Alright, so I guess it's time for an update

[alyantis]

A friend and I recently talked about slavery, and the concept of it. The idea of slavery as in having no choice, there are things you will be forced to do in life, or well just pretty much die (for normal people). This discussion went into the idea that undertipping waitors/waitresses is the same of advocating this kind of slavery. Normally people

Comments

[anonymous]

"For instance, saying you're a slave to society. Are you really? I mean, in general, I would suppose so. But you could also tell society to fuck off and either kill yourself, or go live in the wilderness. Hell, you could also become a homeless dude. There's always something outside of general society

No, this is jones, that wasn't me earlier.

[alyantis]

"As far as tipping the waiter (or undertipping) them is concerned: I rather disagree with you. I undertip, or would undertip, if they weren't friendly. I don't care if they tripped and dropped my first meal, or forgot something. But if they're unfriendly, that pisses me off. So what if they had a bad day or whatever: don't displace it on the customer. It's the first rule of business - "The customer is always right." It's also basic ethics - be pleasant. If you want to say that people are slaves to ethics, or to morals or manners or whatever, so be it. Slavery is a loaded term though. I would call it a contract. Only the master can terminate slavery. Because the slave can't do anything, he has no rights. Whereas in a contract, either person could terminate it. Sure, the waiter could be an asshole - that terminates the contract and I undertip. Or they could quit, or ask to exchange tables with another waiter. That terminates to contract too

[consulsicilae]

First of all, your analogy doesn't make sense, because in most cases a slave was whipped regardless of how hard he worked [ie. it wasn't a question of his having the ability to work hard enough to satisfy his master, as it is in the case of the waiter/customer

[anonymous]

Don't get me wrong, Litzke - I am not at all advocating the complete overthrow of the tipping system. I myself have a proud tradition of finding reasons to undertip waiters. I am merely stating that undertipping is an expression of the human desire to hold superiority over another human being. Humans want to feel secure, self-actualized. They try to do this through lowering other human beings, I've done it myself (you'll probably remember the hard time I gave you when you drew a lot of pictures of yourself in a wedding dress and gave them to me in Young Scholars in 6th grade, even though that WAS a little deserved). People go to restaurants not because they want to spend money, but because they want to be served, to not have to do work themselves. They therefore use the power they hold to make other people do what they want. Does this system work? Yes, usually. Is it a good idea? I think so, I'm a businessman at heart, and I'm always trying to find ways to make deals and contracts and agreements. What I'm saying is that I agree with