http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/elal2/have_you_ev...

A much better "pay it forward" story.

You don't need to be religious to love this story, but it's worth noting that this is ancient and useful wisdom from sages of older times. (and, why I tend to reject organised religions nowadays, the kind of good thing co-opted, hegemonised and bastardised into all sorts of controlling and political things by subsequent institutions)

I avoid reddit because it's a time black hole (100x worse than HN for me), but I really wish I could still benefit from the few things like this that get posted 1 out of 1,000,000+ comments.

Sometime folks look at others who are not doing so well and decide to pick up the tab, or just feel like doing it for a complete stranger. Some of its religion, some of it is just spreading the wealth. Sometime its just looking at others in bad situations. Sometimes its just to make themselves feel better.

I've done it a couple of times. I payed for a young lady at a McDonalds because their credit card machine was out and she didn't have cash and had a kid with her. No big deal for me, but I would imagine it helped her day. I've bought one of the pink coffee mugs (breast cancer awareness) and told the clerk to give it to the next lady who comes in. I got to see the reaction, but she never knew who bought it.

Spread a little joy, the world's a circle and it comes back to you.

"If you think this is paranoid, you don't know how our world works."

No, I just find it sad that you believe the dark corners of the world define the whole.

[edit] also see Natsu's comment for an additional thought against it being an ad for Chick-Fil-A.

As to why I think this might (I make no claims to certainty) be a PR-influenced article:

1. Chick-fil-a is mentioned in the first paragraph, no other restaraunt is mentioned until the fourth.

2. The first 3 paragraphs are a visceral imagining of what it would be like to be part of a "pay-it-forward" chain at a chick-fil-a specifically, complete with giggling cashier. Other restaurants are mentioned only in an detached and objective manner.

3. There's a direct quote in paragraph 5 from the chick-fil-a "director of hospitality", the only other quote from a restaurant owner is from a smaller local shop 3 or 4 paragraphs down. The chick-fil-a representative’s quote is a comment on the value and reasoning behind pay-it-forward, the other's is simply a factual one about a lady at his store that does it.

4. Getting a bit more abstract here, but this is exactly the kind of ideal that chick-fil-a probably wants to be associated with, "good-old down home people helping each other out small town america &c.". Note the jab at starbucks at the end?

5. Like op said, chick-fil-a took a bit of a beating in the press awhile ago. People might not remember what happened exactly, but they probably came away with a slightly worse impression of chick-fil-a. If PR was involved in this article then it's probably to try and repair that damage.

Why was Chick-fil-a mentioned first? (Puts on Sherlock Holmes cap.)

1. Maybe the writer was fishing for pageviews?

2. Maybe the writer wanted an eye-catching lead? Aggregators pick up the first sentence.

3. Is it a coincidence this is trending on a Sunday after millions of Christians just ate Chick-fil-a after church? How many priests/pastors injected this story into the sermon today? How many Christian moms did a "share by email" on this? A ton!

4. Sometimes these stories take months to write. Maybe the writer first discovered the phenomena via a Chick-fil-a related conversation.

5. A good article must have quotes. It's possible the Chick-fil-a quote came first which got the always-difficult first paragraph rolling.

6. Maybe this was an underhanded jab at Chick-fil-a patrons. "See, it's not just chicken-eating Christians that are generous." NYT's political slant is no secret.

7. Maybe the writer just likes the chicken? Is that so far-fetched? LOL.

Those are just as plausible, if not more plausible, in my opinion.

On to your points:

1. I don't really see why chick-fil-a would get more pageviews than another restaurant so I'll skip this.

2. Of course the writer wants an effective opening, but the "you're part of a pay-it-forward line" fantasy could have easily been written at a generic restaurant.

3. Other people have said it but chick-fil-a is closed on sundays. Also I don't really get what this has to do with how and why the author wrote the story.

4. I'm pretty sure a fluff piece on people paying for each other's fast food didn't take a month to write. And I think the author probably did discover the phenomenon after a chick-fil-a related conversation, one with a chick-fil-a sponsored PR representative.

