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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 6th, 2023

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  • Both KDE and Gnome can be seen as pretty bloated. They come pre-packaged with a lot of programs and tools that sit around unused, possibly even having corresponding daemons running for no reason.

    For someone who doesn’t want to think about their computer, and just want to know it’s prepared for anything, they may want that. But if they left windows/mac to have a smaller, simpler OS that isn’t wasting CPU cycles or disk space on superfluous stuff, then KDE/Gnome might not suit them.

    Edit: that said, I’ve heard of a lot of alternative DEs/WMs, but I’ve never heard of JWM. I’ve heard good things about Budgie, might also check that out.



  • That is an awesome poster, and a very…interesting response given how specific my request was…I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, though.

    if you know that service workers are grievously exploited and you choose to have them wait on you while not compensating them, then you are also committing an immoral act…The employer first exploited the worker, then you went in, benefited from their labor for free, directly reducing their income, supporting the business that exploits them while not supporting the worker

    So first off, when I walk into a restaurant, I have no way of knowing if the employees are being exploited. If I believe I live in a functioning society with appropriate regulations in place, I have to assume they’re not. I have to assume that an employee continuing to work somewhere means they would prefer to keep that job, which means they would prefer the business stay in business, which means they would prefer I spend my money at the establishment. If your argument is that by living in the US I should know that all restaurant workers are exploited and thus I should never eat at one, I respect your opinion, but I disagree.

    If that’s NOT what you’re saying, then how do I know when an employee in front of me is being exploited? Either they should tell me, and I’ll leave, or they should quit.

    Am I absolved of sin when buying clothing that I know is produced in a sweatshop…

    I don’t like the choice of the word “sin” here, as that implies some divine being has arbitrarily chosen what “sin” is. I will assume you meant something more akin to “is it ethically conscionable”. And I would say, if not buying the clothing means you are unclothed, then yes. Some problems are inherently systemic, and are much larger than an individual will be able to solve before they need to put clothes on their back.

    On the other hand, if I’m buying a dress to wear once, and I know it’s made by exploited workers, then yeah, no, obviously don’t buy the dress.

    You could choose to simply not give businesses who don’t fairly compensate their workers your money, but instead, you give them the cost of your dinner and reduce your server’s hourly wage? If people want to reject tipping culture, they need to reject businesses that practice it, not fund them.

    Except that, unless the employer opts to break the law, anything between the worker’s tips and minimum wage comes out of the employer’s pocket. Legally, that’s how minimum wage works. I understand that wage theft is a thing, but that exists in many industries, yet you are arguing that uniquely in the restaurant industry, it is the responsibility of the customer to pay for an employer’s crimes? That doesn’t make any sense.

    Your arguments are the equivalent of shifting the blame for climate change onto individuals. Both are systemic problems that can only be solved through regulation, and both have an entire industry built around resisting those regulations. It isn’t my fault for not tipping any more than it’s my fault for having to drive a gas-powered car. I can’t afford an electric car, the infrastructure where I am isn’t there yet, the supply of electric cars isn’t there yet, all of these are real problems that we are decades behind on solving. In the meantime, I have to get to work.


  • Totally agree that minimum wage is not as high as it should be. No disagreement there. My point is that workers in the restaurant industry are not uniquely able to make below minimum wage. Any employer can break the law and pay under what they’re legally required to, not just in the restaurant industry. And yet we’re saying that the onus for making sure this doesn’t happen in the restaurant industry uniquely falls on the customers. That’s just not a reasonable argument to make.

    It’s identical to shifting the blame for climate change from corporations to individuals. It’s not a customer’s fault for not tipping any more than it’s Joe Schmo’s fault for having a gas heater, poorly insulated house, and having to commute an hour every day in a gas car. Both can only effectively be solved through regulation.

    We should be encouraging these places to unionize, and demand that their employers pay them fairly.

    Totally agree.


  • Could you do me a favor real quick? Could you please tell me in no uncertain terms that you support collective bargaining (i.e. unionization) by workers to combat exploitation by employers. That will short circuit a lot of this I think. If you cannot do that, then I am forced to believe you are arguing in bad faith (as most of your arguments here are reductive, untenable, and deliberately antagonistic).


