Nah, move your ass forwards. It’s no different to you right there in that point in the line.
But at the back of the line its no longer people queuing in the barriers, they have started making up their own queue which has now branched off in two directions and new people arent sure which branch to join. Other people are trying to get to something on the other side of these queues and have to squeeze past people.
I get the logic, and it’s quite a good point if you have unlimited space for the queue, but stop being so entitled and move your stinky ass up the queue.
Another point is the perception of progress. We all enjoy a progress bar that gradually fills up to one that sits at 20% then jumps to 100. It reduces our anxiety.
Looks kinda empty to me in the picture
You can’t even see the line behind the lady that is stopped. We have no perspective here. Looks empty from this specific angle, but what’s behind her in the line? There could be hundreds of people for all we know.
Exactly, we don’t know, so let’s not insult her until we have the full context.
She’s not on trial, there’s no punishment for judgement. We are discussing that the situation that is being caused is non-optimal for society and you should tend to move forward with the line at a comfortable pace.
There’s very little upside for leaving that giant gap, and quite a bit of downside if you don’t pay perfect attention to the full situation in front and behind (which you aren’t doing if you’re staring at your phone…)
stinky bum bum
I get it, but I’d be worried that someone approaching the queue would see the big gap and mistake it for the back of the line. Then, instead of zig zagging through from the back, they duck under the ropes in front of her. She’d have her face buried in her phone and wouldn’t notice. SO, this puts me in a position of having to watch out for such an occurrence - which stresses me out.
She should just move the fuck up.
Or the queue could get so long that it is no longer within the allotted space and is now obstructing other passengers. It’s true that it is the same for HER if she moves along or waits, but that is not necessarily true for everyone else.
Yeah if more followed her logic it would be a bad scene
I was going to post saying she isn’t wrong but you changed my opinion. Brb grabbing my pitchfork
There’s presumably people behind her so you’d have to walk past other people in line to do that.
Only rational if you’re the last person in line and not moving doesn’t spill people out of the designated waiting ropes.
Why take less space when can take more?
Kevin took that advice to heart
It’s still rational if you don’t care about those people though
Willful denial of the feelings of others is irrational in itself. Everything you know about humanity should lead you to believe that others have feelings too
I guess it depends on your definition of “rational”. From a pure logic perspective (i.e. the math definition) being rational just means making optimal choices in pursuit of your goals. I can be perfectly rational, understand that others have feelings, and simply not care about them unless they benefit me. Being perfectly rational basically makes you a sociopath, only considering other factors or people when they further your goals. Emotions and feelings are irrational to begin with, but sometimes it’s better to be a little bit irrational
I think you’re just fundamentally misunderstanding what being rational means. There is nothing inherently rational in being selfish or only caring about your own goals and what benefits you, especially not when you are a member of a species that evolved to be extremely social and community focused. Emotions and feelings aren’t inherently irrational either. They can certainly be expressed in irrational ways, but they themselves are neither rational or irrational. They’re just a fact of nature. You might as well say it’s irrational for living creatures to have to excrete waste. Sure, it may be irrational to take a piss on your boss right before asking for a raise, but the act of taking a piss is not in itself rational or irrational. It’s just a bodily function. So if you refuse to take that factor into consideration because you claim it’s irrational, well that’d just be ridiculous.
Imagine a teacher refusing to let a student get up to go to the bathroom because they claim it’s irrational to need to take a piss, and therefore perfectly rational to force them to stay where they are and ignore their bodily needs. The teacher is being selfish in that situation, only making optimal choices in pursuit of their own goals (to teach the class without interruption), and doesn’t care about the other person’s need to perform bodily functions unless it benefits them. And yet I think most people with even half a brain cell will agree that the teacher in this scenario is not in any way shape or form acting rationally. They’re just being a dickhead.
Sociopaths aren’t more rational than other people or “too rational”, they lack the ability to feel empathy or they only feel a small amount of empathy but not enough to affect their decisions. It has nothing to do with being rational or logical, sociopaths can often be very stupid irrational people. Not to mention, while sociopaths often don’t care about how other people feel, they do often care about how other people perceive them.
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Rationality doesn’t exclude emotions or empathy. That’s just being literal, not rational.
