We are just finding out about a child sex trafficking ring involving politicians and billionaires, the world’s richest man does a Nazi salute at a political rally, and the President being an adjudicated sex criminal is probably not the worst thing he has done…

Meanwhile I’m standing here in the checkout line feeling guilty about whether or not I should tip a barista

Something is wrong with our collective notion of morality, and my individual understanding (Oh well, here we are)

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 hours ago

    On a related note, the latest Trump administration cabinent picks and antics unironically cured my impostor syndrome.

    If these gaggle of fucking demented backstabbing morons are good enough to run this country…

    And they can show that about half the country is actually so stupid and or intentionally blind and or evil to somehow not realize their cult leader just obviously is a huge rapist and pedoohile…

    Then I am better than this country.

    Better qualified, more empathetic, more competent.

    Turns out it was just angry clowns gaslighting us the whole time.

    Well uh fuck em, this is all so stupid that I now actually have the correct amount of self-confidence and self-respect, it is indeed this entire society that is a joke, not that I am somehow fundamentally inadequate.

    • stelelor@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      “Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.” Plato knew what was up.

    • glitchdx@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      it’s easier to get ahead with a weaker skillset if you’re ok with fucking over someone else to get there.

  • Disaffected Scorpio@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Chatting with a buddy of mine this morning. He is looking at stuff he did in his life. He went to see the play, Annie, when he was a kid.

    “They wouldn’t do Annie today, it’s too woke” I said. Then, it dawned on me. "I’m wrong. Annie would be totally fine.

    Short review: 'An orphaned girl is bought by a billionaire real estate magnate and groomed at a luxury resort," would fit right in with the morals of a political party

  • Strider@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    I am surprised by you being surprised, I knew for about 10 years.

    Epstein also definetly did not kill himself but the media in my country is already reporting him as suicide now, and people forget.

      • bystander@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        I also don’t know why we tip in Canada, they have the minimum wage paid. It’s still not a “living wage”, but the retail worker has the same wage.

    • lonefighter@sh.itjust.works
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      33 minutes ago

      This is my random uninformed opinion, and I’m well aware that there are problems with it and it’s not the solution, I merely throw it out there as food for thought. I think every worker should make a living wage as base pay, but as a teenager I worked a job that was a tipped job (not food service).

      It was in the late 2000s and early 2010s I made about $5.50 hr base pay, which was twice what my employer was legally allowed to pay me as a tipped employee, although by law at the end of the week if my tips didn’t get me up to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 they had to make up the difference.

      I loved it. I did it for several years and at the end of every year I averaged $12+ an hour, and I was one of the employees who worked a larger chunk of slow shifts which obviously skewed my hourly average downwards. For a 15, 16, 17 year old teen in 2008 when the economy had crashed that was REALLY good money. Every other job was either a minimum wage job, or waitressing for tips. If I worked a busy shift I could work 4 hours and leave $100 in tips richer, plus my base pay. I don’t make $30 an hour now working in healthcare.

      Anyway, all of that lengthy word salad to say that while I understand and agree with the arguments that tipping culture allows companies to not pay living wages, for teens and college students, who are probably always going to struggle, rightly or wrongly to get a well paying job, finding a job where they are mostly paid in tips can be a life changer. I worked hard in high school and stashed my tips away and when I turned 18 I had a (very) used car that I purchased myself and almost 10k in savings that I used to sustain myself through my 20s when I was trying to launch myself into adulthood through lower paying jobs that didn’t pay a living wage. I do not come from a privileged background, my parents didn’t help me with anything and in fact from the time I was in elementary school I had to work for basic life needs, so having that savings from my own work was a safety net that would have been almost impossible to build up $7.25 an hour.

    • Bamboodpanda@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Tipping isn’t gratitude, it’s a system that lets corporations avoid paying workers a living wage. The barista earns a few bucks an hour, relying on tips to survive because the company doesn’t want to pay them fairly.

