Why forced tipping/gratuity in America is unethical, illogical, & infringes on free will!

[Moretorque]

But MrMan, how come Chinese waiters in China and in Asia give you fast service? Russians are just sour people who don't like pretending to be fake. They are friendlier outside of work.

I didn't say I am against tipping, only against MANDATORY/OBLIGATORY/COMPULSORY tipping. That's a bit unethical and violates free will. Don't you agree?

What's the tipping custom in Canada? Why does no one publicly talk about changing this stupid custom? Truthers only talk about conspiracies, and act as though American culture is perfect.

If you tip good it more than pays for itself, better food, better service, better drinks and so on.

[MrMan]

But MrMan, how come Chinese waiters in China and in Asia give you fast service? Russians are just sour people who don't like pretending to be fake. They are friendlier outside of work.

Maybe salaries work as well as tips if you can be fired from your job.

I didn't say I am against tipping, only against MANDATORY/OBLIGATORY/COMPULSORY tipping. That's a bit unethical and violates free will. Don't you agree?

Not if everyone understands the rules. We know if we go to a sit-down restaurant in the US, where we don't get the food from the counter and take it and throw the wrappers away in a tray, we are supposed to tip. I am not sure about buffets. I don't see it as unethical, since you know going in that you need to add 15 to 20% when you go in the restaurant. I find obnoxiously high prices on a menu that you don't see until you sit down to be worse than that, or even worse, no prices on a menu.

Does it violate free will? For me 'free will' is the idea that people can make choices that aren't predetermined. So I don't think tipping has anything to do with free will. Free will Baptists can tip. So can Calvinists. Then they could disagree over whether they had any real choice over how much they tipped.

Our system is inconvenient, to make prices end in 97 or 99 cents, then to add sales tax on top of that and not roll it in, so we end up with these non-rounded prices and lots of change. Then on top of that, we have to calculate a tip. It is imposing too much math and financial guesswork on consumers. That's more of my beef with it. Maybe the inability to calculate causes people to spend more, which stimulates the economy. You have pointed out a concern I also have about how our metrics of economic growth depend on consumption, and some of that is people buying junk they don't need.

People who are radically for freedom should be able to understand it is the choice of the restaurant. I safe a lot of money because I do not go to restaurants. So tipping culture makes me more wealthy.

How does it make you more wealthy? Do you get tips?

[galii]

But MrMan, how come Chinese waiters in China and in Asia give you fast service? Russians are just sour people who don't like pretending to be fake. They are friendlier outside of work.

Maybe salaries work as well as tips if you can be fired from your job.

I didn't say I am against tipping, only against MANDATORY/OBLIGATORY/COMPULSORY tipping. That's a bit unethical and violates free will. Don't you agree?

Not if everyone understands the rules. We know if we go to a sit-down restaurant in the US, where we don't get the food from the counter and take it and throw the wrappers away in a tray, we are supposed to tip. I am not sure about buffets. I don't see it as unethical, since you know going in that you need to add 15 to 20% when you go in the restaurant. I find obnoxiously high prices on a menu that you don't see until you sit down to be worse than that, or even worse, no prices on a menu.

Does it violate free will? For me 'free will' is the idea that people can make choices that aren't predetermined. So I don't think tipping has anything to do with free will. Free will Baptists can tip. So can Calvinists. Then they could disagree over whether they had any real choice over how much they tipped.

Our system is inconvenient, to make prices end in 97 or 99 cents, then to add sales tax on top of that and not roll it in, so we end up with these non-rounded prices and lots of change. Then on top of that, we have to calculate a tip. It is imposing too much math and financial guesswork on consumers. That's more of my beef with it. Maybe the inability to calculate causes people to spend more, which stimulates the economy. You have pointed out a concern I also have about how our metrics of economic growth depend on consumption, and some of that is people buying junk they don't need.

People who are radically for freedom should be able to understand it is the choice of the restaurant. I safe a lot of money because I do not go to restaurants. So tipping culture makes me more wealthy.

How does it make you more wealthy? Do you get tips?

