eclectic_electron

joined 1 year ago
[–] eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately that's not the reality in full service restaurants in the US, where I live. Servers are reliant on tips to live. The practice is pervasive. I don't know of a single non-tipped full service restaurant in my city.

[–] eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I hope so. I hope something like this makes it to a ballot in my state.

[–] eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Servers shouldn't be special, obviously. The obligatory tipping system we have is an complete dumpster fire. But this is taking employees who currently make $30/hr in tips and changing their minimum wage from $2/hr to $7/hr. It's not going to change anything. How could it? Would you give up a $30/hr job to take a $7/hr job on principle? Unless you're independently wealthy, you couldn't even if you wanted to.

[–] eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works -1 points 10 months ago (12 children)

Tipping is "not required" the way that not cheating on an SO is "not required". No, you're not going to get arrested for it, but that doesn't make it okay.

[–] eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago (23 children)

Reminder that a "living wage", and what most servers make, is at least 3x minimum wage, so tipping is still going to be required.

That's the worst part. The fact they keep doing it means it probably works. I just don't understand how.

[–] eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works 23 points 10 months ago (2 children)

They even ambush me every time I go to the grocery store. And they've doubled my bill since I signed up. Why bother marketing when you can raise rates whenever you want? They could save so much money by not mailing every day and hiring people to hunt me

You clearly haven't heard of private equity

I think businesses get bills from the fire department, but not individuals.

Surprisingly relevant lol

[–] eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works 19 points 10 months ago (6 children)

I don't think chickens raised for meat live anywhere near 2 years. Yeah, a quick google shows around a 2 month harvest time for chickens raised for meat. That's a big part of why chickens are such amazing creatures and make such an affordable protein source, they can be sustainably* harvested year round. (Sustainably as in without decreasing the size of your flock.)

Laying hens are productive for two to three years. They rarely make it into the human food supply though, after that long the texture and flavor of the meat changes and American consumers don't prefer it. You can probably get them through a local butcher shop, though they might have to order it for you.

In a small and well managed flock, chickens can live 6 to 8 years. In the wild, I don't think modern chickens would exist at all. Ask anyone who's kept chickens, keeping the hawks and foxes and raccoons etc. out of them is a constant and eternal struggle.

[–] eclectic_electron@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think a big component of the problem is location. I may have a different perspective living in a low cost of living city. Just a few years ago I lived in a two bedroom apartment that was $650/mo. It was old and not very nice, but totally functional and reasonably safe. It was a bigger complex so the landlord was a management company. They weren't amazing or anything, but they held up their end of the lease. I understand the situation somewhere like NYC or California is going to be radically different.

I think that's where a really interesting question comes in though, do people have a right to housing? Or a right to housing in the place they're currently living? It's a big difference. Forcibly relocating people is... Problematic at best. But there are places like LA where it's almost physically (geologically) impossible to build enough housing for everyone who wants to live there.

If you haven't already I'd recommend listening to the podcast mini series "according to need" by 99 percent invisible. I really appreciated the perspective it offers into some of the practical challenges of trying to get homeless people housed.

Ultimately I don't know that I'd call housing a "right", purely for semantic reasons, but I do think the very existence of homelessness and housing insecurity is a devastating critique of our social and economic systems. I didn't think we'll ever have a system that completely eliminates renting/short term housing, but we do clearly need to change a lot of things about how housing works now.

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