[cyclonereef]

The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as much weight in my mind as the idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy who have globally conspired to create a virus to control the population.

Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over time.

[627467]

> global cabal

Is that what we are calling business now? As if industry players don't buy media outlets precisely to push their narratives (look at tech outlets, crypto outlets, pharma etc). How is this a "cabal"? It's cheaper to just talk to your friend who owns business insider and also invests in the same RE funds to ask "journalists" to research on the topic.

Also, plenty midmanagement in many industries love RTO: it's harder to justify their roles (and what they got promoted for) unless they have bags of flesh to oversee. It's not a cabal of midmanagement. It's just midmanagement slow pushing for RTO internally.

[maratc]

The conspiracy theories are frequently based on the optimistic idea that the world is under somebody's control. Mind you, it's a bad control, but the idea is still optimistic because we can theoretically have a revolution and put it under "good" control.

The reality is much more depressing -- nobody is in the control. Not the Illuminati, not the Jewish bankers, and not the C-level executives conspiring to force RTO to maximize their investments in the (unrelated) commercial real estate. These all are just conspiracy theories.

[chii]

> put it under "good" control.

which implicitly means "their own" control!

[zmgsabst]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias

What you’re describing is a cognitive bias.

https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exerci...

You can believe COVID happened however you want — but it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset

Similarly, those same elites wrote a book about how they want to use the authoritarian measures they implemented during COVID as a gateway to imposing their vision on society. Again, documented reality.

[ElFitz]

> it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak.

Isn’t that point of training and exercises? To be ready and have a plan when the situation you trained for actually occurs?

If you read the John Hopkins’ Center for Health Security link you provided, they did similar exercises in 2018 ("Clade X"), 2005 ("Atlantic Storm"), and 2001 ("Dark Winter").

To me this doesn’t prove that there is a conspiracy of any kind.

It simply and reassuringly shows that some of those who’s responsibility it is to be prepared for and help us collectively get through these kind of situations are actually taking their jobs somewhat seriously.

I guess you could call that a conspiracy. A conspiracy to do their jobs well.

[rob74]

Aside from conspiracy theories, remote working was already a thing before Covid, Covid just accelerated the process and showed to everyone that it worked. IMHO what we are now seeing is a "counter-revolution", an attempt to get the genie back into the bottle, and those are mostly doomed to fail...

[DragonStrength]

It’s more there’s a bunch of people who put their life savings into cheap structures on expensive land in SF and Seattle. If the next generation of high income professionals doesn’t have to buy their shitty 100 year old money pit, they’ve now taken a loss on the single biggest purchase they’ve ever made while the schools they bought for get worse. Many of these folks work at places like Amazon.

No conspiracy needed for a bunch of people to act in their own perceived best interest and work backwards to a justification.

[bravetraveler]

If anyone needs a convenient label: game theory

People need not work together to conspire, only vaguely in the same direction. Incentives do that like radio waves

[MiguelX413]

Why would the interests of those companies be aligned with those of their landlords in the first place?

[consteval]

Because the leadership who makes decisions, or even just has the potential to voice their opinions and have them weighted, own real-estate.

Better yet, those leaders maybe also love exerting control over their employees and find this more enjoyable in an office environment.

Companies ARE NOT a democracy. In my mind, there's a huge overlap between being high company leadership and also being a self-serving narcissist. Are we then surprised that narcissists prefer to do things in their own self interests, and prefer to boss people around while looking at them? To me, that's not surprising at all. I think people don't understand these decisions aren't made by hundreds of people, but rather less than a handful per company.

[MiguelX413]

I think most people do understand that. It's just unintuitive that companies would prefer to pay rent for offices they don't need.

[consteval]

I think if you reframe company leadership as egotistical man children, then it becomes very intuitive. Most companies aren't that, but in my mind, there is serious overlap between being a career executive and having narcissistic tendencies.

[bravetraveler]

Game theory, not conspiracy