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.
That is strategic and doesn’t count. Lol.
I travel for a living and have found that there is a correlation between neighborhoods that do not return shopping carts with neighborhoods that remove the trigger locks on gas pumps
Unless I’m in a hurry...................
There’ll be a phone app.
I’ve gotten flamed for this in the past BUT will share for the sake of seeing another viewpoint. At my local supermarket, the guys that corral the carts and return them to and from the store to the return areas are disabled. If everyone returned their cart, it would create less jobs. So, I think occasionally leaving a cart in not the right space, gives a disabled person a job.
Disagree.
A third option is to put it somewhere safe which is what I normally do.
It is not because I feel unseen so I can be naughty. I don’t consider it naughty. God always sees me, and I know it.
They have employees paid to come out and wrangle the carts.
Been there watched that. Once when a woman filled her car she then pushed the cart to the backside of the chart corral but not ten feet farther to it’s proper position . She then turned around and took off and the cart started rolling downhill toward other cars. I ran and stopped it before it hit.
She was from Oklahoma. Figures.
If someone is about to get a cart I say “Take Mine!” saves them a quarter and they may gain one when they bring the cart back. After it is only a quarter. Not even a silver one any more. about the equivalent of an old real 1 1/2 cent copper penny.
I’ve done that in the past, and it’s a good thing to do. But then we find we don’t have a quarter for the next visit. I’m leap years ahead of Biden and his digital economy. Seldom do I carry change, or even cash in the wallet to break a dollar at the cash register. We usually use the same quarter over and over. About to wear it out! LOL
Aldi sometimes sells items other than groceries. The wife purchased some solar yard lights from them several years ago.
The lights have been remarkedly long lived. Usually the ones she’s purchased were toast by the middle of the second season. The ones purchased from Aldi are going on four years now with very little degradation in performance.
Like everything else in this world, caveat emptor.
Here in LA shopping carts are replaced often because the homeless keep taking them for their portable home transporter.
Generally applies to conservative protests as well. Meanwhile, our Leftist friends run a protest and tend to trash the streets and sidewalks and parks in the vicinity.
Then some grocery store genius was looking for a way to cut costs. They said "You know what, customers can bring their OWN groceries out and we won't have to pay so many people to do this".
The entire grocery industry went "gee okay!". However it wasn't too long before the flaw in their plan became evident...they had to buy MORE carts and of those carts they bought MORE were being stolen and lost. In addition they now had to deal with carts clogging the parking lots and all kinds of claims because of dented and dinged cars.
Then some other grocery store genius said "I know...we'll train the customers to do the very thing that we used to pay people for. We'll ask them to bring the carts back!"
Well that didn't work so hot. So instead they made cart corrals to at LEAST get the carts in one location so they could hire people to go out and get the carts from the parking lots.
In other words this test and the guilt associated with NOT returning the carts is a clever marketing act intended to help you save the grocery conglomerates money so they don't have to provide personalized service anymore.
I’ve been fascinated at how Aldi has largely conquered shopping cart theft for a mere 25-cent deposit. People are strange.
Just don't be the guy who wipes his boogers onto the wall above the urinal... we have a civilization to uphold, y'know.
If I could I’d return the cart to the nearest correl. However, I have trouble walking and have to use a motorized cart. I’d return it to the store except then how do I get back to my truck?
By and large, and depending on the size of the parking lot, proximity to the corral, and whether the whole surface is iced up because it's winter (risk of breakin' a hip), uh, usually I put the cart in the corral. I find it frustrating to encounter a cart in a parking space I'd planned to use, and also know the paint on others' cars could be damaged if the wind (or a bump from a car, or the force of gravity) moves the cart while no one is around.
I like to park next to a cart corral. Easier to find my car and return my cart.
If a cart corral is close by, I will walk to it.
If I take a cart left near my car in the parking lot, I feel justified in leaving it right where I found it.
If there are insufficient numbers of cart corrals, I feel justified in leaving my cart anywhere.
If there are no cart corrals, it’s a 50/50 chance that I will return the cart to the store itself.
I do have back/hip/knee issues, but I won’t use them as an excuse to not return a cart. The cart makes a nice walker, and everyone just thinks I’m just shopping.
Some of our local stores employ mentally challenged folks (since we can no longer say “retarded”) to collect carts in the lot. If everyone did “the right thing” they’d lose their jobs.
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