newport
8mo ago
A cursory Google search suggests that 15 to 20 percent is the standard range
That's the commonly held definition by most people, but there has been a noticeable push towards making 20% the new standard. 20% is usually the default suggested amount on POS systems when I use them, and in some cases it's the lowest option displayed aside from "no tip". This is probably favored by both tipped staff and management, because it leads to larger tips and it reduces pressure for management to raise wages.
This is dumb for all kinds of reasons, chiefly that percentage-based tips are inherently indexed to inflation. And "muh inflation" is the most commonly employed defense of this movement by advocates.
I remember when a flat 15% was standard and 20% was reserved for exceptional service. It wasn't even that long ago. Bah humbug.
newport
8mo ago
People who made $10 an hour pre-COVID now make $25
This is a nitpick but it was more like going from $8 to $13 outside of HCOL areas and/or areas with obscenely high minimum wages. I don't think this has much bearing on your point however, given how these things scale.
newport
8mo ago
The big obvious one is boosting or restricting federal funding for related (or unrelated for that matter) stuff, which is how they went about sidestepping the 21st amendment and forcing every individual state to raise their minimum alcohol purchase age to 21.
In that case they withheld federal highway improvement funding on the order of dozens of millions of dollars per state until the state raised their purchase age to 21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act
This is easier to apply to state level than local level obviously, but there are still plenty of federal dollars going to programs carried out at municipal levels. In fact such programs are probably concentrated in the unaffordable cities.
newport
8mo ago
The phenomenon of information that should be hosted on a wiki or forum ending up locked behind a groomercord discord login wall is frequently complained about on rdrama, of all places. They even have a rule (inconsistently enforced) against mentioning personal use of discord in order to prevent the site from turning into nothing but discord in-jokes. I've observed it countless times myself mostly in the sphere of video game mods, where you have to join a discord to view any documentation or instructions related to a mod.
This is stupid and a downgrade in standard of living compared to the information being on the (googleable) public internet. Alas, as the internet becomes more normiefied, it seems the median internet user is more inclined towards consuming information in a conversation format rather than article format (see also popularity of ChatGPT). So this will probably just get worse.
newport
9mo ago
I wish I had advice to give, but I don't. Instead, I'd like to take this opportunity to expand on part of your post. I largely feel the same way about drug laws, though not with as much conviction as I used to. Over the last several years we have seen some huge strides in drug policy liberalization. Oregon is probably the largest and most notable. Initially, these decriminalization measures seemed really promising! We were finally going to run a proper experiment on this!
Except that's not what happened. At the same time that the drug laws were loosened, enforcement of all manner of public nuisance laws and public intoxication laws fell off a cliff. The same jurisdictions that decriminalized various drugs have adopted catch-and-release policies for all but the most violent of people that are on drugs in public, and now these places are practically held hostage by huge numbers of dangerous drug-addled vagrants.
It didn't have to be this way! We could have decriminalized possession without simultaneously legalizing being a menace to the public! What the hell happened? So, now, the experiment will ultimately be called a failure and we'll have to start the prohibition cycle all over again. I don't have much hope for us getting it right on the next go-around either.
newport
9mo ago
I am admittedly in a bit of a filter bubble with regard to this, but all of the irl men I can discuss politics with agree that nuclear is a very attractive solution to the problem. On both sides of the aisle.
The irl women I have broached the subject with, however... /images/17223237173445024.webp
Which kinda goes back to the point OP raised.
newport
9mo ago
I think a lot of it is the silo'ing of users into algorithm-mediated feeds on the small handful of social media websites that make up 80% of internet traffic. People are segregated (both by choice and by force via algorithm) into bubbles that don't overlap much.
Plus it seems like most of the new slang and acronyms are generated on X.com these days, which you miss if you don't have an account you actively use there. I don't have one and so I have to absorb these new phrases second-hand through the motte, rdrama, and irl friends that send me twitter links and screenshots.
newport
9mo ago
I think we're actually in agreement about all of this; the deaf ears belonged to the unprincipled blue-tinted cancellation mobs which, as you point out, had no central authority to push in any particular direction.
I'm mostly just riffing on the futility of appealing to reason, compassion, or MAD here, when the unprincipled red-tinted would-be cancellation mobs have been watching this play out for a decade and know that the strategy is very effective. I don't think this is a solvable problem in the short term either.
newport
9mo ago
These are the exact arguments that were trotted out in defense of people like the okay sign guy that got fired, and they fell on deaf ears. For 10 years.
Why should these arguments be seriously considered now that the shoe is on the other foot?
I agree that cancelling random people is really, really bad for society. But it seems insane to me to expect the side that's been on the receiving end for a decade to listen to these arguments.
newport
9mo ago
I think almost all of us, here, would. But I don't see how we go from the current situation to that norm coming out of a decade of opposite-valence random cancellations, and immediate calls for a detente come off as absurdly out-of-touch with ground reality to me in that context.
To me, it seems like there has to be some kind of intermediate step. I don't know what that would look like.
newport
10mo ago
I know it's a running meme here at this point that Gavin is an idiot, but is there any media documentation of that? I've never followed the guy closely so maybe I just haven't noticed. All I really know about him is he's a pretty standard California democrat and bears more than a passing resemblance to Patrick Bateman.
newport
11mo ago
His less-political lawyer anecdotes were well-written and entertaining, too.
newport
11mo ago
My zoomerness will shine through this, but oh well. Wanted a gameboy or (OG) DS when I was a preteen but was stuck borrowing friends', until I finally got a DSi when I was around 13 or 14 I think. First home console was actually a PS3 acquired around the same time, but parents were super strict about ESRB ratings so it was mostly used for the LEGO games (which, to be fair, are excellent). Got a Wii a year or two later.
My life changed when I got a GTX 670 and a PSU that could run it once I was well into my teens, no more intel iGPUs and 20fps minecraft. It was installed in the family computer though, so still somewhat limited by ESRB and had to share it with siblings. I eventually killed it with crypto mining but its carcass is actually still mounted on the wall of my childhood bedroom as of the last time I visited my parents.
That's the only one that I've actually heard of an irl woman in my irl social circles actively using and reading routinely, but there are presumably others. Makeup subs and subs for certain varieties of reality TV are probably also big ones.
And then based on what's been happening over at rdrama lately, the redscarepod subs are at least somewhat comprised of women (female).
More options
Context Copy link