  • So wait, are you talking about communism or authoritarianism/fascism? It’s fine to disagree on things, but you should probably know what you’re disagreeing with.

    In the US, communal groups are all over the place. Families typically aren’t capitalist, they’re communist. You don’t see grandma getting kicked out of Thanksgiving when she’s too old to bring a casserole. Religious organizations are often communal, taking offerings from those who have a surplus and distributing it to the homeless or poorer members who are in need. Small towns where everyone knows each other are often communal; you’d rather keep good friendly people around even when they’re going through a rough patch than let them lose their house and be replaced with someone who might hurt the town.

    You’ll also find that most totalitarian dictatorships don’t go around calling themselves “totalitarian dictatorships” for the same reason movie villains don’t walk around with a “villain” t-shirt on. Most of them start with a promise of getting people through a hard time using a communist ideology. Then they leverage that to justify using force to ensure they stay communist. Then they use the force to take unilateral control of everything, and you no longer have communism, ex. China.

    People who blindly endorse communism are likely being naive. But people who blindly curse communism are equally, if not more naive, considering how much they’ve likely benefitted from communist organizations in their life.


  • Most establishments in the US pay waitstaff way under minimum wage ($2-$3 per hour). If you don’t tip your waiter at an establishment like this, you are basically denying that waiter their wage

    I don’t think you know how “minimum wage” works. It’s not a suggestion, it’s a legal requirement. If your tips don’t make you at least minimum wage, your employer is required to make up the difference. If they’re not doing that, talk to a lawyer, that’s a slam dunk case. You’ll get back pay.



  • The fact that you truly believe this is a great example of how bad tipping culture, and work culture has gotten in the US. It’s as if the word “tip” has been completely redefined to mean “compulsory tax on services”. Based on your post, I wouldn’t be surprised if a good portion of youth today legitimately believe that to be the definition.

    What if I told you that all the distress you’re directing toward low/non tippers should be directed at your employer who isn’t paying you properly, is over working you, and doesn’t have your back in the face of shitty customers demanding free stuff? Instead of getting upset about people who rightfully reject a bullshit tipping culture, go unionize. That’s literally what they’re for. Force your employer to treat you like a human being, don’t let them pit you and the customers against each other while they laugh all the way to the bank.


  • I had one friend whose personal rule of thumb was:

    • did they come to my table to take my order?
    • did they bring my food to my table?
    • did they bus my table for me after?

    If they did 2/3, then they got a tip.

    If you’re eating fast food, you don’t have to tip, though they’ve been asking much more than usual lately.

    If you’re at a sit-down restaurant or having something delivered, tipping is standard.

    15-20% is normal.

    And it’s more offensive to tip low than to not tip at all. A low tip means they did a bad job, no tip might just be a protest against tipping.

    Yeah, tipping culture sucks. I prefer eating at places that deliberately tell you not to tip, but they are few and far between.



  • I both love and hate the upvote/downvote mechanic. I like seeing quality posts bubble to the top, I also like seeing the general consensus of lurkers, but I don’t like circlejerk posts or that downvoted comments get dogpiled on, which often both result in a toxic, self-righteous flame war. And the solution is obviously not deleting the downvoted comments, because then you’re just censoring unpopular opinions.

    I think something worth trying would be not visually distinguishing between posts with no votes and posts with more negative than positive votes. I think an instance could enforce this on their own communities with only positive results.

    The only counter argument is that dishonest arguments can’t be “buried” by downvotes (hidden behind a “[show]” button). Another strategy would be to allow burying, but somehow throttle the responses to them; maybe limit the comment depth, or limit the number of responses per user, or allow users to flag flame war threads as “unproductive” which at some point would block further responses.

    To be clear, I don’t think the lemmy “spec” should adopt any of these measures, I think these regulations should be decided by instance/community mods, and up to the users to regulate and provide feedback on.



  • The confusion seems unwarranted to me, though. It’s literally the same as email. Every time I discuss fediverse with people, all of their confusion stems from presumed complexity that doesn’t actually exist. The server they pick matters just as much as it does for their email. So the process is: create an account somewhere, and start interacting with communities. That’s it.