Interesting Links for 26-11-2011

[andrewducker]

• Climate sensitivity to CO2 more limited than extreme projections
  (tags: co2 climatechange globalwarming science )
• Once again, "lawyers" are used to try and shut down dissenting scientific opinion.
  (tags: science libel )
• Deaths per TWH by energy source
  (tags: energy nuclear solar coal death gas )
• How to really, really piss off your waiter.
  (tags: religion money )

Comments

[supergee]

Reminds me of the letter Dave Langford got from an alleged lawyer who accused him of having "malice of forethought."

[andrewducker]

Oh, that's almost too funny to be true.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Man the bodily fluids that are going to be in that guys food the next time he eats there...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to decide if there's any good reason for those stupid eternal salvation bills. I mean, on the one hand, Jesus wasn't slow to break social convention if he thought it was wrong, and drawing attention to your religion is understandable, if pushy.

But seriously, starting your prosetylisation by (a) stealing from people[1] (b) deliberately descriminately punishing non-Christians by paying them less for their labour than Christians (c) deliberately descriminately punishing Christians, since servers who already have eternal salvation are the ones getting shafted both ways. Those don't seem like good ways of winning people to your cause.

I'm not even sure if it's good or bad tactically. I mean, obviously, it will massively piss off 99% of the population. (Their core message that people earning $2.39 an hour are money-grubbing selfish hedonists, and that the patrons aren't, isn't actually supported by the facts.) But maybe it is more persausive to the 0.01% of people who are moved by the message, that to also leave an actual tip?[2]

But I've got a suspicion that someone invented these on the back of the "people who are not you are greedy and grasping" lie, and then, in a staggeringly reckless squandering of the western hypocracy supply, lots of people leave them INSTEAD of a tip so they can tell themselves they're generous, while actually keeping all the money to themselves.

I've met a few instances of unfortunately inept evangalism knocking at my door, but in retrosepct, everyone I met was at least polite.

[1] And, yes, it it stealing, morally if not legally. There's a clear implied contract that, when you're served in an American restaurant, you tip, unless the service is truly bad. I don't think that's a good social convention, but that's what it is. Obviously there's room for argument when you say the service is bad, but the server disagrees. But here the patron makes no attempt to pretend the service is bad, they just pull a bait and switch: "I'm a reasonable human being who's not going to abuse their temporary position of power to benefit from a social convention without giving anything back... I'm a reasonable human being who's not going to abuse their temporary position of power to benefit from a social convention without giving anything back... HAHA! Tricked you! You're so stupid."

[2] I honestly don't mind that much if they left something AS WELL as a tip. That's a bit pushy, but it's a way to raise awareness without demanding people's time, which is not a terrible thing.

[pigwotflies.livejournal.com]

Well if you do believe eternal salvation is better than money (which I do) then maybe you can sort of justify it to yourself. But I suspect leaving a tract without a tip is more about making the diner feel self-righteous than actually wanting to benefit the wait-staff. If it were going to achieve anything like the desired effect, it would be much better left with a generous tip than instead of one. I could imagine doing that, maybe. But probably only if I'd had a conversation with the person beforehand about God/religion/Jesus stuff. I'm not in the habit of talking about my religion with people who haven't asked me first.

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was thinking that tract would be best left along with a rather generous tip. At which point, one could just leave a more conventional tract (if indeed one was the kind of Christian given to evangelism by means of tracts).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that seems the obvious way of getting people to listen to you. I can see why some people might not like it -- it smacks of buying people, which is why I wondered if there was a good reason for leaving no tip other than selfishness -- but it's at least treating people with reasonable dignity, rather than (as these diners seemed to do) insulting them.

[fearmeforiampink]

I was discussing with a friend and we agreed that we'd actually find it more acceptable to leave something with the same sort of 'looks like a $10' note, but one which unfolds to say "Your service was shit, that's why you're getting no tip" (assuming the customer felt the service was shit in that case).

At that point, you're directly trying to troll them, to be nasty, to make your point. But you're not doing the self righteous "I'm leaving you something better than a $10 tip!" thing.