If you do not go to restaurants you keep your money

[MrMan]

But MrMan, how come Chinese waiters in China and in Asia give you fast service? Russians are just sour people who don't like pretending to be fake. They are friendlier outside of work.

Maybe salaries work as well as tips if you can be fired from your job.

I didn't say I am against tipping, only against MANDATORY/OBLIGATORY/COMPULSORY tipping. That's a bit unethical and violates free will. Don't you agree?

Not if everyone understands the rules. We know if we go to a sit-down restaurant in the US, where we don't get the food from the counter and take it and throw the wrappers away in a tray, we are supposed to tip. I am not sure about buffets. I don't see it as unethical, since you know going in that you need to add 15 to 20% when you go in the restaurant. I find obnoxiously high prices on a menu that you don't see until you sit down to be worse than that, or even worse, no prices on a menu.

Does it violate free will? For me 'free will' is the idea that people can make choices that aren't predetermined. So I don't think tipping has anything to do with free will. Free will Baptists can tip. So can Calvinists. Then they could disagree over whether they had any real choice over how much they tipped.

Our system is inconvenient, to make prices end in 97 or 99 cents, then to add sales tax on top of that and not roll it in, so we end up with these non-rounded prices and lots of change. Then on top of that, we have to calculate a tip. It is imposing too much math and financial guesswork on consumers. That's more of my beef with it. Maybe the inability to calculate causes people to spend more, which stimulates the economy. You have pointed out a concern I also have about how our metrics of economic growth depend on consumption, and some of that is people buying junk they don't need.

People who are radically for freedom should be able to understand it is the choice of the restaurant. I safe a lot of money because I do not go to restaurants. So tipping culture makes me more wealthy.

How does it make you more wealthy? Do you get tips?

If you do not go to restaurants you keep your money

But you don't get more by not going.

[Winston]

Good article listing the standard reasons Americans give for tipping and good rebuttals to all of them.

The Ethics of (not) Tipping at Restaurants
https://luckytoilet.wordpress.com/2018/ ... staurants/

I added this in the comments of the blog:

You forgot two important points: First, it is UNETHICAL to obligate people to tip against their will and a violation of FREE WILL. The rest of the world understands this except America, which is an insane country, which you discover the more you travel internationally, especially if you are an expat.

Second, the rest of the world does not obligate you to tip at restaurants or hair salons, especially in Asia. So if tipping is so great and natural, then why doesn't the rest of the world (which is saner) make it a custom too? Obviously because tipping is insane and doesn't make sense. Simply put, there is NO logical reason for tipping someone just for doing their job. Especially if it's an obligatory custom. If you think about it with logic, it's simply stupid.

Furthermore, the American claim that without tips, the prices at restaurants would go up is easily debunked by the fact that in other countries, such as in Asia, restaurant prices are still LOWER than in America even though there is no tipping custom. Americans never bother to realize this simple fact for some reason, because they are so narrow and arrogant.

Some replies on Quora from people who also think tipping in America is a scam:

https://www.quora.com/Are-you-sick-of-t ... ted-States

They make one good point. By tipping you allow the restaurant employers to get out of paying their waitstaff a decent wage and instead transfer the wages onto the customers, which is abuse because other businesses aren't allowed to do that. Hence it's part of America's corruption.

[Winston]

@HouseMD

An interesting question for you. Suppose tomorrow they made it an American custom to tip the mailman and the cashier at the grocery store. Would you then follow the new custom and lecture me with the following:

- "Winston you stingy bastard. If you don't tip the mailman, you jip him of his salary because he is paid below minimum wage and relies on tips for his salary."

- "Winston you stingy bastard. If you don't tip the grocery store cashier, you jip them of their salary because they are paid below minimum wage and rely on tips for their salary."

LOLOLOL. You see what I mean now? So you are claiming that any custom MUST be conformed to no matter how stupid or insane? So in your book, everyone must conform with every custom because humans are ants by nature and must always conform to what society says, even if it's stupid or wrong or unethical? Seriously. Really. What's your philosophy? That conformity must always be adhered to no matter what? And that nothing should be questioned? LOL. Come on, tell the truth.

