And yet the more obvious analogy is between the two Karens in these stories, no?

I have never said the driver behaved well. Only that the customer behaved much worse.

Are you trying to pretend the power relations were in favour of the driver here?

Get a grip.

Gotta keep the servants in line. Got it.

It was 25%. But a 25% tip on a $20 order really isn’t that impressive. The driver does much the same amount of work as for a $100 order.

Income inequality does make it possible to hire gig-workers to run increasingly trivial errands for us, and the structures that enable that do make it possible to treat those gig-workers like shit. That does not mean you should. If you’re going to order small, you should tip big and I don’t think that is remotely controversial?

You’re going to have to explain why an entitled rich woman abusing her power is equivalent to the driver here.

It is a wholly disproportionate consequence. Chasing him down and yelling at him in the street might have been a reasonable course of action. Chasing him down and asking him how badly the gig employer was treating him to make him feel this way would be much better. Dismantling his livelihood just because you have so much power it doesn’t even occur to you to avoid abusing it, when his poverty is what makes your own wealth possible, is vicious entitlement.

Did you see that house? They’re beneficiaries of the structure ‘we’ have created. They absolutely should have enough self-awareness to take it on the chin.

I did watch the video. He was having a bad day. And the wealthy person he took it out on took it upon themselves to dismantle his life. That’s the whole point of being wealthy, after all. You don’t have to give a shit about anyone but yourself. And there will be ordinary Joes cheering you on because this world is absolutely fucked.

I get the impulse, for sure. It’s upsetting, you want revenge. But would you stop to consider whether the injury to your feelings is really worth throwing someone out of work? I mean, if it’s some tax-avoiding, worker-exploiting, obscenely highly paid executive, go for it. Bury them if you get the chance. But punishing a very low wage gig worker to make yourself feel better, and tightening the iron grip of the afore-mentioned executives by snitching on them? Be the better person and feel good about it.

Whatever you think of the driver’s behaviour, getting someone sacked for having a bad day is a scummy thing to do. You leave them a five star review or you do nothing.

It isn’t really nature vs nurture, it’s nature interacting with nurture. Steve Jones, the biologist explained it beautifully with reference to Siamese cats:

Siamese cats are light brown with dark brown fur at the tips of their ears, feet and tail. But if you raise one in a very warm environment, they will be light brown all over. A very cold environment, they will be dark brown all over. There’s a gene switching the fur colour but its action depends on the temperature.

There are many different ways genes and environment interact, there’s no real ‘argument’ here. It is simply true and, because genes and environment are often so closely linked, it’s often complicated and sometimes impossible to tease out what’s causing what.

The dose makes the poison. It is carcinogenic but current estimates are that you’d need to drink several litres a day to meaningfully increase your risk.

There are other good reasons to find a healthier drink but this isn’t one of them. Most artificial sweeteners have some kind of risk attached so there is no point switching to a different diet soda.