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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   30842 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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How much of a debt do I owe the person who lent me their charger?

Owe? Nothing! In the scenario outlined, there was no offer, and no acceptance; no bargain was struck.

If I were personally made a muti-billionaire in this scenario, and the real alternative was in fact me becoming destitute, I would probably give the cord lender a million bucks as a show of gratitude. Someone who gave the cord lender less than, oh, $10,000 in this scenario I would regard as tastelessly cheap. But I would also regard it as tasteless of the cord lender to anticipate such a reward. In moral or legal judgments, it is appropriate to feel that one is due what one is owed, and that one owes what others are due. But I think aesthetic judgment applies better to scenarios like this one, where no contractual or moral obligations seem to be in play. It is a more beautiful world, where people penny-pinch neither their helpfulness nor their gratitude.

If I were personally made a muti-billionaire in this scenario, and the real alternative was in fact me becoming destitute, I would probably give the cord lender a million bucks as a show of gratitude. Someone who gave the cord lender less than, oh, $10,000 in this scenario I would regard as tastelessly cheap.

Really? My intuition is that I would give the lender $100 and go on my way. Largest bill there is, big enough tip to make someone's day, small enough to be trivial to me. I would do the same if I won a million bucks at the casino; give the croupier a hundred to satisfy the social obligation to tip after a big win and think no more of it.

I was actually in a similar situation once, albeit on a much smaller scale. I dressed up nicely and drove to my alma matter to do a video interview (because my house was a mess), but when I got there it turned out that my laptop was too old to run the video software (it was still running on Windows Vista!). I asked one of the students I saw there to let me borrow her laptop for the interview, and she agreed. I used it for about 15 minutes in a chair next to her. When I finished, I gave her back the computer, and asked her if she would like something for her trouble. If she said yes, I would have pulled out a twenty and given it to her. She said no, so I just thanked her and went home.

Now, I found out later that I didn't get the job, but if I had, it would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars a year to me, since I was unemployed at the time. Was it cheap of me to have only offered her a twenty, or to have not insisted after she turned me down once?

This dovetails pretty well with my wife's recent argument that America needs a $500 bill, because the $100 increasingly lacks the gravity it once did.

The reason the US doesn't have large bills is because it's convenient for the government that we don't, not because they weren't "needed".

Agreed. Governments hate cash for the same reason they hate crypto; it enables people to escape their control. The state can't get of the cash yet, but they are sure as fuck not going to make it more convenient to use by printing bigger bills. Instead, it will watch as inflation slowly makes the $100 bill as irrelevant as the penny.

From "In Praise of Cash" by Brett Scott:

The psychological assault is working. The Netherlands – where I face my vending machine – has become one key front in the war on cash. Here cash is becoming viewed like an illegal alien on the run, increasingly excluded from the formal economy, drawing dirty looks from shop assistants. Signs say ‘Card only’. Who is Card? Card is a glamorous socialite, welcomed into stores. Card is superior. Look at the bank adverts showcasing their accessories for Card. Nobody is building accessories for Cash.

The frontlines, though, are now creeping to poorer countries. India’s recent so-called ‘demonetisation’ was a brutal overnight retraction of rupee notes by the prime minister Narendra Modi to bring discipline to the ‘black economy’. It was an exercise that necessitated choking the poorest Indians, who depend on cash and who often lack access to bank accounts. Originally cast in popular terms as an attempt to stem corruption, the message was later ironically altered to cast cashlessness as a way to create economic progress for India’s poor.

Technically there are 500 dollar bills that are legal tender. But they haven’t been printed since 1945.

  • 1/4-ounce platinum coin ≈ 250 $

  • 1/2-ounce platinum coin ≈ 500 $

  • 1-ounce platinum coin ≈ 1 k$

  • 1-ounce gold coin ≈ 2.5 k$

No one accepts those. Technically American gold eagles are legal tender and you could tip for very large favors with an ounce of gold- and the government has consistently ruled that regardless of face value they are to be regarded as worth the value of their metal content, not their face value.

I think the previous commenter was specifically talking about "gravity" as a tip, not acceptance by a business.

Some distinctions: zeroth, you didn't get the job, and you didn't find out until later, and both of those things matter. First, even had you gotten the job, the laptop would not have been the difference between you and "tens of thousands of dollars," but between you and the opportunity to earn tens of thousands of dollars. Options are valuable, but they are not equal in value to the exercise of the option. Second, "only" a twenty is a similar offer, proportionately, to $10,000 to a multi-billionaire--or even a million dollars, if we factor in diminishing returns. So while I do not think it was cheap of you to sacrifice a twenty, I do think it was maybe impolite of you to ask. People are conditioned to refuse rewards for their good deeds. Aesthetically, I would have offered her the twenty; aesthetically, it would still be appropriate for her to turn it down, if she just had no particular need of twenty dollars.

But probably I get most of my aesthetics from fantasy novels and video games.

I once lost my wallet in an Uber coming back from AC. It had about 800 dollars in it. A woman found it and took pains to reach out to me. I wanted to give her one hundred dollars as a tip but she refused as she said she was just doing the right thing. I told her to give the hundred to the charity of her choice and then she accepted. I doubt she actually gave it to a charity but I was okay with that.

Really? My intuition is that I would give the lender $100 and go on my way. Largest bill there is, big enough tip to make someone's day, small enough to be trivial to me. I would do the same if I won a million bucks at the casino; give the croupier a hundred to satisfy the social obligation to tip after a big win and think no more of it.

Tipping the dealer or croupier a hundred on a million dollar win is cheap af. In the other scenario, I'd consider "I got rich, here's a hundred dollar bill" to be insulting.

I mean, there’s not really a not-awkward way to tip more than that.

If a friend gave me a stock tip that lead to me becoming a millionaire in a short time, I’d probably take them to fogo de chao- because that’s the default in my social circle for getting someone a six figure job, and it seems like the closest fit to a rough equivalent. But a stranger doing something personally low effort which results in a big windfall is the sort of thing which our society doesn’t have a script for.

Tipping the dealer or croupier a hundred on a million dollar win is cheap af. In the other scenario, I'd consider "I got rich, here's a hundred dollar bill" to be insulting.

Duly noted. If I'm ever in either scenario, I simply won't give them anything.

"What do you call a millionaire who tips a hundred dollars?"

"Cheap."

"And what do you call a millionaire who doesn't tip?"

"Cheap."

"Well then..."

I ain't telling you how to live your life, man. Merely observing.

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