Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t CTM – “Nudge theory”: Ruthless application of advanced behavioural science psychological manipulation upon unsuspecting diners.
Carbon Footprint And Fine Dining In London: Nudged To Fight Climate Change
Tilak Doshi
ContributorOn Friday, the “Money Reporter” of The Telegraph, Noah Eastwood wrote about London’s diners being hit by a “climate footprint charge” on restaurant bills. …
Carbon Friendly Dining’s website says the charge “helps counterbalance the environmental impact” of diners’ meals and “also help some of the poorest communities on the planet”. …
…
The most interesting part of this voluntary scheme between restaurants and their patrons is that “diners can ask for the new donation on their bill to be removed.” And that is the nudge: you must ask to opt out (explicitly), not agree to opt in (implicitly). The ingeniousness of the “opt out” requirement is that it puts the onus of action on the paying customer. …
See where this is going?
The “opt out” default choice in this voluntary scheme — the “nudge” – is part of the brainchild of the pioneering work on behavioral economics by University of Chicago economist and Nobel Laureate Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School Professor Cass R. Sunstein. Nudge theory proposes adaptive designs of the decision environment – “choice architecture” in the jargon — to influence the behavior and decision-making of groups or individuals like you and me.
…
Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/10/31/carbon-footprint-and-fine-dining-in-london-nudged-to-fight-climate-change/?sh=4a7984c32b7f
The rest of the article is well worth reading, Doshi goes into detail how such psychological manipulation can have serious consequences when the experts guiding the nudges get it wrong.
Today it’s a voluntary levy. But maybe next year it’s a mandatory charge on restaurant bills. And nobody objects, because they have already been conditioned to paying the “voluntary” levy.
But nudges can have far worse consequences than facilitating the stripping away of a little freedom. I’ve seen first hand how defective psychological manipulation can lead to disaster.
Bear with me, this is relevant to the point I am making.
Many years ago I was in a pub in London, when a young man glassed someone. After they finished wrestling, the aggressor went back to his table and slowly sipped his drink, watching curiously while people tried to staunch the blood gushing out of the face of his victim.
I was very confused about what I had just seen – why wasn’t the aggressor running away? So I went up to the aggressor and asked “Aren’t you worried about being arrested?”. His reply was even more confusing – he said “I did nothing wrong“.
About 30 seconds later the London police flying squad stormed in and arrested the aggressor.
I asked my cousin, a retired school teacher, what she thought of what I had seen. My cousin said “Yes, I’ve seen it before. The problem is sanitised schoolyards. Fighting and bullying has been almost completely eliminated from school playgrounds, but as a consequence, kids growing up today have no idea that attacking and injuring someone has serious consequences, because they have never personally experienced violence.”.
By sanitising schools of violence using behavioural science, the behaviourists didn’t always create the peace loving young adults they hoped to create, they also created lots of young adults who, having never personally experienced violence in childhood, have no idea that violence has serious consequences, and never had an opportunity to develop empathy for people hurt by violence. They created the Antifa generation.
It seems likely the aggressor I saw in that pub will never properly learn to appreciate he did wrong. Behavioural psychologists experimenting on kittens in the 1970s discovered if the kittens grow up in a room with abnormal visual stimuli, their ability to navigate a normal environment is severely impaired. Once the kittens reach adulthood the damage is irreparable. There is some improvement over time, but the kittens subjected to this behavioural manipulation never learn to be as sure footed as cats raised in a normal environment.
Badly thought through behavioural psychological manipulation can have severe and lifelong consequences for the targets of that manipulation, and in some cases for their victims.
I have no idea what damage this latest fine dining climate nudge will cause, hopefully nothing nearly as serious as the mess school behavioural scientists have created. The obvious likely perverse consequence from the point of view of the manipulators, is diners who pay their carbon tip are more likely to assume they have done their bit, and may be less willing to cooperate with other climate behaviours being pushed by politicians and behavioural scientists. But this ongoing societal obsession with advanced psychological manipulation, let’s just say I do not believe intensive and ubiquitous scientific psychological manipulation of the general population is making the world a better place. There are just too many ways it can go wrong.
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I’m certain that I wouldn’t be approaching someone who glassed someone.
The whole situation was so abnormal, my curiosity overcame my concern for my safety.
The aggressor obviously wasn’t drunk or on drugs, or acting particularly aggressively (other than the glass attack). He didn’t appear to be mentally ill – I went out with a schizophrenic girl for a few years who sometimes had trouble managing her condition, so I have a fair idea what psychosis looks like.
