Posted on 03/22/2023 5:42:49 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants
What is the making of a "good person?" Different people use different scales to determine who is good and who is not. Over the years, there have been many factors that have been used to categorize people. And the internet keeps providing more updated benchmarks for us to measure people by. The latest theory that has been making rounds on the internet is the "Shopping Cart Theory" and it can perfectly define a person's character. It is a modern-day take on the trolley problem with a more real-life application and implication.
Depending on how you answer the following question, you are either a good or a terrible person. Would you return a shopping cart to its designated spot after use or would you simply leave it wherever you want? Of course, this is provided that there is no dire emergency. The theory was picked up from a Reddit forum and was posted by a Twitter user for further discourse. Now, let's see what it indicates.
there is no dire emergency. Do you accept your duty to return the cart even though you gain nothing?
"The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing," the post explains. "To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it." So if you chose to return the cart, then you are a good person. At least according to this theory.
The theory further states: "No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you, or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct." The theory then goes on to make some extreme declarations. It reads, "A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it."
The theory then concludes by stating, "The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society." While the original trolley problem was also an exercise to determine a person's ethics, the modern version is less violent while also being more apparent.
In a thread I read yesterday, a Freeper said he used the “how do you treat waitstaff” as a metric. I think that works, too.
You people need to get a life.
Creating an unnecessary job helps no one. It seems today that no one understands the economic importance of productivity anymore. Pumping money into the economy with no corresponding increase in productivity is why we’re now plagued by inflation. In this situation customers returning their own carts frees up employees to better utilize their time doing more productive things. That’s a good thing.
I just always thought that I was providing job security for the cart retrievers and baggers.
“I work at a hospital, and I do that with orphaned wheel chairs too, sitting in the parking lot. Same dynamic. If it is one, I grab it. More, they need to know they aren’t doing something right.”
Wait, you mean those aren’t just abandoned? I’ve been collecting those and reselling them for years!
I call that shoppng cart golf.
I used to drop a box of condoms into a middle aged woman’s cart. Often hilarity ensued. Then cameras got to be everywhere and they locked up the condoms. Sigh...
Took you longer to type a response than it takes to return a cart...
Well it kind of does matter, in terms of putting shopping carts away. If you park far from the store and leave cart there it may become a vehicle for a homeless person who has worn out a previous shopping cart or maybe wants a second or third cart to transport the stuff they would pile in their garage if they had one. The cost of unreturned shopping carts is borne by consumers. If you don’t care about the store or the other people who shop there or the surrounding neighborhoods then by all means leave the carts wherever is convenient for your own self. I would bet that liberals would leave the carts wherever and conservatives would take the carts back.
Nope…too many variables.
Some parking lots have return areas in every row, no more than 4 or 5 car lengths away. I will return the cart.
Some parking lots have return areas every other row. If I parked in a row with a return area, I will return the cart. If not, screw ‘em.
Some parking lots have no return areas and expect you to shlep the cart all the way back to the store. If I was parked in a close spot, okay, but if I was parked out in bum f Egypt there ain’t no way I am walking 100 yards back to the store and 100 yards back to my car. Not happening.
When I arrive at Aldi’s I even offer a person who’s unloaded their cart a quarter to take it from them. :-)
I put it in the buggy thing in parking lot or take back in store. One of my pet peeves is a buggy blocking a parking place I want or one rammed up against my vehicle🙄
I always take mine back and don’t receive any quarters. Also, My wife always uses an electric cart provided by the stores, and I return it and “PLUG IT IN”. The reason: not because it proves my ‘goodness’, and beyond ‘it is the right thing to do’, but because when I have to get a cart for her, and none of them are charged, it makes me angry. And I don’t like being angry. Nor do I enjoy seeing my wife suffer because of someone else’s selfishness.
I never liked ALdis. Seemed kind of like a second hand store for food.
Hahahahahaha...that did make me really LOL...
You can only imagine the looks on their faces...
“Auuggghh! WHO made this S*IT?”
LOL!
Well, I will say I do look at it from a perspective of a working environment, if not just an inbred desire for order.
When I see them out in the rain, I think: “Those are expensive. The hospital pays for them. If they are ruined, they have to buy new ones. That is less money to keep the bathrooms cleaned and in repair, the floors clean, the XRay machines up to date, or the computer systems in order.”
It irritates me, because I sometimes get the impression I am the only one who thinks that way. But hey, I can’t control what other people do, only what I can do, so...I do it.
I can live with that!
correct
I always return my cart. Always have
One is lazy if you dont
Free Republic really does need a "like" button.
I worked in 50% black Clarksdale MS for half a year. All the people I encountered there were friendly. However, I've never seen so many unparked carts at the Walmart. Telling.
Other nearby Walmarts didn't have this issue. The Batesville Walmart about 30 miles east and in a mostly white area had no isolated carts. The West Helena Walmart about 30 miles north white about 25% black population had about half as many unparked carts as Clarksdale.
So there you go... this is a racist indicator! The stronger the white privilege the less ghetto there is and the more carts get put away.
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