      It’s not the barista’s fault. The corpos’ use them as leverage to perpetuate their shitty behavior. If you don’t tip, they suffer, not the business. That’s emotional blackmail dressed up as generosity.

      If we keep tipping just to hold the system together, it never has to change. Real change would mean companies paying fair, livable wages up front, even if it makes the coffee more expensive. I’m fine with that and I feel others should be too.

      Tipping should be a “thank you”, not a lifeline.

      If we truly cared about baristas, we wouldn’t just tip, we would be be advocating for a better system that doesn’t force them to depend on tips to survive. A mass refusal to participate in this broken model is the kind of disruption that could force companies to actually pay fair wages.

      Instead, we keep tipping because it feels easier and safer in the moment even though it traps workers in a cycle of dependence. I get it. It’s uncomfortable to stop doing what feels like the right thing. But sometimes, real support looks like pushing for change, not maintaining the illusion of it.

      • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        58 minutes ago

        Yeah absolutely this. I live in a country that pairs a fair wage to service workers, so the 3 or 4 times I’ve actually tipped over the years has been able to show gratitude when someone has gone above and beyond on what is a special occasion for me. But until you have fair wages, all you’re doing is paying a secret fee that’s left off the menu for the worker to be able to survive.

    • bitwolf@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      I used to think that.

      But if no one tipped, all the employees would leave, and the employer would need to slowly reconsider their life choices.

      My sorry ass still tips 20% on everything in the moment though.

    • HiddenLychee@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Why? If all I order is a drip and they don’t have to do anything special, doesn’t the cost of my coffee cover everything?

        • HiddenLychee@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          But isn’t their labor to clean the surfaces included in the cost of the coffee? Like when I buy groceries, the cost of the groceries pays for the labor to clean surfaces, but I don’t tip extra for that.

          • zbyte64@awful.systems
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            1 hour ago

            It should but it doesn’t. Like for a while starbucks tips would go towards the shift that cleans the place.

            • FarmTaco@lemmy.world
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              44 minutes ago

              Why isnt starbucks paying them a wage that doesnt demand a tip? whynot the call center tech? why not the cashier at walmart? why not the guy who signs you in at jiffy lube? why not the janitor at the local mall? why are some jobs more deserving of tips than others?

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    7 hours ago

    I would go with modern socialism/communism but, ever since Joe McCarthy, america tastes bile in their throat every time those words are bandied about. Pavlov and B.F. Skinner would be proud.

  • Pika@rekabu.ru
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    20 hours ago

    While people in power are absolute evil most of the time, this is not an excuse to change your own morals for the worse.

    Small acts of kindness, when taken in decent quantity, change the world no less than massive fraud and sex trafficking.

    That said, one of the most moral things to do is to be on the lookout for powerful people doing nasty things and do everything in your capacity to prevent or at least retaliate. This makes abuse less common, and goes a long way to restore democracy and responsibility for everyone.

  • lerba@sopuli.xyz
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    22 hours ago

    Don’t expect the world to reward your good behavior. You will find your own internal motivation, or maybe not. But judging others never ends well. Just focus on your own actions. Nobody says being a good human being is easy…

  • BurgerBaron@piefed.social
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    20 hours ago

    I’ve learned paedophiles seem to be naturally skilled with grabbing power throughout history and the present is no differnt. I’m more aware of that fact now.

    I’ve also learmed a large percentage of humans actually are fine with their leaders raping children. One might think they’re fine with it in general.

    • fishy@lemmy.today
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      4 hours ago

      They have no morals, which is why they can grab power so easily. They’re not playing by the rules. Thus to win consistently, you’d need to cheat as well.

      Then you’re left with two options. Cheat to win too, or rolling heads.

  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Our leaders are so disconnected from the average person only them being forced to confront their own mortality can snap them out of it.

  • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Morality and laws are for the plebs. If you’re rich or powerful enough, you get to do whatever you want, so long as you don’t harm another rich or powerful person.