Yet the aggressor was sitting there watching bystanders and staff try to staunch the blood like he was watching TV – no real emotional involvement, just curiosity and maybe a little excitement at what he had done. He wasn’t afraid of the police arriving, he was totally convinced that a quick chat with the officer in charge and they would agree with his point of view.
Sounds very like the frame of mind of those who would inflict all sorts of horrors on us in the name of “saving the planet”.
Or promoting the interests of a “master race”.
“glassed someone”
Is that a common English phrase? If you didn’t elaborate- I wouldn’t know what it meant.
Yes, that’s quite correct.
sounds rather polite British- Americans would use much rougher language to describe such an incident 🙂
It’s not, believe me. It’s just a no-nonsense descriptive term for it and if you’ve ever seen it or nearly been on the receiving end of it in a pub or nightclub you’ll know it’s not a polite term or a euphemism.
No, to-glass is the correct term. After all the assailant is attacking with… glass.
Eric’s description seems to match almost exactly the scene from the, now classic, movie Trainspotting.
If you’ve got a strong stomach look up Begby and Bar Scene.
It’s a very fine piece of acting by actor Robert Carlyle, playing one of the worst humans you will ever see on the silver screen.
Again, be cautioned. Once seen, it is something you can’t un-see.
I wonder if it’s related to the phrase that someone has a “glass jaw”?
Eric ==> That mental condition is called “sociopathy”. Bordering on psychopathy if we could interview the aggressor and discover his reasons for the attack are incomprehensible to the average man.
I would argue it was much weirder than simple sociopathy, the aggressor genuinely didn’t know he had done something wrong.
These fine dining planet wreckers need a short sharp course of duck la orange to wake their ideas up-
Judge puts Just Stop Oil protester in her place over 9,000-mile trip to India (msn.com)
Indian takeaway is fine.
JSO need to be put on the domestic terrorist watch list…
… and treated as such when they commit this sort of domestic terrorism and disruption.
Someone needs to start a group, JSBS, Just Stop Being Stupid, to stanch the flow of pretense, hypocrisy, and sham. That’s waaaaay too much to ask, of course. Fake moral posturing is even more pervasive than sin. ‘Twas ever thus, and ’twill ever be.
You can’t fix stupid.
In Canada, the court recently decided that truck drivers running over protesters will get a $2000 fine. JSO activities are muchly reduced as a result.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/police-911-operator-told-truck-to-stay-put-just-before-animal-rights-protester-killed-but/article_20ee1bb8-3904-5493-a018-b42da28013c9.html
story tip
If the restaurant thinks these costs are part of the service, they should charge for it in the bill.
Otherwise it will act like tipping in the USA. Instead of a tip being a reward for excellent service from the customer to the staff, it’s just a means of subsidising the employer through allowing lower wages than the job demands.
This is merely a way of hiding the costs and subsidising the employer – if these costs are real at all.
Look at tipping from a different point of view. I have worked as a tipped employee, waiter and bartender. My wages were dependent on me giving excellent service. Doing an excellent job allows me to make much more money than by simply being paid hourly and that gives me incentive to provide the best service I can, to go above and beyond. So it is a win-win for everyone. The customer gets better service and that enhances their experience. It is more likely they will continue to patronize the establishment for an enjoyable time and that is good for the business and the staff and even the tax man.
Doing an excellent job is what an employee is supposed to do. Their reward, aside from the personal satisfaction would be not only continuation of their employment, but possible raises, and/or advancement in status.
Tipping also helps to move more patrons through the establishment by aligning server and restaurant management revenue objectives.
Bruce have you ever been a waiter? There is no advancement, there are no raises. You do it for the excellent tip money. That is the motivation for providing excellent service. If you want the owner to pay a waiter $12 per hour no tips for a 6 hr shift, total $72, then that’s the level of service you will receive. If I want to make $150 in tips for that same shift I have to earn that level. See how that works. And, a big AND, if you require the owner to pay the wait staff higher wages, he will raise the prices to cover that cost, so you will complain about that. You can’t have it both ways.
The cost is going to be the same either way; the difference is where the incentives lie.
A lot of people thinking tipping is immoral because no one tips car mechanics, or store clerks, or other 9-5 jobs. But changing the world tomorrow has nothing to do with the world today. Tipping is how restaurants and bars work, and everyone has adjusted to that. If someone wants to open the NO TIP RESTAURANT, go for it, but don’t expect it to catch on.
That may be what the employee should be doing, but unfortunately human nature works against that. By directly and immediately tying performance to reward, you incentivize the worker to do better.
Beyond that, how does the employer know which servers are doing the best? It is rare for patrons to go up to a manager, if they can find one, in order to compliment a server.
