Oh if God actually showed himself I'd do way more than buy him a burger

Well not hungry, presumably. And a little Canadian since it was Tim Hortons. And kinda happy that being a cute blonde doesn't just get you free drinks from creepy guys, it also gets you free sandwiches from older women.

edit: very glad I used my 6666th post on this.

Do they have Tim Hortons in US airports or was this a Canadian airport?

This was toronto pearson. Tim Hortons has a very small and struggling influence in NE america but absolutely crushes everything in Canada giving it an almost hockey like status of "being Canadian".

I used to work at Pearson airport a long time ago, and would have lunch at Tim Hortons daily. There's a few now, but I can't imagine a scenario where someone would have gotten anything free from there. It's the equivalent of winning the super ball.

Edit: I just realized that some stranger likely bought your wife lunch, not an employee. That makes more sense. Now it's just more like a pick 3.

It is surprising to me that this thread has turned to saying that an act of generosity like that described in the OP is weird and not very kind or good. You all are a bunch of cynical people.

I think the point of doing a random act of kindness is at least in part to inculcate the virtue of kindness in yourself. Thus, the effects of this kind of action are not supposed to be solely to the direct benefit to the person you are helping, but also that it is supposed to make it more likely that you (and those around you) act with kindness and empathy towards other people in the future, i.e. to make you into a virtuous person. So it is not enough to just say that this action is of little utility to the person you helped, you have to do a Galfond bucks analysis of your action to determine its true benefit.

I think OP came off a little confrontational, and it took away from his gesture. I think it's a cool thing to do, but his critique of religious people is somewhat unfounded.

In your Galfond bucks analysis, you would have to include the effect of random acts of kindness, which causes cynical people to doubt random acts of kindness, doubt their motives, question whether good things are good,thereby making them more cynical, and less likely to give or receive acts of kindness

Cynical... perhaps.

I do think that a lot of people (OP included) come at it with a certain entitlement mentality. Do you not see the irony of doing an act of kindness while getting angry with the person who you've volunteered to participate in your act of kindness? ("It's my right to do the kind thing I want to do my way and I don't want you to mess it up by participating in any way other than the way I want you to.")

When done with an appropriate attitude, I can agree with this. It could be that people are so out of touch with reality that buying some random person a drink or a meal is all the kindness they can muster. And that it really is an accomplishment that they've done it, and that they are inculcating a kindness that they wouldn't otherwise have an opportunity to develop by doing this.

My primary objection to random acts of kindness is the randomness part of it, not the kindness part. A much better approach is to strive for intentional acts of kindness. To identify an actual need that exists in the community at large (there are plenty) and to try to do something that has a direct impact on the community, and not some sort of distant and abstract hope that maybe society might be more polite in the long run by buying a burger for some person you don't even interact with.

I accept a lot of this but I have some concerns, the first is that there is the potential to equate an act of kindness with some monetary value*. If one of the goals is to make you a more virtuous person then there are a plurality of virtues it makes sense to promote just as there are a number of ways we can demonstrate kindness and empathy.

One of these virtues may be the type of consideration that would lead to a more targeted generosity. By making a stranger in a queue a recipient of our generosity we are doing so without their consent. We are essentially giving a stranger money with no thought for whether they would welcome it.

I think my objections are relatively trivial and I wouldn't be critical of the participants.

*I have just looked at the site and the majority of these random acts seem good things to do without there being any monetary value and donating and generous tipping seem fine. That's a good chunk of my objection defeated. I'd just swerve the buy something for a stranger that isn't asking for it.

Here is a list of kindness suggestions from random acts of kindness: http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-ideas

Most things have one of two factors: either low financial cost to yourself (smile, be friendly, help elderly neighbour, etc) or they are proportional (donate for disaster relief) where the receivers need the money more than you do. And all those things seem great. But what doesn't really appear on the list is just randomly giving someone else money without some indication they are worse off than you. (The possible exception being a "tip big" for a waitress, depending on ones view of their socioeconomic status relative to your own).

I mean I could go every day and give a twenty to someone random on the subway. Or random people on this forum (want to disprove me, I can give you my stars ID and you can send me money!) unless that person has a compelling need. But there doesn't seem much point to these things. And if someone was trying to be charitable by giving their money to people of similar or high economic status, I'd definitely question why they were not giving to people of greater need.