I hate it so much when people do that with their cars. It just makes the traffic jam much longer than it needs to be, possibly even extending it over the previous exit. It’s not rational, it’s just plain stupid and annoying.
Depends. Bigger gaps mean the traffic jam will get better faster since it reduces the stop and go. Ofc the gaps need to be reasonable but the people driving bumper to bumper make it even worse
Every time you touch the brakes on a highway, you risk fucking up the flow for countless others behind you.
If everyone followed the one rule “keep as much space in front of me to the next car, as there is behind me to the next car, at all times” it would do the most to alleviate most traffic jams.
I feel so vindicated
keep as much space in front of me to the next car, as there is behind me to the next car, at all times
this is the right way.
That’s a bad idea as heavier cars have longer stopping distances. You should give an 18 wheeler 3-4 times the distance you would an SUV.
Sure…and if you were the 18 wheeler, you would give the proper stopping distance to the car in front of you, but it would be up to the person behind you to make sure they give you the same birth from behind. If they are on your (the 18 wheelers) ass, they would be causing traffic.
This isn’t meant to be a license to speed up it someone is riding your ass, it’s a rule that if EVERYONE followed, it would dramatically cut traffic jams.
Yeah, it’s really fun trying to “fix” minor traffic jams by holding back a while then moving forward very slowly. If you time it right you never catch up to the car in front, because they reach the front of the queue before you reach them. Then there’s no traffic jam left behind you, because everyone is moving.
I’m kinda in between. When the car in front of me drives off and stops I’ll creep slowly with my car 50% of the time I can keep a slow pace without start and stop.
That’s not a problem, in fact it even helps the flow. What I meant was when folks keep an excessive distance to the next car, like in the OP (that lady could advance like, 10 places or so, translated into car lengths that would be 50 meters).
There are people who literally turn off their engine and don’t start it again until they can go for 100 meters or more. This wastes road space and encourages lane-hopping, which also makes the traffic jam worse.
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What is rational for YOU might not be optimal for SOCIETY. This is the first lessons taught to toddlers when they learn about social ettiquete and mores.
Lubricate don’t agitate, is another neat saying. Some things just help everyone stay calm and feel in control in shitty situations, it’s not the time to make edge lord points.
It’s the same for her, not for everyone behind her. She’s a perfect example of thinking only of herself.
It’s the same for everyone, unless they plan to jump queue.
It’s the same until the line backs up enough to be out of the roped off area.
Technically, same until just before then, unless everybody responds very quickly and joins the line in order with no issue
Its the same for everyone behind her as well, unless you forgot how lines work. Id rather stand still for 5 minutes and move 15 feet than 18 inchs every 30 seconds.
Have you never been to a busy airport before? The lines already fill the breezeway even when they move forward. What do you think is going to happen with the constant flow of people arriving at a line that doesn’t move? It’s going to quickly become a safety hazard.
This is exactly the mentality in the roads on my country “either way there’s traffic so I stop 10 meter from the car in front of me when on the traffic light” then less cars pass the light which means mor traffic waiting at the lights. People just do t get it but they only think about themselves
Been to quite a few, only one that has ever been packed to the point it would matter would have been Dulles. I tend to go to smaller airports.
Had a guy losing his fucking mind behind me in bumper to bumper traffic. I always like to keep about 1.5ish vehicle length (obviously not a real metroc, just a guess) between me and the person in front in case people need to switch lanes or if I’m hit from behind.
When I say the guy behind me was mad, he was fucking LOSING it. He was screaming, he was flailing his arms, he was beating on his steering wheel, he was honking a shit ton.
He eventually just cut the lane beside me and the person next to me, just to get into the 30 feet of empty space in dead slow traffic. No idea why he thought this would somehow make any difference.
I honked at hit several times just to fuck with him
My father taught me to leave enough space in front of me in case of being hit, but also in case I need to get out of the line for some reason. I’ve had to get out of line a number of times over the years due to accidents. I have 3 routes I can take to get to work, so once I realize there’s an accident I can just turn around and go another way. Works out well, but sure does piss off people behind me sometimes.