5. It's impossible to say assuredly whether any article was PR influenced but that quote seemed awfully convenient.

6. You seem to be very concerned with christianity when no-one else has mentioned it, least of all the article. I would not personally assume that chick-fil-a patrons are particularly christian, it seems strange to me that this is immediately the thing you jump to. Same thing goes with the source's political leanings, I don't consider fast food to be a political matter and I don't think NYT or chick-fil-a do either.

7. Sure, but if that's the case it's interesting that most of the other restaurants mentioned are coffee shops and a bagel cafe (which aren't really chick-fil-a competitiors) rather than popeyes or mary brown's.

so in conclusion:

1. I'm right

2. You seem to weirdly have tied up a fast-food restaurant into some christian right wing identity you hold and it's preventing you from acknowledging the very really possibility of PR manipulation in an NYT fluff piece.

Anyway, you made me look it up because I wasn't sure exactly what happened. As far as I can tell, this is what started the Chick-fil-a controversy. I believe this is the full text - http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=38271

In particular, near the end of the interview:

"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."

Which I suppose is why you think they need ongoing PR help in the New York Times. My first wife, we won't talk about her! LOL.

(I couldn't see a reply button on your comment just now, and now I see there is one. weird)

That was, however, some time ago.

Also, worth mentioning that while I don't want to be overly cynical, this article does sound like a brilliant PR campaign. Given the size of typical PR budgets, you could afford a lot of free fast-food lunches for people.

The article mentions chick-fil-a by name 3 times in the text and at the bottom, it's one of 3 terms that you can sign up for email alerts about. This is right after they had a run of bad publicity (yes, caused by politics, but that's irrelevant). Seems to fit in the PR-created article category to me.

You disprove your own argument.

This is not a fantastical practice. While it is not particularly common, I've heard of it quite a few times (most of which had nothing to do with Chick-fil-A) and have done similar things myself.

I hope that if I cheered her up for even 2 seconds, she can see whatever happened to make her cry isn't going to keep her stuck feeling down.

Have you ever seen the food at a startup/hack-athon/all-nighter-in-the office? There is a time and a place for junk-food ! And doing stressful things in a hurry whilst maintaining high-levels of concentration is one of the physiological test-pieces for high caloric density nutrtion consumption. Its a strategy rooted in science, not gluttony. Fat, salt, sugar will impact your bio-chemistry and manage stress hormones (thus increasing concentration and performance). The "stupid" use of fast food is merely to engage in chronic, long-term consumption outside of such windows of appropriate use.

Yeesh, what a useless comment GP is.

Damn you socialist Canada. You did it with your healthcare and now you are doing it with your fast food too? :)

Yes, redistribution! That seems a dirty idea in a substantial part of USA politics. So 'pay it forward' chains are a peculiar thing: they summon the feeling of cooperation, in an acceptable way, without actually being effectively cooperative.

It is far from pointless. First of all the next person in line feels good, because a stranger helped them with no underhanded motives. Then there is a high chance they will pass it on, getting a second dose of feeling good, because most people feel good about helping others.

That's a double dose of feeling good. I don't see what is being cancelled out here.

In that light, these chains are easy to explain: People might like the idea, but people are also likely to want to prevent a feeling of being indebted - if you can't pay back the person who did you the favour, paying it forward to the person is the next best thing. There's also social pressure to show that you're as charitable as the guy in front of you, and against being seen as the person who is either "too greedy" or too poor.

There's also very low perceived cost: You were intending to pay for your meal anyway; that you're actually paying for someone elses meal makes little difference for you - it's more like friends that takes turn paying the bill when going out, where it is a social gesture rather than an attempt at charity.

The idea is that if I ask a favor of you (to loan me a book, in Ben's case) - you are more likely to become friendly to me in the future.

Its a curious extension of what you mentioned above, by asking you for a favor - which you then grant - you gain a sort of psychological 'credit' over me (I owe you). In fact, because you implicitly recognize that I'm voluntarily offering to place myself in your debt, you are happy to oblige since you recognize the subtle power relationship at work.

