Re: exclusivity clauses in shopping centers... I recently encountered this at the Shops at Dakota Crossing in NE DC... because Starbucks was a day one tenant in the development, the Tropical Smoothie Cafe which moved in later isn't allowed to have their Mocha Madness smoothie on the menu at that location.
- I'd say that when you're buying a cup of coffee, you're buying a set amount and thus aren't entitled to the overflow, simply because how could you be? Would they go get an extra glass to put it in? I don't drink coffee, so I may be missing part of this. If it's a "fill-line" situation and they just dump everything above the fill line, then I'd say my point still stands, that the customer isn't entitled to it, but that it's rather dumb of the company to just throw it away. It's better to act in a spirit of gratuitousness (to quote Pope Benedict).
- On the topic of seeing everybody's thoughts on the internet, I actually heard a brilliant observation recently. The trouble with the internet is that you get a taste of God's level of omnissance (in the sense that you're seeing well beyond yourself), but without anywhere near His Grace and Mercy (in how you perceive others), or Confidence and Understanding (in how you perceive frightening or disheartening news). In other words, it's an imbalanced power that makes us all a bit batty. This was already a problem with Mass Media itself, but the internet has absolutely supercharged it.
- In regards to internet behavior, I think this is largely just a result of anonymity. While it's often argued that it's a feature, not a bug, at the end of the day, when you have no direct consequences to your speech, you're more likely to just act like a jerk, especially in a medium that already reduces empathy and awareness. If everything you said on the internet was more readily tied back to you, there may be less vitriol. Although I guess Facebook and Nextdoor prove me wrong there. Although that may be more generational, since I think young adults people are more aware of how things you say on the internet can come back to bite you hard, even if your name's not attached to it.
There's also another side to the coin that you don't know who your audience is on the internet, and that everyone's speech is perceived as being equivalent when in fact there are imbalances at play. In the simplest case, dumb teenagers with terrible opinions can come across as being of any age, and thus influence the discourse more than they would in real life. In more nefarious cases, state actors can hire people to comment all over the internet (every Youtube video on a subject, every news article comment section, all over social media) to broadcast a message fast enough to make it seem like consensus, even when it's not, which has a strong impact on public opinion. There's simply an inherent danger there that runs against the idea of free speech but needs to still be mitigated against since the outcomes are so hazardous. I think it's evidence that absolute free speech is untenable if divorced from the concept of consequence and personalism, much in how a free market stops working if you let things become monopolies. In other words, there's a case for at least some regulation to prevent abuse which then leads to less useful speech over time.
- Finally, in regards to tenant agreements preventing similar businesses from opening up, I frankly think that's absolutely insane and should be illegal. It's pure anti-competitive nonsense full stop, and just allows bullying of towns and property owners by large businesses. While a building owner may not want to locate two similar shops in his plaza simply to maintain a stable business environment, the business itself should have no claim to that privilege. This is something that actually hit my town recently, after our Sam's Club closed, and Walmart (who was right up the road) put a building covenant on the space preventing it from having businesses in there that compete with Walmart. The end result was that the building sat vacant for years (since what do you even put into a building that size that isn't just another big box store?) until finally we had to settle for a Tesla dealership and self-storage place (the two best land uses, combined into one!). Behavior like this kills free markets, and is frankly ridiculous.
I enjoy reading old union or trade magazines in Google Books, or listening to old car dealer training films. They reveal sneaky tricks and bitching about customers, just like modern subreddits. The difference is that the old trade journals and dealer films were restricted in distribution. Customers never saw them, so the insiders could speak openly.
Language was meant for insider talk, not for universal communication. Language developed to keep families and tribes and lodges and trades united, not to create peace between different groups.
There are still some private groups or 'intranets'. Insiders would be better served if they stuck to the closed circle. They'd be more free, with less chance of getting bounceback from customers who either misinterpret or correctly interpret the emotions!
It is currently on indefinite hiatus but the Trade Journal Cooperative made a business out of sourcing trade mags and mailing out 4 a year to people who like that kind of thing. It was a delight.
I basically rejoice in a freewheeling Internet. If you encounter a website that is troll versus troll, just don't visit. I miss Germany, where people express their opinions quite forthrightly. I found it a very freeing experience. If we think people are always going to have positive feelings toward us, we are living in a dream world. My hope is all of us strive to be kind, but I also hope we all develop a thicker skin.
I can think of a decent reason why Starbucks doesn't wanna give you the last ounce. They would have to give you a second cup, which is an actual expense. It would add up. However, if you bring along your own cup to catch the final ounce, they owe it to you.
I clicked on this because I deeply love shop talk - I will listen intently as someone who has poured thousands of hours into flanges explains why you need this one vs. that one. (Wade into any trade on youtube shorts and witness "i don't know anything about welding but I'm still listening" comments.)
But the shop talk you're specifying here seems to be centered around carping about customers, which is different. I do think it's part of the same issue that we're currently exposed to a lot of talk and ideas that our normal social life wouldn't expose us to, and that this is destabilizing. I have no solution to this beyond trying to mind my own consumption.
I like your impulse to raise conceptual issues. In this case, though, I don't see interesting conceptual issues, or at least ones with difficult solutions. As entertaining as is the Paul Rudd anti-Starbuck's rant, the Venti should really be the Grandissimo. That's my considered Babble-based opinion on Italian. A customer is due a standard measure of what they order: no more and no less. This is tierra firma.
The shop talk is not so much a conceptual issue as a content issue. The issue can arise when the service workers are petty themselves and unaware of it because they are conforming to the milieu. In a way, it's good that we can see their pettiness on open display.