True,
My wife was a “food server”. She made very good tips. She had call parties that regularly asked for her “station” due to her good service and personality. Some of those regular customers became our friends. The friendship didn’t effect the “business” relationship in regards to the tips received.
Her last stint as a food server was in a Las Vegas casino on day shift. On slow days she would still make good tips due to these breakfast call parties then, when management decided to allow some servers to leave, she would happily go home early after having made most of her regular level of tip income in 3 or 4 hours.
It is funny to me that anyone would think the “everyone” would provide equivalent service if all were paid the same “by the owner”. Why should there be a variety of restaurants, levels of quality, etc.? Shouldn’t everything and every business be exactly the same? That is called communism/socialism and a been proven to FAIL every time it has been tried. The shining example in the last 15 years being Venezuela.
This childish thought is what the LEFT depends on from their “useful idiots”. That is why the mistake of allowing 18 year old children to vote (the Constitution amended during the Vietnam war, Democrats using the draft to justify the change) in the US was and is a BIG mistake. The votes of the truly ignorant is swinging tight elections to the left. It is also why Pelosi would bring up the “let 16 yo children vote” every election cycle, just to motivate the 18 to 20 yo voters to speak for their friends “that have no voice”.
I notice now that in many restaurants- as soon as you sit down, they show you an I-pad and on it you indicate your level of tip you’re going to approve of. Some wait until you actually finish the meal- then show you the I-pad to make the payment and under the price for the food and service they’ll list options such as 18%, 20%, 25%. You can’t just leave what you feel comfortable leaving. Maybe this is just in Wokeachusetts. 🙂
Time to pay cash.
It’s becoming common here in NE Wales too!
That’s common now, I take it as a note of how much your tip is by percentage of bill. I choose to enter my own tip rather than click on a percentage or I leave a cash tip.
I do too, always tip in cash. The less is written down, the less the government knows.
You can always put in your own amount. I mostly tip cash since the IRS gets the records of what tips the server receives when paid on a card and I usually tip well.
Screw Uncle and his 83,000 new tax men.
Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs giving his views on tipping –
No subsidy. As fast food workers in this country are discovering, when the salary goes up, so does the price of the meal. Either way the customer is paying.
“Badly thought out behavioural psychological manipulation can have severe and lifelong consequences…”
Well thought out behavioural manipulation is WORSE…..
Most people don’t recognize that most of food we eat has been CO2 just several years ago.
It seems odd to have a story about an incident in London with an obvious Americanism. “Schoolyard” is an American term – the equivalent British term is “Playground”.
I suppose it makes sense if we assume that the narrators were both American visitors…
Much of the language written or spoken is becoming fairly mid-atlantic. If someone uses the term ‘schoolyard’ you can’t always assume the speaker is American, they might just be ignorant and not know any better.
LOL. Myopic I see.
Americans have been known to travel to London 🙂
We use both “Schoolyard” and “Playground” interchangeably in the US.
“Schoolyard” is probably a better term now that “play” in the “playground” has become rather sanitised (or even sanitized).
As a primary school kid in north London in the 1950s, I was the victim of physical bullying from time to time, which I found to be a very unpleasant experience. So forgive me if I’m ambivalent about the sanitising part (which, predictably enough, has allowed “mission creep” to expand beyond common sense).
I don’t know if it is typical of accademics that they accept what they are told from a field different to their own. The writers of this report semingly accept the CO2 hypothesis without question and use their expertise in their field to provide an unecccesary solution?
This is very true in the economist’s view that we should and do tax carbon. Irrespective, and probably unaware that fossil fuel power stations are essential to a grid’s operation not an option and so simply increases the cost per unit electrcity for all to the detriment of the economy?
Right now the nudgers are busy sanitising their roles in lockdown….
Excellent article, Eric. Thought-provoking.
We’re in a card-driven techno age now….
To my limited experience, tipping has become a ‘techno’ thing.
Restaurants and many pubs now:
In many places now, those machines (below where numbers 7 and 9 appear on a phone keypad) are now a red button and a green one
The display shows the amount of your bill but before you OK it, are invited to press either red or green to give the ‘establishment’ or waiter(ess) A Tip and if you press green, are invited to enter an amount.
To my experience, most waiters and bar staff press the red one before even handing you the machine – it’s no embarrassment or Puritanical Guilt Trip to say ‘No’
In fact, no-one dares look what you enter into that keypad else they’re spying on your PIN and that’s Very Naughty.
Same would apply here – what sort of world do the folks proposing this stuff actually inhabit?
