For social and ethical-psychological reasons, tipping is part of the cost of eating at restaurants; people who do not tip will send bad signals and affect themselves and their dispositions in negative ways. If rationalists eat at restaurants where tipping is customary, we should tip at restaurants.
However, it is possible that we should not eat at restaurants.
Could you elaborate, please? I have the sense that you have something valuable to teach me here, but as it is currently written I am unable to distinguish your comment from “Hooray for following the norms of any institutions you choose to participate in.”
Not tipping at a restaurant where it is customary sends negative signals, which may sometimes have a greater marginal impact than the saved money.
Humans are wired to derive dispositions, including ethical and niceness-related dispositions, from our past behavior. Not tipping sets a bad internal precedent even if no other person you care about signaling to sees you. It sends a bad signal to yourself and runs the risk of making you a worse/meaner/self-serving person compared to what you are/should be.
If this is really about saving money, you should be eating at home, or getting your food someplace cheap that doesn’t encourage tipping. Or getting someone else to buy your dinner and having them tip. Or skipping the meal. These things are sufficiently near “don’t tip” in the search space that I don’t think this post is actually about saving money.
Humans are wired to derive dispositions, including ethical and niceness-related dispositions, from our past behavior. Not tipping sets a bad internal precedent even if no other person you care about signaling to sees you. It sends a bad signal to yourself and runs the risk of making you a worse/meaner/self-serving person compared to what you are/should be.
Thanks, I think this is the point I was missing. It’s a good point.
For social and ethical-psychological reasons, tipping is part of the cost of eating at restaurants; people who do not tip will send bad signals and affect themselves and their dispositions in negative ways. If rationalists eat at restaurants where tipping is customary, we should tip at restaurants.
However, it is possible that we should not eat at restaurants.
Could you elaborate, please? I have the sense that you have something valuable to teach me here, but as it is currently written I am unable to distinguish your comment from “Hooray for following the norms of any institutions you choose to participate in.”
Not tipping at a restaurant where it is customary sends negative signals, which may sometimes have a greater marginal impact than the saved money.
Humans are wired to derive dispositions, including ethical and niceness-related dispositions, from our past behavior. Not tipping sets a bad internal precedent even if no other person you care about signaling to sees you. It sends a bad signal to yourself and runs the risk of making you a worse/meaner/self-serving person compared to what you are/should be.
If this is really about saving money, you should be eating at home, or getting your food someplace cheap that doesn’t encourage tipping. Or getting someone else to buy your dinner and having them tip. Or skipping the meal. These things are sufficiently near “don’t tip” in the search space that I don’t think this post is actually about saving money.
Thanks, I think this is the point I was missing. It’s a good point.