I learned about this from a lawyer friend who claims he uses it all the time. If there is someone professionally he want to get to know, he will call them and ask them for a small favor (ie. I can't make the social gala party tonight, could you please take my check with you and drop it off to pay for my yearly dues...etc).

It’s sometimes a bit tricky to think up a favor the right size for the state of your relationship, but still useful enough to be real. Fake favors don’t work (and are frankly just weird).

Things like that read false, and mess things up. It needs to be something that actually helps you out, to give the right social signals.

These chains have been common at coffee shops drive-thrus in Canada for years, where the standard deviation of orders is very small: Almost everyone is just getting a coffee and maybe a donut. A couple of dollars, generally. I have to imagine that order size varies much more dramatically at a burger shack, and it has to suck if you and getting your cheeseburger and end up in a chain with a family of six behind you.

> To get a cooperative structure you have to give away surplus -- that is, people with more have to give it to people with less. Yes, redistribution!

This is correct up right up until the hyphen. Cooperation involves giving away surplus, but everyone has surpluses on different axes. Someone good at software development might have no idea how to fix his car; he gives away his surplus software development talent to someone with more knowledge of auto mechanics. Obviously the trade isn't direct since the mechanic might not want his software--so the developer trades his software for money, then trades money for the repair. This is cooperation!

If the person before me pays for my meal, I won't feel obliged to pay for the person after me.

How does it even work anyway? How do you know how much the person after you owes? It may work at drive ins but it's certainly impossible at a normal queue -- except if people leave a "standard amount" regardless of what the next order actually is.

And even at a drive-in where the amount of the next order is known, it's probably a big hassle for the cashier -- if not downright impossible: the point-of-sale system wants the exact amount if paid by card, and if using cash it's even more complex (the POS system tells the cashier how much to give back, and now this is false and has to be somewhat reconciled at the end of the day).

This sounds completely fake.

This is ultimately what makes this so bizarre -- in the end such a chain has a single "benefactor", and then a number of what could best be described as victims: People who become a part of this process because of social obligation. Given that the people were already in line and obviously ready to pay for their order, this is unwelcome generosity, and it takes advantage of the law of reciprocity in many cultures.

This sounds really cynical, and I suppose it is, but I see nothing heart warming about Western culture in these acts. If someone randomly paid for other people's food, that is one thing, but what we're reading about now are people obligating the people behind them to pay for the people behind them, essentially trying to become a part of something -- the initiator -- for little.

If I pull up to Tim Hortons and just want a coffee and a donut, having to understand and then orchestrate the chain is not something I was looking for, and in the end I've gained nothing.

But isn't it true that we collectively spend our lives chasing the ghost of connection, goodwill, and meaning? Don't you think that lacking those is one of the major "bugs" in western society?

So now we have a chain of people who get to participate in an act that brings them together, makes them part of a small "community," and allows to them to exercise both generosity and gratitude.

I think that's extremely valuable, and that someone has figured out how to do that for such a small price is pretty smart.

If you want evidence that my position is closer to reality than yours, consider how strongly stories like this resonate with people, and ask yourself why that's the case.

In fact other than you, the only person who knows the situation is the cashier, and they certainly aren't expecting meals to continue to be paid forward - the articles on the topic always mention how surprised they are when it happens. And to be honest I don't understand your social compass if being judged by a random restaurant cashier is that big a burden on your conscience.

My moral compass is not dictated by the presence of witnesses. If I'm at a park and no one is there to witness it, I still dispose of trash properly. I pick up after my dog without scurrilously looking around for other people.

One's "moral compass" should be internal, and might also be considered like karma. Most people do things because they believe it is right, not because they are being judged (though there are those people in this world, and they are the ones who dent and run and leave a big doggy steamer cooking in your yard). And in Western society one of the biggest burdens you can drop on someone is the sense of reciprocity.

If your moral compass is based on what you believe internally, I don't see how you are being obliged to do something by someone else if that person has no knowledge of whether you did it or not.

