tell him we'll leave it in the driveway for him next week. The conversation ends up with me saying that we're avoiding as much indoor, face to face meetings as we can during this move.
He says, and I quote from the text, "You don't really believe in COVID, do you?"
I reply, "Yeah, the science is pretty straightforward."
He says, "Scientists are just conspiracy theorists."
I say, "You're a scientist. I know this because I hired you and you have a degree in biochemistry."
He says, "That was before I got my MBA and realized how the world really works. Science isn't real."
This really turned into a real life cautionary tale of the rabbit hole for me. All I knew was that I hired this guy in 2016-ish and that he quit in 2021-ish. By 2021 I'd given up day to day office details and I guess I had no idea what happened.
Turns out this is a whole descent into madness brought about by the pandemic. He resented "lockdowns"(yes, I know there was not really any such thing) and started railing about teachers being "lazy" when his kids went virtual. He hated the fact that I, and others in charge, had implemented a COVID policy at work that at the time he quit that probably involved no work related travel and masking(people who have to work in a lab can't be fully virtual). This is all quite the opposite of other people that I know quit around that time because they didn't want to get COVID and wouldn't come into a lab.
Now I guess he has an MBA and attends school board meetings with Moms for Liberty and rails on about how there needs to be bibles in schools and whatnot. I never would have thought it for a minute, but, I guess that's the path from science to insanity.
@BE MBAs really do seem to be inducing so much brain rot
@BE MBA's love case studies. Consider Boeing. Management by MBA. Consider gravity. Science can measure it, so it must not be real. /s Those parts falling off planes do so to enhance shareholder value /s
@BE the 21st century is all about the dissolution of shared reality that we all adopted in the 20th. Fucking WILD to watch people decide to disbelieve in things, but we’re not actually logical entities.
Congrats on rehoming the furniture, at least.
I've looked at my phone at least 5 times thinking "Did that really just happen?" I hired him and worked in science with him for 5 or 6 years. Just mind blowing.
That is really baffling
@NilaJones @BE That’s an interesting essay. I consider my past selves (and there have been many) to be strangers but I assume that I will know and be my future selves. It had never really occurred to me that others felt differently. I guess I am still discovering my path through the neuroverse.
@BE Just goes to show you, people can change if they want to. Unfortunately, his wasn’t for the better.
@BE Cybertruck and Moms for liberty?!
I guess that's a full package deal.
I recognize that I don't have a whole lot of bandwidth during a move and all, but this whole thing really blew my mind today. What a place to end up.
Oh, geez, I left out from the above that his wife still is a science believer and he now lives in a modified shed in the backyard of his house while his wife and two kids live inside...no wonder he needs furniture 😬
@invadersil @BE this IS the happy ending (for his family).
@BE @invadersil "modified shed"
"One of my favorite nuggets of writing advice comes from James D Macdonald. Jim, a Navy vet with an encylopedic knowledge of gun lore, explained to a group of non-gun people how to write guns without getting derided by other gun people: "just add the word 'modified.'"
As in, "Her modified AR-15 kicked against her shoulder as she squeezed the trigger, but she held it steady on the car door, watching it disintegrate in a spatter of bullet-holes."
Jim's big idea was that gun people couldn't help but chew away at the verisimilitude of your fictional guns, their brains would automatically latch onto them and try to find the errors. But the word "modified" hijacked that impulse and turned it to the writer's advantage: a gun person's imagination gnaws at that word "modified," spinning up the cleverest possible explanation for how the gun in question could behave as depicted.
In other words, the gun person's impulse to one-up the writer by demonstrating their superior knowledge becomes an impulse to impart that superior knowledge to the writer. "Modified" puts the expert and the bullshitter on the same team, and conscripts the expert into fleshing out the bullshitter's lies."
@BE @invadersil I LOVE stories about badass women who don’t let men destroy their peace. His wife is awesome!!
@BE MBA: the path from science to insanity
Yeah I guess that tracks.
What is a "master of business administration" anyway, if not just a new name for overseer?
@BE I'm reading a book on medical grifts and why people go anti-science. It is a desire to take control over their lives from unseen forces. They feel that life is out of control and a magic incantation will give them control.
As to furniture, giving it away is hard. There are the scammers on FB. Non-profits make you take furniture outside. I finally connected to a family in need via an involved citizen and then freecycle.org for the desk.
@BE Phew! For a second there I was worried.
"Know your enemy" - did this mean having to add MBA materials to the reading list?
That would've sucked!
But he's just a derailed kool-aid drinker.
That subpop s well enough documented.
@BE also "drives a cybertruck"
If someone pulls up to an interview in a cybertruck, I would appreciate it. It'd save both of us the interview time!
@BE Extra bonus: If you leave the furniture out for him, you can watch him next week struggling to get the furniture into his cybertruck. 😆
@BE Unbelievable.
Not you. Your friend from the alternate universe.
@BE What the hell?!
"Oh really, allow me to demonstrate the science of kinetic energy"
and then you kick em in the balls and laugh a heart laugh while asking "Still a conspiracy, this science?"
@BE @hannu_ikonen “I don’t believe in science” they typed on their touch screen smart phone full of silicon chips, sensors, and batteries, and that message was sent wirelessly and then through various networks, all to arrive at your own touch screen smart phone.
Holy wow. Don't let your kids do business, folks, even once can cause life-threatening stupidity.
Assholes with MBAs love money and thus are the root of many kinds of evil.
"He says, "Scientists are just conspiracy theorists."
"I say, "You're a scientist. I know this because I hired you and you have a degree in biochemistry."
"He says, "That was before I got my MBA and realized how the world really works. Science isn't real."
🇨🇦 😷
@BE stuff like this blows my mind as well. It really is hard to believe that people can be so dismissive of something so dangerous.
@BE@qoto.org common MBA L
@BE is Craigslist active around you?
Not really. Contemplating Tampa/Orlando freecycle even though they're both hours away and just putting it in the driveway after we move to see what gets picked up.
@BE fb marketplace and Craigslist free is scary responsive by me. I feel as if there are people who literally hang in they '99 Tacomas searching the free section
@BE @grumpasaurus or something like e-bay? I think the reason for furniture being denied is not that there is no demand, but simply because it takes up too much apace. But people are still looking for furniture. Especially students.. they just need to know if is available.
As for your former colleague... no words. I guess the only question left is: how did the conversation end and will he still get some furniture?
@BE Side note, if you lived in my neck of the woods, I could use a loveseat, a recliner, a buffet or narrow table and a hutch.
Been looking for a while. I found 2 loveseats at a second hand store the other day that had just sold!
@BE
Economics
Not a science
Just plays one on TV
☝👀
@BE The problem isn’t science.
@BE Yikes.....
@BE WRT furniture downsizing - yep, heard the same story from family in the DC area. Wonder what the social dynamics are that drive that.
WRT science denialism - smh. Can't win 'em all.
The fuck are they doing to people's brains in business school? Removing them?
@BE I can’t even.
@BE Well that's freakin' scary! Hope he's in the minority.
Apparently I started something, because I haven't even told anyone else this yet and I just got a text from someone else:
"He drives a cybertruck now and quotes Elon Musk all day. Sorry, could have warned you 😂"
What a world.