Most importantly, you need enough space to account for your reaction speed + the time your vehicle takes to brake. On slow traffic that’s one or two cars but as you approach highway speeds it’s like 15, which no one observes. And higher during snow or rain.
There’s something like a spring effect, you should try to keep the same distance between the car in front of you and the one behind you, watch this it’s very informative: https://youtu.be/iHzzSao6ypE
Most importantly you should do your best to drive at one, single, steady, speed, and not stop and go. In civilised countries that kind of thing gets taught in driving lessons, three or four people acting correctly can dissolve a traffic jam.
We (United States) were taught this in 1987 when I took drivers ed at school. When my oldest got her license there was no longer a driver’s ed course. Must have cost more than the conservatives wanted to pay.
It’s better to build multi million dollar football stadiums and buy sports equipment than it is to actually give an education, obviously. Why else would we send them to school everyday?
I’ve had people pass me in traffic when I’m leaving a couple car lengths between me and the person ahead of me. It’s like, what’s the point?
As if … Where’s he going? That many feet changes nothing. I live in a city famous for leaving a lot of space between cars, there are memes about it. So for this thread I’ll explain a couple of why’s:
- Me personally , it became a habit when car jackings became a possibility. A less easy target mentality.
- Insurance is crazy high here and so ,as you mentioned, the not being forced into the car ahead of you .
- There have been multiple shootings in road rage in this city over the last year. Everyone kinda wants space and eyes on others or what may be happening, room to react or move. Also not into riding a cars bumper and maybe causing another incident.
I’m sure there are as many reasons as there are people, but these are the obvious ones.
A perfectly rational agent should choose behavior that works when other agents apply the same behavior.
If everyone uses her strategy, the queue can only get shorter if there’s exactly one person left in the queue, but it gets longer each time someone joins it.
In an idealized world where everyone can instantly teleport, this doesn’t technically reduce the throughput of the queue, however it does still increase its size unnecessarily. (and in the real world it also decreases throughput, potentially by a significant amount if the queue is physically long enough)
Even granting that she doesn’t care about anyone else, the strategy is still slower for her even if she’s the only one using it.
Judging from the picture, she will lose at least a few seconds when the person in front of her leaves the queue and she still has to walk the remaining distance to the front of the queue.
For a more extreme example, imagine the queue is a kilometer long. Assuming everyone before her shuffled along like the average queue enjoyer, she would now be one person-width away from the goal had she shuffled along with them.
If she used her “perfectly rational” strategy instead, she would now have to walk a full kilometer which, being very generous to her, would cost her an additional 12 minutes.Perfectly rational behavior, if your only objective is to annoy others.
(there is perhaps an argument in favor of some variant of her strategy, if there is a high time/effort/opportunity cost associated with starting and/or stopping, but I think realistically this will rarely if ever be the case in an airport security queue)
I feel validated
I think you’re there with the last bit of your comment. The goal isn’t to only move once, the goal is to minimise stops and starts. If everyone does this is a self sorting system. If someone has the rule “try to only move forward once every x minutes (unless you are at the front or the queue overflows)” then the queue gets into a rhythm that works.
In a queue like this there is extra effort in picking up your bags and stopping so the worst case scenario is everyone moving exactly as space is available.
Problem is that “unless the situation doesn’t allow it” means you have to constantly be aware of how the situation is evolving, so you’re trading “move your bag a couple extra times” for “stay hyper aware of the environment and ensure you’re not starting a chain reaction of assholery” cause that can happen real quick at an airport.
Well put. There’s just something about airports that turns off people’s cooperative reasoning abilities. I’m sure I’m guilty in numerous ways too, but when I really focus on the little things that people do with complete disregard for others, it just makes me feel like they simply don’t care about anyone else but themselves. Most of the time I’m sure I’m just being uncharitable, but other times…!
I have agreed with that first line of yours for a long time. Some of the behaviors that seem the most asshole-ish in other people are those that both would cause chaos if everybody did it, and are easy to avoid or fix.
I guess that’s why even mundane things like this lady in line or shitty parking make people stand out is such a bad way.
If someone askl her to move why don’t she ? As it don’t change anything out worlds both ways. In a society people take care each other. It’s just a stupid and childish behavior
Why would anyone aske her to move? It makes no difference how much space is in front of her. To me, creeping up on the people in front of you is the childish behavior.