[galii]

@HouseMD

An interesting question for you. Suppose tomorrow they made it an American custom to tip the mailman and the cashier at the grocery store. Would you then follow the new custom and lecture me with the following:

- "Winston you stingy bastard. If you don't tip the mailman, you jip him of his salary because he is paid below minimum wage and relies on tips for his salary."

- "Winston you stingy bastard. If you don't tip the grocery store cashier, you jip them of their salary because they are paid below minimum wage and rely on tips for their salary."

LOLOLOL. You see what I mean now? So you are claiming that any custom MUST be conformed to no matter how stupid or insane? So in your book, everyone must conform with every custom because humans are ants by nature and must always conform to what society says, even if it's stupid or wrong or unethical? Seriously. Really. What's your philosophy? That conformity must always be adhered to no matter what? And that nothing should be questioned? LOL. Come on, tell the truth.

Winston I am against tipping but your arguments wants me to be in favour of it

[josephty2]

@HouseMD

An interesting question for you. Suppose tomorrow they made it an American custom to tip the mailman and the cashier at the grocery store. Would you then follow the new custom and lecture me with the following:

- "Winston you stingy bastard. If you don't tip the mailman, you jip him of his salary because he is paid below minimum wage and relies on tips for his salary."

- "Winston you stingy bastard. If you don't tip the grocery store cashier, you jip them of their salary because they are paid below minimum wage and rely on tips for their salary."

LOLOLOL. You see what I mean now? So you are claiming that any custom MUST be conformed to no matter how stupid or insane? So in your book, everyone must conform with every custom because humans are ants by nature and must always conform to what society says, even if it's stupid or wrong or unethical? Seriously. Really. What's your philosophy? That conformity must always be adhered to no matter what? And that nothing should be questioned? LOL. Come on, tell the truth.

Americans live in the moment. So the idea of tipping is that if the world ended tomorrow (an analogy) or if they think the waiter/waitress saved their life - it has nothing to do with minimum wage (those type of debate arguments are academic, meant to please the professor, much like etiquette the rich people learn in their childhood). In Asia, those that don't immigrate out of Asia are quite knowledgeable so they are quite prepared. Though, the upper class in America are knowledgeable but they still tip? The explanation? The rich in America tend to be pickier about what restaurants they do go to - so they may tip any waiter / waitress there because "a friend of a friend is my friend".

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

Former colleague and comrade-in-crime ContrarianExpatriate and I had one of only of couple of disagreements when it came to this very subject matter. We beat this as and with a dead horse many o' times already!:lol:

This is one of the few times where my body and my inner Jew work as one: no by default to tipping. I only did it as pay the "anti-phlegm" tax if you were to get my drift & gist.

[Will N. Dowd]

Same stupidity in Canada.

Even the Canadian government's propaganda news source, the CBC, is reporting how flawed it is:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/canada ... -1.6587896

[Winston]

I called Matt McKinley out for only criticizing the government and acting like American culture and people are perfect, because he like all other truthers refuse to criticize anything in American culture, such as forced tipping. They only criticize government because that's politically correct. To me, that's not the mark of a truth seeker. See below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI_nHLoWlOU

"Matt, I have an unusual/unique question: How come you only criticize government, but not unethical things in American culture, such as FORCED tipping in restaurants and taxis? Firstly, there is no logical reason to require tipping for service people just for doing their job. Tipping should be for people who go beyond the call of duty, not for those who only do the minimum basic job. It's an obvious scam to make them mandatory. What's more, you are expected to gladly tip with a smile even if you are reluctant about it. It's so fake. Second, it's a VIOLATION of free will to obligate people to tip if they don't want to. As you know, tipping may be optional by law, but culturally and ethically in America it's seen as an obligation/requirement, with massive shaming and pressure from others if you don't comply. Hence it's a definite VIOLATION of free will and therefore unethical and wrong. But you aren't allowed to complain about it of course, which is bad. Thirdly, if tipping were normal or natural, why don't the other 200 countries of the world force you to tip in restaurants? Even England doesn't. That speaks volumes.