    • bss03@infosec.pub
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      20 hours ago

      The hierarchy is natural and good and all ills are due to someone violating the hierarchy.

      Therefore, laws are only useful when they support the hierarchy.

      Any efforts to make society less hierarchical and more equitable are either (a) lies in an attempt to climb the hierarchy (b) doomed to failure and disastrous to the participants because it’s against the (natural and good) hierarchy.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs&list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ&index=11


      EDIT: The above is meant as a satire of the conservative thought process, and does not reflect my beliefs (most of the time).

  • Hikermick@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Don’t forget, while the Qanon BS is flourishing, a former Speaker of the House (3rd in line to the presidecy) gets imprisoned for molesting at least four teenage boys.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Dual Power means you can have a pacifist stance and still support the radicals in your lane.

      Not everyone needs to be a gunslinger for a resistance to succeed. Just do what you can when you have the chance.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I never meant to imply a pacifist would be required to engage in violence, only that they would have to indirectly support it at the very least, lest their own principles be engulfed by those who would see to their extinction.

  • benni@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Are you really feeling guilty about not tipping because of the moral implications, or do you just feel socially shamed? Important distinction.

    • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      Considering the idea of shame is society’s way to enforce it’s version of morality, I would argue no it is not a distinction.

      • benni@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Like you said, society’s version of morality. So it can be a very important distinction because your own version of morality might differ. Not being aware of this distinction is dangerous because it stops people from developing their own moral compass. This own morality is more firm and can be relied on in the absence of shame, or even when society encourages behavior one finds immoral.

        I’m even gonna go on a wilder speculation here and claim that one of the driving factors behind humanity’s worst atrocities was that large portions of society who had the potential in them for a firm morality rooted in empathy and love never developed this potential.

        On a less import note, not being aware of this distinction can breed a lot of resentment and unhappiness, if someone is constantly compelled to follow rules that they, deep down, consider to be bullshit.

        Of course that doesn’t mean I encourage people to just disregard society’s version of morality and lightly assume that they know better.

        Edit: just noticed your username, I hope that furriosa is doing well <3

      • zeca@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        Considering that drinking coffee is my prefered kind of laxative, i would argue theres actually no distinction between coffee and shit.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      For me it’s the empathy of knowing that that person won’t have enough money because I know they don’t get a living wage.

      • saimen@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        But by tipping the person you support the system that doesn’t pay them a living wage. It’s similar to why you shouldn’t give money to people begging.

        • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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          7 hours ago

          I’d say it’s a little thornier than that. By tipping, you support the person who has to take the job that doesn’t pay them a living wage. Absolutely, this can have the side effect of supporting the system creating this condition, but so too does patronizing businesses that employ this practice. The best move if you don’t want to support the system is to not patronize businesses that function this way at all. Increasing corporate revenue while not contributing to the welfare of the person who had to take that job is not a morally better position.

          Feel somewhat similar about giving money to beggars, though with slightly more emphasis on the voluntary nature of the act (which itself could be fodder for moral discussion - what’s the difference between Jack the Hobo’s and Jack the Barista’s experience?). End of the day, while systematic overhaul so both of these conditions are irrelevant is warranted, for both groups it’s about survival until the next day (yes, for some beggars survival includes dope, withdrawl is hell). The revolution ain’t coming tomorrow, and even if it did there’s time required to get these folks what they need. It’s entirely possible they wouldn’t make it to that point without voluntary support from individuals or small groups.

        • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          You shouldn’t go to restaurants at all if you’re averse to tipping. Only by starving the industry can the policy be scrapped. Don’t take it out on the workers. Hold the owners to account.

    • postcapitalism@lemmy.todayOP
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      21 hours ago

      I feel guilty because I’m conflicted about what the right thing to do is, the cost, and care about fellow workers.

      You probably understand why I would have a moral question (alongside some guilt of doing the wrong thing) after reading through the entire thread engaging your comment.

      Meanwhile Epstein, Elon, and Trump don’t seem to have these hang-up’s and are rewarded handsomely by society…