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by imtringued 928 days ago
You do realize that the quantity of food you're throwing out matters, right? How many pounds of food did you throw away during those events?

You're a jerk, because you're trying to defend someone who probably behaves worse than you, by equating yourself with that person.

1 comments

Okay, well then you're a jerk, because you're insulting me for a silly reason. I'm not defending bad behavior. I'm suggesting that we give people the benefit of the doubt rather than assassinate their character based on assumptions.

If they had permission and were okay with spending all that extra money on leftovers, it's between them and the restaurant. I don't like wasting food on principle, but now we're getting into fuzzy issues around the relationship between supply and demand. At the end of the day, if someone wants to spend their money on food and throw it in the garbage/compost, that's essentially their business.

I'd have more of a problem with it if it were meat, because there's no reasoning around the fact that an animal was killed for it. Rice is in more abundant supply with with less severe negative externalities to its production. We also don't know how much rice it was; "eight pounds" was an eyeball guesstimate that could be completely wrong or exaggerated for narrative effect.

The way you've been wording things is less "benefit of the doubt" and more like there isn't doubt.

And it's not character assassination when it's such a vague anonymous anecdote.

Your wording strongly suggests that you took it personally and were defending yourself and them together. If that's not what happened you need to work on how you phrase these things.

I don't see that my wording suggests any of what you interpreted. I left a terse comment that should have been fairly uncontroversial, and others read meaning between the lines that wasn't there.

The top response at the time I commented implied that the individuals in question were "deliberate food wasters" and "despicable".

> I left a terse comment that should have been fairly uncontroversial

The reaction is mostly to your second comment, not the first one.

> The top response at the time I commented implied that the individuals in question were "deliberate food wasters" and "despicable".

Okay? It's still a vague anonymous anecdote.