[Jun8]

This is a very interesting but dangerous post: It's interesting because obviously the author has put a lot of thought into the topic and has done some research. However, for me, it clearly shows the danger of ideology, in fact it's a great example of it. "To be ideological is to preconceive reality." and we have a good example of that here: The author has strong opinions about sexuality and our approaches to it, there's nothing wrong with this, it's a prior. But then he starts using bits of "proofs", examples from music and literature, and the tipping experiment to bolster these claims.

Take the claim "The meme of sleeping with our waitress is important to Americans." This may or may not be true (why Americans are singled out is an interesting questions). He then cites a song, a sex and the City episode and a bartender's essay to back this up.

The later part of the post is devoted to an analysis of how our monogamous human sexuality evolved, based on text lifted off from a single book. And towards the end he switches to the notion of the waitress as a "sexual worker".

Now for the interesting part. Although his non-tipping restaurant experiment did NOT provide any proof for his theory he still views it as if it did on hypothetical grounds.

For a much better treatment of some of these ideas, consider: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_evolu...

[ubasu]

Just as rape is not really about sex but about exerting power over someone, here also it is not so much about sleeping with the waitress but about having power over her. I think that was the main point of the article, which he chose to bolster using non-rigorous examples.

[anigbrowl]

The meme of sleeping with our waitress is important to Americans.

I didn't get that either. Could it be a generational or regional thing? Of course I can think of a few occasions where a waiter or waitress is so unusually attractive as to be worthy of comment, but I've never known anyone that had a thing about hooking up with waitresses in general.

...oh, Sex at Dawn. Should have seen that coming.

[hiram333]

I don't fully get this. It's the nth article about non technical topics I come across where the first comments start with ripping the content and the author apart. Always in such a subtle but mental and aggressive way. The other article which comes to mind was the post about the 10 simple things which make you happier from yesterday.

It seems to reflect how narrow minded this community outside of technical problems and business models actually is.

[Isamu]

Hold on. It's reasonable to critique an article on the basis of the evidence given (or the lack thereof.) That is what the parent commenter is doing.

It is a big theme in HN, but why not give all ideas the same treatment? What is your thesis, your pitch, and have you made your case? What are the holes, where do you need work?

How do you evaluate ideas, if not by critique?

[badman_ting]

My problem is how he just blithely includes all American men in describing this mindset. I don't know if this is to assuage the author's guilt about thinking this way in the past or what. I mean, clearly the dynamic in question does exist, no question (Hooters). But some of us are able to get laid in spite of, not because of, the size of our wallets.

Anyway. I like the idea that because servers are no longer "performing" for tips, their behavior and appearance is more truly representative. Not to mention cutting off at the knees this gross rich losers who obsess over who they can buy and impress with their money.

[garethadams]

All American men?

"“This isn’t about money,” the man would say. He’d be the one person in a thousand, or in ten thousand, who’d get angry about our fixed service charge"

Maybe not all American men.