No, that’s what makes a queue a queue. Think if everyone in the queue acted like this, you wouldn’t have a queue, just a bunch of people standing around without organisation. We move up striaght away to maintain the structure of the queue so we can all tell where it starts and ends, who is I front of and behind who.
If we do not respect the core structure of a queue we surrender to discord and forsake the simple beauty and elegance of the queue and betray the civilation that queue allows us to make.
Source: am British.
well said, I’d also just skip ahead of her since she is no longer in a queue
No, if everyone acted like this it would be a tightly packed queue apart from one gap near the start. There would only be a gap behind her if she was moving too quickly for the person behind her to bother moving, and the whole point is she’s not doing that. The one gap doesn’t matter because of the barriers.
This is why I hate airports. She’s right and her behavior actually makes it better for everyone, but people are too illogical to see it and get angry with her. There are simple logical solutions to every part of the airport experience, but people just do what they’ve always done or behave like dumb animals instead. Like rushing to be at the front of the boarding queue, when seats are reserved.
It doesn’t make it better, large gaps in the line extend the amount of space the line needs in the facility. During busy hours that would extend the line far out into areas needed for other things.
It’s only the same thing for the person leaving the gap, due to the fact that there’s ropes preventing people from getting between the person standing there and the person in front of them.
Also, if the gap gets big enough that the time spent gathering up your luggage and moving to the front of the line causes delays, those delays will add up during busy times.
It’s a game of chicken at that point, and if everyone acted like that, it would significantly increase wait times.
you would be right, but the social construct of a line is one of managed movement. stand right behind the person in front of you, moving forward every time they adjust their standing position so you’re breathing down their neck the entirety of the queue? wrong. Stand there while a gap enough to fit 10 people opens in front of you? also wrong.
in the first scenario you’re making the person in front of you uncomfortable, in the second scenario you’re making the people behind you frustrated at the lack of movement.
you’re in a walking queue, if walking is inconvenient for you to such a degree that you can’t move forward with the pace of the line, then an accommodation such as a wheelchair, a luggage carrier, or checking in elsewhere should be arranged by you.
she IS in the wrong.
Because we don’t know how much space is behind her, and the people waiting behind her. By her not moving to fill the available space, she may wind up causing people to overflow the line.
Counterpoint: Because you are not advancing, neither is everyone behind you. And as a result, the experience in the queue is one of stagnation, which makes waiting in the queue more frustrating until the very moment that it’s finally your turn.
So no, I think staying put while the queue ahead of you is moving is worse behaviour than creeping along.
Following that logic, taking a turn and waiting to be called up, would be the most frustrating outcome of all?
Not quite, you are still aware numbers are being called and you can equate that to progress through the wait. It would be the same if they somehow concealed all sense of forward progress through the queue.
You can still see there are fewer people left in the queue… unless it’s really long and you’re far in the back, but then likely wouldn’t notice much of a difference either.
You mean like at the dmv? Yeah, I’d say you’re probably right.
So because the customer service is so abysmal, we should voluntarily engage in our own little acts of self placation to compensate for the liveable hours we’re contributing to the system? That doesn’t seem healthy. Seems like a quick way to end up with absurdly long lines for no discernable benefit.
Living in their own smartphone. Just like you while you drive.
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Behaving rationally in a society means taking into account other people, as that’s literally what a society is. This is irrational and selfish behavior.
Okay but in all fairness, psychologically it isn’t the same. Humans perceive time moving faster when they’re moving around in line or moving while waiting for something than they do when standing still while doing the same thing. So while technically time moves the same either way from an outside perspective, mentally if you aren’t moving periodically as the line moves you perceive the time as passing more slowly.
I was thinking more practically, now the line forms outside of where it’s supposed and can get in the way
That too.
If people don’t more forward, the line ends up overflowing past the stanchions and maybe even outside. It’s not the same :P
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“We’re a society” does not explain at all why what she did was wrong.
Most upvoted comment does.
She’s out of line, but she’s right.
Err…
Yeah nah, there’s etiquette to proper queueing, and that ain’t it
