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.
Taking your cart back, being kind & tipping wait staff generously, saying thank you & please: all good signs of a decent human being. How animals & kids react to a person is a big tell also.
When I see someone abandon their cart I definitely feel some kind of way about them & it isn’t good.
You’ve got to make a deposit on the use of a shopping cart?
I take it you live in a high-crime area.
I’m a woman & she’s absolutely correct!
I love Alde’s for that...to get the quarter back, return the cart to bad Walmart isn’t that smart...
Don’t put the cart before the louse.
Way back when, in junior high in the 60âÂÂs, I got a job at a local supermarket stocking shelves on Friday nights and SaturdayâÂÂs. . I rode my bicycle seven miles each way. At night my Dad would come get me with his old 56 Chevy pickup. One of my âÂÂother duties as assignedâ was cart retrieval. Sunny, hot, humid, deep snow, dark of nightâ¦.didnâÂÂt matter, it was my job. The manager once told me if it wasnâÂÂt for cart retrievals he could easily make do with one shelf stocker. And I wouldnâÂÂt be it. So my take, and IâÂÂm dead serious, IâÂÂm helping give some poor kid the opportunity to save for a car and a useful education beyond the local indoctrination. So no, I never return the cart. Ever.
Mose time I take my cart back especially when it’s windy. Often the guy gathering carts is out side and I just drop it off to him. Best is to find someone going into shop and giving the cart to them. I have often told shopper that have just funded unloading cart if I can use it. Everyone’s happy.
Especially if you have young children that need to be buckled into the car first.
Another BS metric to judge people by. Some folks are “compelled” to put a cart in a designated cart area just to pat themselves on the back, some don’t even think about it while they do or don’t. Others that I know personally are not going to even try because of health issues and because they refuse to get a placard to park closer in order to take advantage,they will make the trudge to their vehicle but can’t make it to the cart area simply because of health issues. The worst part of this thread is how judgy people are about the stupid things of life. IT DOESN’T MATTER in the bigger scheme of daily life whether or not one puts a shopping cart in a particular area. Some folks need to get a real life.
The weirdest shopping cart thing I saw was someone pushing a shopping cart down the shoulder of I-25 on the long stretch between the last Albuquerque exit and the Bernalillo exit, which is several miles. They were halfway there, but a cop was having a chat with them.
Heh, when I was in the Navy, every shop on the ship had their own “Coffee Mess” and would get a five gallon tin of coffee issued to them each month.
I didn’t drink coffee then, but I sure loved the smell of it when they cracked that tin open...that smelled great.
The problem was, that the way coffee smelled, and the way it tasted were completely different to me. Plus, I was concerned I would get addicted. I didn’t drink coffee on a daily basis until I was sixty or so, then I absolutely had to have one cup each day or I couldn’t get going.
But back then, I didn’t drink it, though nearly everyone else did. And we had a wooden board with hooks on it where people hung their cups. And they assigned people to clean the coffee mess area each week and make coffee.
When they assigned me, I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t even know how to make coffee, and I didn’t drink it, but they forced me to do it. I was so angry and resentful about it, that I made sure it was ship-shape Bristol style every day, and when I hung up the coffee cups, I found them revolting. The accumulated scum in them was nauseating. So I cleaned them.
I cleaned them with the spray cleaner we used to clean oil and hydraulic fluid off of planes. It took that coffee cup-scum right off, down to the porcelain.
People were pissed about it, not because I had used a nasty chemical to clean them, but because (not being a coffee drinker, I wouldn’t have known) many people actually like their nasty coffee cup to have that unsightly residue, and they were pissed I set them back to their pristine state!
Well, I never had to do Coffee Mess Duty again! In retospect, I consider myself lucky they didn’t lynch me or keel-haul me! (And, on an aircraft carrier, keel-hauling is a serious business!)
For those who watch anime I have just two words: Cart Titan
Was at Walmart recently and was parked close to a return area in the parking lot. When my wife and I got to our car a young lady (late teen/early 20s) had left her cart right next to her car and proceeded to get into said car. I made sure to walk over, grab the cart and take it the extra 10 yards to the return rack after I had put my bag in the car (I did NOT use a cart). She saw me do it and looked over at my wife who was in the passenger seat. My wife gave her “the look” and the girl quickly turned her head and left. Sheer laziness on her part.
I kind of expect it from that generation at this point. They can’t be bothered with trivial stuff like putting a cart in its proper place. Probably needed to update her Instagram discussing what she purchased at Walmart.
I’ll bet you laugh at car crashes too! ;-)
It’s an Aldi thing, regardless of the area.
The carts are daisy chained together, so you need to put a quarter in the cart’s handle mechanism to disconnect it from the rest of the carts.
Regular Aldi shoppers have their Aldi quarter at the ready to either get their cart from the stack, or swap with another person on their way out.
” I’ll say “have my cart” without an expectation of payment.”
Me too.
I tell them “pay it forward” and feel like I’m buckin the system.
I’m such a radical. LOL.
Heh, you sound like a lot of fun at parties!
Nobody takes it all that seriously-it is just fun to consider why some people do some things one way, and others do it completly different, and assign some silly predictive aspect to it.
Heck, we all do it consciously or unconsciously anyway. Might as well get a laugh out of it.
This is one of those things.
Not returning cart to the store is a feature of low rent feral shopping centers
That’s a concept or chapter in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things.
Put things back where you found them.
I see a lot of old people who do not return them, but they leave them on the sidewalk adjoining the market, so it is close. I assume it is hard for them to wheel them back. The ones I blame are the young ones, who appear more healthy than me and leave them in the parking lot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.