I wonder if his lack of proper sleep is a cause or an effect here.
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Not to defend him, but I’ve seen sleep-deprivation induced depression and full blown paranoia once in an acquaintance, as it happens also while breaking up with is wife of 20 years.
He sort of recovered, but not after a spell in a mental institution.
Sleep deprivation is no joke! Though there is some uncertainty about cause and effect and the like (i.e. the sleeplessness could have been a symptom of the depression)
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He may have been more outwardly stable, but maybe not. A lot of red flag behavior gets waved away if people can maintain a certain degree productivity. We’ve all had a coworker who held some wild ideas, if you got stuck in a conversation with them. You see the same thing with substance abuse. It isn’t a problem until it is. The line between don’t get caught in an elevator with them and harmful behavior isn’t as crisp as we might like.
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In a pinch, plain old anti-Semitism will do.
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There have been online schools in pharmacy for a few years, with some IRL training, but much of the courses taught online: https://www.collegeaffordabilityguide.org/subjects/pharmacy/online/
Online Schools to Become a Pharmacist: How to Choose
Though I’d imagine most IRL or online classes in pharmacology likely don’t talk too much about about gravity, shape of the Earth and such. I wonder how many people in my day to day life are flat earthers, and I wouldn’t know, as it doesn’t often come up as a topic.
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Now BoingBoing has a very strict policy on comments on people’s mental health. So I want to make it clear, I am not talking about this individual’s mental health-- I have not worked with him or diagnosed him. (I am a mental health worker by profession.)
One of the unfortunate unintended side effects of BBS’s mental health policy, is that people who are ill and in distress, can end up getting mocked, which in my personal opinion is a sad thing. On the other hand, diagnosis at a distance, or by the unqualified, or even by the “qualified” (I am first to acknowledge that my field is overrun with harmful quacks) is a very dangerous and demeaning, invalidating, and disempowering practice-- look at the old USSR treatment of dissidents for example. I think it behooves anyone, mental health professional or not, to be very very careful around applying mental health diagnoses to strangers.
So could we perhaps avoid both extremes, and in the absence of further actual information, eschew both mockery and diagnosis, and not forget compassion either?
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I’m dying 
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He believes the fucking sky isn’t real?
That’s so insane, it’s like taking an entire world where only insane people are left, and insane is now normal, and then he goes insane on top of that.
How the fuck do you fix someone so utterly and completely divorced from reality?
I feel like we need to start administering psychological tests as part of getting a degree in medicine pharmacy or nursing.
Whoever gave this asshole his job without figuring out he doesn’t believe in the fucking sky is the first part of the problem to remove! Stop making more Ben Carsons PLEASE!
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actually, he thinks that the sky is real, whereas, in reality, it is not real.
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I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the vast majority of the people with these kinds of bizarre fringe beliefs are god-botherers.
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Huh? How does “Don’t assume anyone’s mental state” lead to mocking? I agree with a lot of what you wrote but you lost me there.
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Hospital Pharmacy HR Department Fail.
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Yeah, any mockery I have is for the absurd delusions he and others claim to believe, not his mental state.
And I don’t find it funny; these conspiracy theorists cause real harm to other people. Sardonicism isn’t meant to be amusing.
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Older white people tend to be emboldened by their disproportionate privilege.
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Probably a good choice. I mean, once you’ve bought the t-shirt, you’re kind of invested, so you probably wouldn’t have made much headway.
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“I joined a cult and all I got was this stupid t-shirt and a life-threatening disease.” /s
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“The earth is flat”? Ok, standard loose nut belief. “The sky isnt real”? Now thats some next level nutbaggery. Kudos to this man for pushing the envelope.
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If they are Black then their antivax position is probably different to white antivaxxers. The Tuskegee syphilis study is still within living memory. Black men were told they were being treated for “bad blood” while no treatment for syphilis was given.
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I see your points, but anyone who claims the Earth is flat and the sky is fake is single-handedly opening themselves up to mockery. Well deserved mockery, I might add.