Tipping isn’t really “a thing” down here in Australia.
Anyone tries to put an unwarranted cost on my bill will get it torn up… and asked for a corrected one.
I never ever put a tip on a cc bill; if I pay by cc I always leave the tip, if any, in cash, otherwise how do you know if the cash isn’t just kept by the owner of the establishment. And as for the numbers in Joseph Zorbin’s idea above, who on earth would leave a tip of %25 ???
Zorzin. Apologies.
Grrr again.
Story tip
Now it’s ULEP
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/cars/article-12698547/Now-ULEP-thats-ultra-low-emission-PARKING-UK-councils-quietly-introducing-apps-charge-drivers-older-vehicles-park.html?ico=mol_desktop_home
Strat,
We are being messed about by people who hate cars. Their actions can exceed their authority. For example, local councils and speed humps. They love this uncomfortable expression of control over roads. Look at it this way. Several people close to me have medical conditions that cause real pain when the car crosses a speed hump. One affliction is so bad that a scream of pain can result. My question is, does the local council have any specific authority to proceed with a policy (like adding speed humps to a road) when it is known that the policy will cause actual pain? Yes, I know that the counter is that speed humps slow speeds and (theoretically) lower accident rates. But, has any Council ever studied the balance of pain causation versus traffic slow? There is more. Some ambulance type people claim that a few minutes in slow traffic can be life or death for some heart conditions. Some of them take longer trips to avoid speed humps.
Point is, do-gooders on a mission are becoming increasingly intrusive into the life of all of us, reaching the stage that I allege is knowingly causing harm but proceeding anyhow.
Lawyers, is there a tort that can be used to stop these intrusions? Can a body act in speed hump manner, knowing it will cause pain and/or harm?
Seems quite important, because many policies related to alleged global warming have this intrusive flavour, with the minority malcontents getting just a bit too smug. Geoff S
sherro,
In London the roads are governed by the local council and the major roads and [red] routes are governed by Transport for London (Prop. S. Khan)
Councils can and do pretty much as they like – hence all the LTNs etc.
Traffic filters will divide city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods
ROAD blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.
And he insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-will-divide-city-15-minute-neighbourhoods/
So much for the consultation, however, Labour just lost control of Oxford council thanks to Gaza.
Surely the newly independent councillors will still vote with Labour on most issues?
It won’t change the traffic policies, unless Hamas has a stated position on Oxford’s Park and Ride facilities.
The London Ambulance Service reported some years ago that putting road humps in the roads resulted in about 550 extra deaths a year caused by delays. It used to be easy to find their claim, but now it has been memory holed.
Within a week of the new measures being put in place in Oxford there were 2 stories about Ambulances having to divert down numerous side streets and not reaching a patient in time. Emergency services were supposed to be issued keys to unlock the system if necessary but then Oxford Council made it unlockable without telling anyone.
My first thought was that if the restaurant owner was so concerned that dining in his establishment affected the climate, then he should close and find another climate friendly business to run. But alas it is just another way to guilt people into giving up their money.
I liken it to when you go through the checkout line at a grocery store and they ask loudly if you would like to contribute to fighting hunger or homelessness or whatever the “cause” they are promoting is. It is done so that you are more likely to say “Yes” in front of other people to prevent a supposed embarrassment. I never feel embarrassed and usually respond with “No, let them get a job”. As a fairly large man, no one has ever made a comment to me about that.
I checked out the accounts for the Ritz Hotel (London). Unfortunately they are a bit out of date, only filed for calendar 2021, so this policy may not be reflected. However they did state that management had determined there was no risk to the business from climate change. So plainly they think the Hotel is safe from flooding: it is a bit uphill from Clarence House and Buckingham Palace.
On that restaurant’s web site I see:
Wow, save the planet and end poverty. I’d like to see exactly where they’re planting trees. How well those planting survive. So, when humans eat, they’re now guilty of damaging the planet? And causing poverty? The end of that quote isn’t even correct English.
I would like to know how planting trees ends poverty. Do poor residents have to take care of said trees? Do they get to cut them down in 30 years to sell them? I would have thought purchasing food from farmers helps reduce the poverty of those farmers, but what do I know…?
Planting trees attracts their natural predators, the beavers.
The beavers grow fat and happy.
Have you ever had beaver stew? Quite popular in Estonia.