There's a couple on there that cover the type of activity of the OP. Pay the tab for the person behind you and the Buy a dessert for a stranger. Most though are as you state and seem the ones most appropriate.

I'd also have to select against cute blondes for fear of being seen as a creepy old guy.

You obviously didn't read the whole thread where I admitted that the original post was out of a larger frustration, and that it wasn't the best example. You also missed the part where I said that it wasn't that random either. She looked upset and like she was getting impatient with her order (it was late at night, so they only had 1-2 people working, and there was a long line). You should really go back and read.

I'm pretty sure I used my 6666th post ITT, too. A day of coincidence.

ty Orp... well stated.

Y'all need to lighten up a bit, sometimes being nice is just nice. At worst it is a bit corny and at best you make someones day. No harm done.

The cynicism in this thread was pretty stifling for the first 55 posts. If a stranger paid for my food unexpectedly, it would instantly brighten my day.

As for the OP's complaint, I get it, but if you live in such a conservative Christian town, you should have expected it and it shouldn't have bothered you (or you shouldn't have done it if the inevitable, "you're such a nice Christian" response would bother you).

I know what you're saying, but it's SUFFOCATING. Most of the atheists I've met here are pretty much in hiding - usually because they have a job to lose. Normally the whole "have a blessed day" or "bless you" doesn't bother me at all; I'd go ape**** in a week if it did... it was the extra emphasis in her voice, the pause while she held my change hostage so she could tell me her god is pleased with me, and the fact that it was 1AM and I was tired, that rubbed me the wrong way at the time. I made the decision to attempt to brighten someone's night on a whim, and instead of just feeling good about it internally for a few moments, I was reminded of a lot of what I hate about living here.

It also made me think about the stupid bull**** that I hear every day at the hospital I volunteer at - someone thanking Jesus for healing them, rather than the doctor that has devoted their entire life to learning and practicing saving people. I do mean "rather than" in this instance. It's more often than you would think that people COMPLETELY FOREGO thanking the doctor, and go straight to the invisible man in the sky.

So yeah, I guess the original post came off as "this is bull**** in a vacuum", rather than "this is a small thing that reminded me of all the bull**** i see every day from the religious right, both in this town, and all over the US".

This thread shows how most of RGT just likes to intellectualize, debate, and rant about ANYTHING.

Isn't that a common poker player trait, though? buncha degenerate introverts, yo.

Being selective, self critical, and making adjustments are as well no?

No, not when the 'good taste' is actually chemicals developed in factories and then added back into the food to replace the flavour lost in the processing. You think that char-grilled flavour is actually a result of char-grilling?

You raise an interesting question though about people enjoying it. Can something be said to be good if people enjoy it, regardless of the nature of the thing itself? Is their enjoyment a good thing? I'm not sure it is.

Why Doing Good Is Selfish

It's better than the alternative.

Mcdonalds is mainly good tasting because it has lots of salt, fat and sugar and humans find salt, fat and sugar really enjoyable. You can complain about whatever factory processed chemicals you want (although today's mcdonalds is much better than before and not much worse than a tonne of food you probably have no problem eating unless you are a real foodie).

Well sure. You can have this debate with yourself but then it doesn't have any relevance here. But if you can't agree that enjoying tasty (and highly nutritious!) food is a good thing, then this has absolutely no specificity towards fast food like mcdonalds. You will just be questioning whether there is anything good in most things humans do

If you call almost never eating processed food being a 'foodie' then yes, I'm a foodie but you make it sound like something weird, that requires some kind of effort when really it doesn't, you just don't be a schmuck who buys sugary/fatty crap and thinks it's good quality food because the food companies put it in pretty packaging. Thanks for permission to complain about chemicals but I don't need to complain, I'm just pointing out to you that your 'tastes good' argument relies on artificially created flavours and unhealthy levels of salt, sugar and fat. So I wouldn't class it as a 'good thing' about fast food. Even the 'healthy options' have usually been washed in chemicals that make their health benefits dubious at best.

The major fast food companies provide poor quality (even unhealthy) food at cheap prices that are achieved by unethical practices.

lol@ 'highly nutritious'. I'm not going to bother to link all the evidence to debunk that statement, if you don't know about it you must have been living under a stone for the last 10 years. Just last year Jamie Oliver managed to stop McDs using beef treated with ammonium hydroxide in it's burgers.

I take it you eat this stuff?