The origins of this term are somewhat different, and worth noting. The normal mode of reciporocity is to 'pay it back'. However, there are certain times when this would be physically impossible. This is the origin of 'pay it forward'. It results from the humble notion: I can never pay it back, so I will pay it forward. It has nothing to do with scaling (3x), nor contingency (i did this for you, now you do this...etc). It is a response to an actual act of kindness or generosity that precisely lacks such a contingency (most usually because you will never interact with the person that helped you out, ever again). It would have been nice for the NY Times piece to note this correctly! Its just too bad that the actual understanding of the term could not be promulgated through what is otherwise a good piece (likely to be widely read).

The article didn't claim it had anything to do with 3x. That was simply explaining the version in the movie, which did in fact popularize the term.

Sometimes, reading stuff here just makes me go WTF???

I think it has something to do with the fact that a lot of people here must be in a low mood because they're starting their own business and struggling, or hating their current job and wanting to do a startup.. I don't know. Just a hypothesis.

Could also have something to do with the natural skepticism of a lot of smart people who are used to poking holes in theories/systems/stories. All this is just conjecture of course but we should do a survey of some kind.

You're the one being cynical... It's just a bias, people don't comment if the only thing they have to say is "oh that's great".

Not every interesting opinion has to be a negative one, and not every criticism needs to be posed in a really nasty way. Most members of the HN community have been pointing out how the quality of comments on HN has degenerated of late, I was just thinking out aloud rather than passing judgment on people who come and comment here.

Sure, I'm a professional and I earn quite well, but any customer I've ever had will tell you that the value they received from me far exceeded what it cost them.

Delivering customer value. That's it for me. I'm really much less interested in all the other things we talk about here: languages, algorithms, hacks, investments, technology, etc. I'd rather hack my customers' problems than my own.

Why do I consider this paying if forward? Because of everyone who ever helped me get where I am: teachers, mentors, customers, peers, but mostly my parents and grandparents who all had difficult lives and made great sacrifices. They never had the opportunities I have now, a relatively easy life and the ability to turn nothing into something for someone else. I can't (literally) pay them back any more, but I can by paying it forward to others.

I always felt this way but never knew how to verbalize it until I heard the phrase "Pay it Forward". Thanks. Great HN post.

That's the whole point of capitalism (as opposed to what our non-representatives in DC call capitalism) -- with free trade everyone is better off.

Nice article though: people in the US, especially outside the big cities, are often very kind. My Italian wife is always pleasantly surprised by this when we're there.

It'd be exhausting to acknowledge everyone we pass, much less great them in a friendly way. It'd be exhausting if everyone asked you if you need help (and so too few end up doing it instead) just because it's obvious you're having a bad day.

And sheer numbers means running into the occasional people trying to scam you etc. is much more likely, and another reason for people to be more sceptical of your motivations etc.

Get past the shields people put up to cope with this, and there's plenty of kindness to find in big cities too.

You then just ask for your bill to include theirs as well. Or if you're part of a chain then just state that you'd like to pay their bill instead.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2877779

That makes me curious: is it possible to exploit by starting a pay-it-forward chain and then circling back around with a bigger order? Would there be a particular number of cars or time of day or order size that would maximize the likelihood of getting your final order paid for, and would it have a positive expectation when accounting for the initial outlay and the time commitment?

[Note that I am not advocating actually trying this; I'm satisfied with it as a thought experiment.]

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2004084452_webstarbuc...

Could just be me.

Sometimes I wish I had the option of tipping the fast food joint employees, as I think it would make them happier. Starbucks too, if you pay with credit card (as we are increasingly doing so), then we don't have that option anymore.

To add to the last point, I'd like to be able to give money direct to the employees, as I feel they wouldn't get a fair piece of it if the company was allowed to disburse it.

What good does to pay a meal for a person that could very much be paying their own meal? They can pay hundreds of dollars for a car, tens of dollars for a full tank of gasoline, yet they can't pay for a 4 dollars Big Mac?

