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[RANT] The virtue of returning a shopping cart (beehaw.org)

submitted 5 days ago by elfpie@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org

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After seeing this discussion being brought up again, I was going to genuinely ask you all to explain where that comes from. I’m from Brazil and I don’t recall ever shopping at a place with a large parking lot, which I believe might be part of the issue. I was thinking how come people value this act so much and before starting to write a post here I sent a message to a friend, then it hit me: it’s absurd.

I mean it. The feeling I had reading the comments wasn’t confusion or ignorance, it was the cognitive dissonance of looking at the world I live in and what people decided marks a person as decent. This is one of the moments I really have to stop and check if I’m not actually the crazy one. I really can’t think of something smaller to care about that someone else will defend so vehemently. Really, try me, I’m already broken again.

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[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's less about the act itself and more about the principle of not making things unnecessarily worse for everyone else.

I’m from Brazil and I don’t recall ever shopping at a place with a large parking lot, which I believe might be part of the issue.

And yet you probably saw at least a few of those:

leaving the bloody cart in the way while shopping, forcing others to either push it or go around it
taking more time than necessary at the cashier for the dumbest reasons, while there's a huge queue behind
piling up near the bus door, alongside same-minded muppets, making embark slower for everyone than a simple queue
throwing rubbish on the ground because the bin is 5m thus too far
walking their dog and lets it shit everywhere, and can't be arsed to pick it up with a poopbag
driving to a bakery 50m home to buy cigs, even if they're able-bodied, generating unnecessary pollution (and they won't even get faster this way!)
etc.

I've seen all of those here in Curitiba. (Except the bus thing, that's Campinas.) They all violate the same principle.

[–] elfpie@beehaw.org 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think the reason for my rant got lost in the rant, but all your examples will help. Nobody cares about any of the issues you mentioned the same way. They are, for the most part, small things that one wouldn't consider nice, but that don't deserve that much attention. I expect to hear that it's too bad that people do those things. I would never expect people to overanalyze the situation and seriously judge others by that.

Let me change the perspective a little. If a good friend does any of the things listed above, it might bother me. If a stranger does it, I won't judge them personally, because it's not enough, I can only judge the situation.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 4 days ago

A lot of small things, make big things.
A lot of people doing small things, make a community/country the way it is.

You can talk to strangers, tell them what makes your community better... then judge them by their reaction.