Pass It On? Hard Pass.

Altruism, as Ayn Rand has demonstrated, does not mean kindness or benevolence; it means that man is a sacrificial animal; it means that some men are to be sacrificed to others. -- Leonard Peikoff

***

Years ago, I was in the car line at a Starbucks and was puzzled to learn at the payment window that "the gentleman ahead of you has paid for your order."

Then ignorant of the self-congratulatory, performative ritual variously known as pay it forward or pass it on, I accidentally gave one of the only two acceptable answers.

"What a pleasant surprise!" I said, as I accepted my free order at the pick-up window and left, performative chain of unchosen obligations broken.

The other correct reply, I think you'll agree after seeing this Reddit thread on the subject, would be No thanks!

As I elaborated at some length in an earlier post about performative driving "etiquette," practitioners of such rituals suffer a form of altruism-induced myopia, as if they see only the presumed needs of those immediately next to them -- at the expense of the larger picture of how rude (or even dangerous) they are being to others around them, sometimes even including the alleged benefactor of their largess.

The driver who slams his brakes "generously" to allow for someone to proceed out of turn upsets the expectations of anyone else in the vicinity, increasing the likelihood of an accident.

The pay it forward guy is cut from the same cloth.

The obligation he is trying to foist on you, for example, can blow your budget, should you choose to accept it:

I came for the cheapest thing on the menu - popcorn is like two dollars. And there was a large family behind me. And most people were coming in big groups for alcohol. So I might have gotten free popcorn, and I appreciate the gesture, but I might then have had to shell out fifty bucks for beer for a bunch of randos.

And as for the workers in a line, there can be inordinate degree of inconvenience:

Former barista here and yes, pass it on sucks. In a drive thru, every order automatically pops up on the register. Now imagine having to manually override that every single time to account for people paying for the car after them, while you're also on a clock that automatically reports the time from order to delivery to your district manager, and everyone is technically waiting longer for their order to be delivered because they have to pull forward for the next person to take the order that's already been cashed out for minutes. Mind you, being in the red for too long on the timer can get your whole team into trouble.

Those who start these chains are being thoughtless and putting others on the spot, which is rude to begin with. On top of that, there may be consequences many of them would rather not saddle others with if they took a moment to consider them.

And, while the temptation to pass along a pleasant surprise out of good will is understandable, it is on the (would-be) recipient to decide against it if there is a sacrifice -- however small -- of self or others involved in doing so.

-- CAV