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Emile comments on A funny argument for traditional morality - Less Wrong
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I disagree - it's neutral at worse.
There are some advantages if everybody in a society has similar social norms; obviously driving on a certain side of the road, but also things like whether tipping in restaurants is "morally required" or not (it is in the US, it isn't in France, in both cases the pay of servers is adjusted accordingly).
Or if you're talking about consistency at the individual level, having consistent values makes one slightly more predictable, and the expected correctness of a set of consistent values is probably sligtly higher than the expected correctness of a set of inconsistent values.
In general, most people are more comfortable living in a society who shares their values, so I'd say "Consistency for the sake of consistency" is generally slighltly good, to be of course balanced with other things.
Good point. I was talking about consistency on the individual level, and overall it's probably at least mildly beneficial.
Warning to foreigners: tipping in restaurants is morally required in France. It's a tiny tip, about two euros, but not tipping still makes you a very rude and bad person who defects.
Is it? I get the impression that it's expected in cafés, but "more optional" in restaurants (it probably also depends of the restaurant). Some quick googling seems to agree (except for the restaurant/café difference, maybe my pattern matching on the behavior of others is overactive)
The website says it's a Paris thing, which sounds plausible. I wouldn't know about nice restaurants. I'm pretty sure it's expected in regular (for some value thereof) restaurants, at least in Paris: French television movies always show waiters getting mad at customers who don't tip, and my parents (who are stingy with tips) always tip in restaurants. My intuition says that tipping in restaurants is even more important than in cafés, but I don't know why - maybe just because the tip is bigger?
(Remember the second Paris meetup, where I made an ass of myself by complaining I didn't have enough money? I added a few coins to the pile when we left anyway. Not tipping is a mortal sin.)