this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
1307 points (97.5% liked)

Greentext

4498 readers
1896 users here now

This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.

Be warned:

If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
1307
Posting the shopping cart theory because people had questions in a separate thread (slrpnk.net)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
443 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

First of all, thank you for replying. There's probably many on the subject who would down vote a counter point without even reading, let alone replying.

it opens up the "well since he put the cart wherever he wanted I can do the same" mindset

This seems to make multiple incorrect assumptions:

  1. there's not already multiple carts that could inspire that mindset. There's usually many out of place for much longer. This cart was literally there for less than 15 seconds.
  2. people are biased towards replicating negative behavior. As I said, I grabbed the cart on my way in, but that won't inspiring order the way leaving it inspires chaos?
  3. most people are unable to differentiate between where a cart is easy to grab and where it's just going to linger or get in the way. I know I'm not the only one grabbing carts on my way in. It doesn't take years of cart collecting to notice.

I feel depressed when I see assumptions that seem to view people as really dumb and requiring hard-line, no-exceptions rules. It gets uncomfortably close to an authoritarian worldview. I wrote my previous reply because, while I believe people should put their carts back, and model that behavior myself, I also believe things are rarely black and white and it's valuable to interrogate when that might be.

Edit: add opening thanks