Shopping Cart Theory

• Idioms
  • taking by storm – Make a vivid impression on, quickly win popular acclaim or renown
    • The new rock group took the town by storm.
    • This usage transfers the original military meaning of the phrase
  • litmus test – a test in which a single factor (such as an attitude, event, or fact) is decisive
    • literally a test to determine the acidity of a substance and used to test the purity of gold.
    • In politics, a litmus test is a question asked of a potential candidate for high office, the answer to which would determine whether the nominating official would proceed with the appointment or nomination.

1. Do you have any litmus test issues in politics?
2. Do/did you have any litmus tests in dating?

• dilemma – a choice between two alternatives, both having negative consequences but one having to be made.
  • Does Korean have a word for “dilemma”?
  • Can you think of examples of dilemmas in your life?
  • What do you call a choice between two good alternatives? Can you think of examples?
• hit close to home – To affect one deeply and emotionally because one can relate very closely.
  • (Subject) 101 – (Something) 101 is the basic or are the basics of a subject or field. (Course name) 101 is usually the first and introductory course to a subject at universities.
    
    For example, I majored in economics, and “scarcity” and “supply and demand” are so important to understanding economics that their understanding (or misunderstanding) of them leads to exclamations of “this is Economics 101.”
    • What is the “101” of your major or field?
    • What do you think is “Teaching 101”?
    • What are the basics, the

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The Trolley Problem

Do you recognize or can you guess the meanining of this graphic:

The (General Form) Trolley Problem

There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options:

1. Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

Which is the more ethical option? Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do?

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I learned this in my first lecture in my first semester in my first (freshman) year at university in Philosophy 101. IIRC (if I recall correctly), the professor originally stated the problem as the following:

You are the switchman at a train track, and your responsibility is to switch the track for trains. To switch the track, you have to climb a long ladder, and the process takes you 15 minutes. At the halfway point, you see your young son playing on the tracks below. You yell for him to move, but he can’t hear you because of all the trains. In the distance you can now see the train barreling down the tracks.

You must choose, and you cannot do both.

1. You can climb back down the track and save your son, but the train will crash and kill five people on board.
2. You can finish climbing up the ladder and pull the switch, but your son will get run over by the train.

What would you do?

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The Trolley Problem has many variations, coming in different flavors. At that same introductory lecture the professor posed the next problem:

You are a hunter and have a rifle. As you walk along a river bank, you see five people swimming in the river and a shark swimming toward them. A fisherman is on the bridge spanning the river.

1. If you do nothing, the shark will eat the five swimmers.
2. If you shoot the fisherman on the bridge, and the fisherman will fall into the water. The fisherman’s blood will attract the shark, and the shark will eat the fisherman. The five swimmers then will be able to swim to safety.

Shopping Cart Theory

A new concept is taking Twitter by storm after introduced to it by an otherwise unremarkable account with the handle “@ANTICHRISTJARED.” Jared doesn’t have a whole lot of followers, yet since last Thursday his post outlining the “shopping cart theory” has gained over 676,000 likes and many comments of support. The theory proposed that a person’s moral character can be determined through the simple choice of whether or not to return a shopping cart to a designated “cart return” spot.

“The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing,” the post reads.

“To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart,” they propose. “Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart.”

With no potential consequences for failing to do something and no exterior reward for doing so, returning the shopping cart to a place where it will not be in the way and is easily accessible to other shoppers and to store employees, this action becomes one of the simplest and best examples of moral choice.

“You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shipping cart because it is the right thing to do.”

Discussions like this hit close to home during a time when “home” is where we’re all supposed to stay as much as possible to not make a pandemic worse but local governments keep lifting restrictions due to pressure from protesters and businesses. This leaves the choice of whether or not to risk further spreading the coronavirus to each individual person, which is not working out so well in a lot of places.

Most people in the comments seem to agree that returning the shopping cart is the right thing to do and failure to do so counts against you in the “are you a good person” category. These individuals include former retail employees.

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• Is Shopping Cart Theory a fair test, a fair litmus test?
• Do you return your shopping cart?
• Do you sometimes not return your shopping cart?
• When you see other people not return their shopping cart, what do you think? What do you think of them? What do you base your opinion on?
• What do you think of other people who don’t return their shopping carts?
• Under what conditions would you not return your cart?