Why am I the only truther that has the guts to talk about this? Other truthers won't dare touch this topic. I definitely am far more fearless and outspoken than you Matt about exposing taboos like this. Surely you see many obviously wrong things like this in American culture too right? Also it's lame to force fake smiles and positivity and pretend that you are always doing great. As you know, you have to always say you are doing great when asked "how are you?". Europeans who visit the US often say they hate that. Why don't any truthers ever talk about that either? I'm glad Matt, that at least you don't pretend everything is great all the time, like all the guests on Coast to Coast AM do at the beginning of every show. There are tons of contradictions in American culture. This is just one of them. Sorry for my rant. There are hundreds of things I dislike about American culture. Yet truthers don't dare criticize American culture and act as if it were perfect. So weird. Apparently, it's only politically correct to criticize American politics and government, but not American culture. Very weird, but it's an unspoken rule everyone conforms to except me. Even Matt conforms to it."

[Winston]

@HouseMD

An interesting question for you. Suppose tomorrow they made it an American custom to tip the mailman and the cashier at the grocery store. Would you then follow the new custom and lecture me with the following:

- "Winston you stingy bastard. If you don't tip the mailman, you jip him of his salary because he is paid below minimum wage and relies on tips for his salary."

- "Winston you stingy bastard. If you don't tip the grocery store cashier, you jip them of their salary because they are paid below minimum wage and rely on tips for their salary."

LOLOLOL. You see what I mean now? So you are claiming that any custom MUST be conformed to no matter how stupid or insane? So in your book, everyone must conform with every custom because humans are ants by nature and must always conform to what society says, even if it's stupid or wrong or unethical? Seriously. Really. What's your philosophy? That conformity must always be adhered to no matter what? And that nothing should be questioned? LOL. Come on, tell the truth.

Winston I am against tipping but your arguments wants me to be in favour of it

Why? My arguments are logical and sensible. You shouldn't argue for the sake of arguing, you should only argue if you have a valid point. Otherwise, you are uncivilized and wasting time and space. Make VALID points please. Or are you not smart enough to do so? lol

[Winston]

WTF? Check this out. A lot of take out food places, including pizza hut, are trying to manipulate you into giving them tips now. Not restaurants, I mean places where you TAKE OUT food! WTF? On what basis? Why are Americans so greedy beyond control? First restaurants make tipping an obligation and now take out places do too? When you use your ATM card or credit card, they make it hard for you to decline a tip percentage. You have to click Custom and then enter 0 to make that extra step if you don't want to tip. See example below on the Pizza Hut website.

https://www.pizzahut.com/deals

Notice if you try to check out, they try to make you add a tip. On what basis? Why should you tip their cook staff just for doing their job? There's no basis! Why is America so annoying and f***ing stupid? They never STOP trying to upsell you or ask you for MORE money? Why don't they STOP? I thought this was a Christian nation?!

@fschmidt since you believe most people are scum too, do you tip waiters in America that you think are scum? lol. If not, do they chase you out of the restaurant? What about take out food?

Do any of you actually add a tip to take out food or leave tips in the jar at take out places? Why do Americans tip mindlessly and expect you to do so too? And expect you to be glad about it? Very weird.

Fortunately, in McDonalds or Burger King or Taco Bell, they don't try to hustle you or manipulate you into tipping. It's very unprofessional and uncivilized and low.

[dancilley]

Exactly. I feel the same way. Why should I tip if I am taking out the food? Also, restaurants mess up the order SO often anyway. And why should I tip BEFORE I receive my meal?

[fschmidt]

@fschmidt since you believe most people are scum too, do you tip waiters in America that you think are scum? lol. If not, do they chase you out of the restaurant? What about take out food?

I just got back from a restaurant. Tipping is a reasonable custom, but I let my wife deal with it. I wouldn't go to restaurants at all if I had to deal with the modern scum there, but thankfully my wife deals with the people. Today, as usual, the waiter was totally incompetent. My wife got angry but I told her that the waiter is simply modern scum and is therefore mentally retarded, so one can't reasonably expect good service, so no reason to get angry.