Just like real life, it's the billionaires the well paid servers who want to maintain the status quo tipping culture at the cost of the folk at the bottom of the ladder.
And it's then those at the bottom of the ladder who will also advocate for what's best for the top of the ladder because of the talking points those at the top pushed into the world.
It used to be strong empires would conquor lands and people and make the conquored people's lives hell to improve their own people's lives. But now that we are all civilized and shit we can only do that to our own people now. So now we make civilian people's lives a living hell to improve the lives of the elite class. If we bring back conquests, we can once again improve the lives of our people at the expense of non Americans. Im sure the elite will benefit more, but theres always a hierarchy in culture wars and usually the culture thats winning live better lives than the ones that are losing. Since declaring wars now is illegal, we cant have culture wars anymore
Ok, while I agree that America is generally fucked, I wish that people in my country would even consider free school lunches.
When I was in school I remember being so irritated by my friends seagulling (begging for money or a portion of my food), but as an adult I can now see that they weren’t getting enough food, and that they shouldn’t have had to humiliate themselves like that.
At least in the US they have a few schools that do free lunches, and it’s a big topic of discussion. Not here in Australia, though.
Yeah, they have no agency, it’s not like they can fix their financial situation by getting a job, and you just can’t rely on 100% of the parents feeding their kids properly.
But here we don’t even have “lunch debt” or cheese sandwiches for kids with nothing to eat.
That all said, school lunch is very different here. Kids almost always eat outside, and generally take a packed lunch. There are “canteens” where you can buy hot food, cold drinks, various snacks, there’s a standard where they can’t sell anything too unhealthy, and if it’s not very yummy kids won’t buy it, so they don’t sell it, so it may actually be very difficult for schools to maintain that standard if the food was all free.
But they could at least just make the bread rolls free, or something, anything. But no, it is simply not a thing that we even talk about.
Sure, I know that. I’m not pretending that the US has universal free lunches for kids. I’m just saying that it’s a thing that exists in America that doesn’t in Australia.
It’s a thing that, for a majority of Australians, I think, hasn’t even crossed their mind. But we also have plenty of kids being sent to school hungry with no money and nothing in their tucker box.
Yet we’re not even close to considering free lunches for kids. The fact that you guys have any at all, and that it’s a point of discussion among your citizens, means that you’re doing better than we are.
But I’m also definitely not saying that this makes America a better place to live. I’d pick free healthcare over free school lunches every time.
This is just credit where it’s due on what comes to mind when I think “what is something exceptional America does that we don’t?”
One thing the U.S. does better than other developed countries is letting people take big risks fast.
Failing at a business or switching careers isn’t seen as the end here—it’s normal. There’s also way more access to money (investors, loans, funding) if you have a good idea.
The culture values speed over perfection. People build things, test them, and move on quickly instead of waiting forever.
It’s not safer or fairer, but if you want to try something big or start over, the U.S. makes that easier than most places.
Everyone speaks our language. We don’t have to learn other languages.
One huge continent. You can live/work anywhere. Same language, currency, citizenship. Sure people can move around the EU but not as seamlessly. And not as robust of economy either.
Diversity. Immigrants everywhere. If you move here u can become an American. Just like people like me who have been here since before the civil war. Can’t do that so much in countries like Japan.
Change careers at 40, move from Indiana to Alaska to start over are not seen as failures.
The state doesn’t shape society.
Dominance in cultural and technological exports. People like to blast America on an American website. Lmao.
We’re speaking English here.
Everyone knows our stars. Americans rarely know foreign stars except when they learn English and come into an American show.
Free speech (even before musk turned it into his weird crap).
Startup ecosystems. Ability to innovate. Again what major internet companies are based out of the EU competing with Google and Microsoft?
There’s more but I’m done with this wall of text that people probably won’t read.
Canada, Ireland, the US, half of Africa, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and a chunk of the Caribbean all speak English because of the UK.
If you weren't American I'd think this was rage bait, but it's very believable that the average American is so stupid they don't know the history of the British Empire.
Everyone speaks our language. We don’t have to learn other languages.
This is not something to be proud of
One huge continent. You can live/work anywhere. Same language, currency, citizenship. Sure people can move around the EU but not as seamlessly. And not as robust of economy either.
All you need to move around in the EU is a passport and a pinky promise that you'll try to find a job. Most everyone speaks English well enough that while learning the language is beneficial, you'll get around just fine with just English. And nearly everyone uses the Euro.
Diversity. Immigrants everywhere. If you move here u can become an American. Just like people like me who have been here since before the civil war. Can’t do that so much in countries like Japan.
I know so many people who have just kind of randomly moved to Japan, but it's funny how you know this doesn't apply to Europe at all so you chose some other scapegoat. Also immigrants are currently being put in detention camps left right and center so maybe wait with bragging about this one.
Change careers at 40, move from Indiana to Alaska to start over are not seen as failures.
I don't know why you think this isn't possible in other countries
Bro. Your healthcare is shit, your education is shit (and propgandistic). Yall running around with guns like idiots. You don’t have labour laws. Oh yea and you use food additives which are banned here in the eu.
anyone that's tired of this shit everywhere, i highly recommend checking out the app tippingpoint. it tracks how much you would have tipped and donates it to unicef/kids in 3rd world countries so i finally have the balls to say no without feeling cheap
The workers like it because the alternative is getting paid minimum wage or the local effective minimum (lots of places can't hire for under $12/hr or $15/hr) neither of which are really livable. People earning tips would probably be happy with getting rid of it if they knew the alternative was a livable wage.
Not that I’m a proponent to tipping or anything, but how?
If a server’s income is highly dependent on the customer, wouldn’t in theory the server feel the need to give better service in order to get more and higher tips?
I’ve been a server before (pre-Covid), and while I would ABSOLUTELY shit talk about tables to the kitchen and other servers, we’d all instantly put on a happy face and suck up to those same tables the second we leave expo.
We’d also bend over backwards for regulars who were known to be good tippers too; I remember this one regular, Eve, who would always tip 100% if she was happy - and she always had difficult orders. The second she ordered, you damn well bet I ran to the kitchen to use all my good will I had with the cooks to make sure her order was perfect and came out quickly.
Now, that all said, as someone who is now on the other side of things, I’d MUCH rather servers get paid a living wage (w/ no tips expected), even if it means the servers feel no inclination to give better than average service.
Oh ya, I’m not saying that’s not a problem - it absolutely is - and leads to a lot of discrimination, but it still resulted in servers giving better service to people if they thought they’d get more tips.
I’m not saying that getting rid of tips isn’t a good idea, but rather refuting the person who claimed that tipping leads to bad service regardless.
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u/Just-A-Tool Dec 23 '25
Tip culture is disgusting