If I had no money the last place for spending it would be on a fast-food place. There is much more you can do with 4 dollars. You can get better and healthier food.

So, instead why not help people who actually can't afford a Big Mac?

I've been in this situation. We need a car for work and so the outlay on the car and the gas is required if we want to earn money with the car. We can't however afford to eat at McDo' so you wouldn't find us in the line [also I disprove of drive-through].

Someone in a car at a fast food place is probably well off enough to afford the car, maintenance, gas, etc.

I believe this is why we have trouble passing a lot of social welfare programs, education reform, healthcare, etc. You hear a lot of complaints that boil down to "THEY will abuse the system" meaning whoever the speaker thinks is undesirable.

And that's why people like the "pay it forward in the drive-thru" style charity: the people you are helping are more likely to be just like you.

Situation 1) You drive up to pay for your food, you pay the price you were expecting, you leave with the same mood you arrived with.

Situation 2) You drive up to pay for your food, you find the person ahead has paid for you, you pay nothing, you leave happier because someone has been kind to you and you get a free lunch.

Situation 3) You drive up to pay for your food, and you find the person ahead has paid for you. You feel happier because someone has been kind to you, and in turn you pay for the person behind you. You pay an unexpected amount, possibly more than your own food cost. Now you leave with a lunch you may as well have paid for, but you leave happier.

In situation 2, the free lunch looks like the thing that makes you happier.

In situation 3, you might pay more than your lunch price and yet still leave happier.

In situation 3, everyone in the chain has gone to get some lunch, got some lunch, paid for some lunch ... and left happier.

And yet, if you tried to set it up to work this way - either the drive thru had a rule where you always paid for the person behind you (and if nobody was there you paid a random amount, or the average price of the previous N orders), or if there was a social expectation of same (i.e. like tipping, unwritten but obligatory), then I don't think it would work. In fact, going there expecting to pay an unknown amount seems like it would make me feel worse; and going there expecting a 'free' meal would tend to make me either order much more (it's free) or feel obliged to order less (someone else is paying), but either way be less comfortable about the whole deal.

It's not surprising to me that in the small scale, receiving kindness and/or doing something kind feels good. But it is surprising that on a wider scale, one system where everyone orders/pays/eats has minimal effect on mood and another where everyone orders/pays/eats results in a chain of tens of people feeling happier. (Side questions: It's easy for the article to present this as a chain of happiness, but how many people in the chains of tens of cars didn't feel happier, and felt indifferent? And how many felt worse yet obliged to participate to avoid looking stingy?)

My guess is that if it expands to be a social norm, it will hit the same kind of backlash as tipping does - arguments about whether taking your food and not paying for the people behind makes you a horrible person, or whether it's okay to pay for just the price of your meal for the people behind / whether you should be willing to pay 10% or 20% more than your meal, or whether if you're paying a random price because there's no car behind you, is it okay for the restaurant to come to depend on pocketing the difference for its profits.

Could we systematise the kindness/happiness effect without ruining it?

Kindness by definition isn't kindness if it is not voluntary.

I think the best you can hope for are social systems that don't reward cruelty.

Unkindness and cruelty still exist if they are built into systems, don't they?

Kindness does not work if it is forced. You can force people to do "kind" things, but that won't make them happy. Likewise, when we have unkindness built into systems, it doesn't necessarily make people feel bad, because they're being forced to do it (or at least, not as bad).

I think this is cool but there's more charitable ways to go vs. buying the rear-view clunker a milk shake.

I don't think it's particularly difficult to separate a few bigoted executives from the totality of the company.

Now, maybe I'm just a cynical Yankee, but I would say that kind of treatment is extremely rare in fast food joints where I'm from. All employees I've ever encountered are well trained, professional, and super-polite (but not in an overbearing way).

Admittedly subjective, but the few times I've gone to Chickfila, the politeness had a Stepford Wives superficiality to it. "It has been my pleasure to serve you today sir". Who says that?

P.S. How I assuage my Chickfila guilt: http://chickfilaconfessional.com/

It's a fallacy.