Re: exclusivity clauses in shopping centers... I recently encountered this at the Shops at Dakota Crossing in NE DC... because Starbucks was a day one tenant in the development, the Tropical Smoothie Cafe which moved in later isn't allowed to have their Mocha Madness smoothie on the menu at that location.
Some of my thoughts on the matter:
- I'd say that when you're buying a cup of coffee, you're buying a set amount and thus aren't entitled to the overflow, simply because how could you be? Would they go get an extra glass to put it in? I don't drink coffee, so I may be missing part of this. If it's a "fill-line" situation and they just dump everything above the fill line, then I'd say my point still stands, that the customer isn't entitled to it, but that it's rather dumb of the company to just throw it away. It's better to act in a spirit of gratuitousness (to quote Pope Benedict).
- On the topic of seeing everybody's thoughts on the internet, I actually heard a brilliant observation recently. The trouble with the internet is that you get a taste of God's level of omnissance (in the sense that you're seeing well beyond yourself), but without anywhere near His Grace and Mercy (in how you perceive others), or Confidence and Understanding (in how you perceive frightening or disheartening news). In other words, it's an imbalanced power that makes us all a bit batty. This was already a problem with Mass Media itself, but the internet has absolutely supercharged it.
- In regards to internet behavior, I think this is largely just a result of anonymity. While it's often argued that it's a feature, not a bug, at the end of the day, when you have no direct consequences to your speech, you're more likely to just act like a jerk, especially in a medium that already reduces empathy and awareness. If everything you said on the internet was more readily tied back to you, there may be less vitriol. Although I guess Facebook and Nextdoor prove me wrong there. Although that may be more generational, since I think young adults people are more aware of how things you say on the internet can come back to bite you hard, even if your name's not attached to it.
There's also another side to the coin that you don't know who your audience is on the internet, and that everyone's speech is perceived as being equivalent when in fact there are imbalances at play. In the simplest case, dumb teenagers with terrible opinions can come across as being of any age, and thus influence the discourse more than they would in real life. In more nefarious cases, state actors can hire people to comment all over the internet (every Youtube video on a subject, every news article comment section, all over social media) to broadcast a message fast enough to make it seem like consensus, even when it's not, which has a strong impact on public opinion. There's simply an inherent danger there that runs against the idea of free speech but needs to still be mitigated against since the outcomes are so hazardous. I think it's evidence that absolute free speech is untenable if divorced from the concept of consequence and personalism, much in how a free market stops working if you let things become monopolies. In other words, there's a case for at least some regulation to prevent abuse which then leads to less useful speech over time.
- Finally, in regards to tenant agreements preventing similar businesses from opening up, I frankly think that's absolutely insane and should be illegal. It's pure anti-competitive nonsense full stop, and just allows bullying of towns and property owners by large businesses. While a building owner may not want to locate two similar shops in his plaza simply to maintain a stable business environment, the business itself should have no claim to that privilege. This is something that actually hit my town recently, after our Sam's Club closed, and Walmart (who was right up the road) put a building covenant on the space preventing it from having businesses in there that compete with Walmart. The end result was that the building sat vacant for years (since what do you even put into a building that size that isn't just another big box store?) until finally we had to settle for a Tesla dealership and self-storage place (the two best land uses, combined into one!). Behavior like this kills free markets, and is frankly ridiculous.
Just think, if we get tired of grouchy humans, think what God has to listen to all day long.
No wonder He flooded the world that one time
A lot of people have thought that.
I enjoy reading old union or trade magazines in Google Books, or listening to old car dealer training films. They reveal sneaky tricks and bitching about customers, just like modern subreddits. The difference is that the old trade journals and dealer films were restricted in distribution. Customers never saw them, so the insiders could speak openly.
Language was meant for insider talk, not for universal communication. Language developed to keep families and tribes and lodges and trades united, not to create peace between different groups.
There are still some private groups or 'intranets'. Insiders would be better served if they stuck to the closed circle. They'd be more free, with less chance of getting bounceback from customers who either misinterpret or correctly interpret the emotions!
It is currently on indefinite hiatus but the Trade Journal Cooperative made a business out of sourcing trade mags and mailing out 4 a year to people who like that kind of thing. It was a delight.
I basically rejoice in a freewheeling Internet. If you encounter a website that is troll versus troll, just don't visit. I miss Germany, where people express their opinions quite forthrightly. I found it a very freeing experience. If we think people are always going to have positive feelings toward us, we are living in a dream world. My hope is all of us strive to be kind, but I also hope we all develop a thicker skin.
I can think of a decent reason why Starbucks doesn't wanna give you the last ounce. They would have to give you a second cup, which is an actual expense. It would add up. However, if you bring along your own cup to catch the final ounce, they owe it to you.
I clicked on this because I deeply love shop talk - I will listen intently as someone who has poured thousands of hours into flanges explains why you need this one vs. that one. (Wade into any trade on youtube shorts and witness "i don't know anything about welding but I'm still listening" comments.)
But the shop talk you're specifying here seems to be centered around carping about customers, which is different. I do think it's part of the same issue that we're currently exposed to a lot of talk and ideas that our normal social life wouldn't expose us to, and that this is destabilizing. I have no solution to this beyond trying to mind my own consumption.
“Mind my own consumption”—what a brilliant formulation!
I like your impulse to raise conceptual issues. In this case, though, I don't see interesting conceptual issues, or at least ones with difficult solutions. As entertaining as is the Paul Rudd anti-Starbuck's rant, the Venti should really be the Grandissimo. That's my considered Babble-based opinion on Italian. A customer is due a standard measure of what they order: no more and no less. This is tierra firma.
The shop talk is not so much a conceptual issue as a content issue. The issue can arise when the service workers are petty themselves and unaware of it because they are conforming to the milieu. In a way, it's good that we can see their pettiness on open display.