They will not actually plant those trees themselves, nor will they actually employ someone to plant those trees on their behalf. A more truthful answer would be: “Marco Pierre White’s gives thousands of pounds to a carbon offset company that promises to plant trees. Marco Pierre White’s has no idea where or when the trees were planted, or even if, as the carbon offset company is as transparent as a brick wall and has yet to plant a single tree. But Marco Pierre White’s is assured that by giving this money to a carbon offset company they are helping the climate as well as the poor and most definitely not just lining the pockets of a bunch of chancers with a fancy website.”
Not just London but many parts of the UK, at least one in New York, and Spain..
https://carbonfriendlydining.org/all-certified-restaurants/
I suggest that anyone visiting these places print out the following statement and insist the manager read it out to the assembled diners:
“CO2 is currently around 420 parts per million, (https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2) increased, they tell us, from 280 ppm in 1850. That’s a difference of 140 ppm, or in terms more readily understood by the layman, the composition of the atmosphere has changed by 0.014% (14 thousandths of 1%) in the last 170 years. MUCH, MUCH LESS THAN 1 THOUSANDTH OF 1% PER DECADE! Please feel free to ignore this virtue signalling claptrap and refuse to pay this “carbon” levy as it’s not going to make the slightest difference to anything.”
Better yet, print out lots of copies and hand them to people on the way in.
Don’t bother – anyone visiting those restaurants has more money than sense; it’s a place to be seen and to be seen doing the right thing, not for the actual fine dining experience.
In addition to these “carbon indulgences” they should have confessionals where people can confess their “carbon sins” and receive absolution.
I did note that according to the accounts the Ritz produced about 50kg of CO2 for each guest who stayed in 2021 (somewhat affected by reduced occupancy due to lockdown). Those who merely took tea, or popped in for lunch or dinner are not counted.
Nah. Not buying the “sanitized schoolyards” theory. With the ubiquitous electronic connection to the rest of the world we carry on our mobile devices we are exposed to violence all the time. You don’t have to experience it firsthand to feel its impact.
The glasser was a psychopath. A lot of psychopaths can seem normal in many aspects but lack empathy for other humans. Your interaction with him was brief somyou don”t have. full picture of him but the fact that he appeared to feel no fear or remorse about his assault is strong evidence of psychopathy.
A “carbon tax” is simply a nudge to not eat there anymore because it’s too expensive. On first glance the owners are carbon morons but actually they’ve found a way to charge customers more while providing no added benefit. It’s a brilliant plan from their perspective. I’d do it too if I had a large pool of willing
idiotscustomers. The key here is a critical mass of gullible people.Not only would I demand that the charge be removed, I’d demand that I receive and additional discount on my meal for having my intelligence insulted during what was supposed to e a pleasurable experience.
I wouldn’t pay it either. My comment would be: What climate crisis?
If no one has yet linked to it, readers should see the nudge theory page on the Wiki. It does a decent job of explaining and partially debunking “nudge” and “micro-nudges”. The “nudge” idea is physiological brainwashing — tiny bit at a time. Many tiny bits make a big bit.
In my world, the rule is NEVER let yourself be pushed/nudged/micro-nudged into doing something you don’t want to do. Take the extra time to resist and push back. Just say NO!
I call that “nagging”, and as my wife can confirm, it doesn’t work.
All it takes to be “carbon friendly” is more $Green$.
Al Gore taught us that.
So if this restaurant is collecting money to save the planet who are they giving it to?
Yes, that’s a key question in all these schemes. Who actually gets the money? I could not get into this in the article, but how much of that GBP 1.23 per head charged by the London restaurants actually reaches the “poor communities” to plant fruit trees and how much goes to the climate grifters?
I was in Burbank airport bar and when I got my bill there was a “sustainability” fee of about $3 on my bill. I questioned it with the non English speaking server who gave me a printed card to read. I was furious but I didn’t have the time to get into a fight about it as my flight had been called for boarding. I would have refused to pay it. I’m still mad at myself for paying it.
Story tip
The Earth Is Warming, but Is CO2 the Cause? – WSJ
best comment of the year:
from comments:
For millions of years, the earth was a hot steamy place. There were no polar ice caps. Much of North America was covered by a great sea. Dinosaurs ruled. Then, for some reason the CLIMATE CHANGED! For 150,000 years we had an ice age. Great glaciers went as far south as mid Ohio. Then, for some reason the CLIMATE CHANGED. For the last 15,000 years, we’ve had a relatively modest climate. How did all of this happen? I don’t know. I do know this: it had nothing to do with my Jeep!
(In a loud voice) Hi restaurant manager.
You can opt in to a list I’m keeping of restaurants I might use again.
All you have to do is cross out this surcharge on all the checks and keep a big sign in the window: ” No climate propaganda here”.
Thanks for a fine meal.