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Friday Fun Thread for May 3, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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You’re waiting at a bus station and there’s a big queue beside you at the next stop. Your bus pulls up and the big queue realises they’ve been waiting at the wrong stop the whole time and shuffle over.

In this situation are you in the right to take your place at the head of the new queue and reap the rewards for your good judgment or should you respect the misdirected queue and move to the back?

"Get behind me, Satan, I was here first" is the only thing these losers will hear from me.

The whole point of a queue is to facilitate quick embarking. Queuing on the wrong stop seems counter-productive in that regard.

Of course, betting that the queue is wrong about where the front door by a meter and starting a new queue on that spot is probably not very English. (Ideally, there would be marks on the floor where the queue ought to start.) But if there are two bus stops, it is reasonable to assume that the other queue wants to get on a different bus. In that case, starting a queue for your own bus stop seems ok.

Of course, we Germans don't queue for the bus. To get us to stand next to strangers, we would require greater rewards than simply slightly more efficiency when entering the bus.

This form of reasoning is alien to me. I don't think queues are Gods spoken word like the British but I don't entirely disrespect them either. For the most part, I respect the queue and don't cut in, ever.

I don't see any reason at all why one would give up their first place in this situatioin. You were right, they were all wrong. You stood in the real queue, they stood in the false one. Why does the abstract queue matter here???

The whole point of a queue is to serve in order of arrival, and you arrived first. If your logic is extended, then the first person to leave their house should get on first! The game theory of this doesn't work either. You WANT the system to reward good judgement and punish bad judgement!!!

This is just a pathological level of oversocialization, to have even had these thoughts occur in your mind... Jesus Christ. I wish I knew you, so I could take advantage of you.

This is just a pathological level of oversocialization, to have even had these thoughts occur in your mind... Jesus Christ. I wish I knew you, so I could take advantage of you.

This is unnecessary. I'm sure you're a shark among seals, but don't do this.

🦈

This is just a pathological level of oversocialization, to have even had these thoughts occur in your mind

I phrased it in the abstract but this was a real situation which led to an argument with an angry old woman!

The whole point of a queue is to serve in order of arrival, and you arrived first. . . You WANT the system to reward good judgement and punish bad judgement!!!

I agree my judgment was better and put me in the right. though technically I arrived at the correct stop first whereas everyone else was waiting in the rain before I showed up.

Jesus Christ. I wish I knew you, so I could take advantage of you.

What do you want me to say to this, what's your deadlift 1rm?

I would just get on the bus. But, also, there are almost never actually lines for busses in my region, so it wouldn't come up. Even when I was taking the CTA, everyone just spreads out, there isn't a queue.

After witnessing the events of 2020-2022, take my rightful place at the head of the queue.

The only person in life who will consistently look out for you, is you.

This is like the unscissor statement. Whether you're unvaccinated or still masking, you can agree on the above.

Aren't you like, standing right by the door in front of all the other people? Just step on the bus dude.

There's a few minutes between the bus pulling up and the doors opening, enough time to argue with an old woman is less abstract terms than I have phrased it above.

I haven't lived in England in over a decade now so any respect for bus stop queues has atrophied. I regularly "jump queue" just by standing closer to the kerbcurb than the other aspiring passengers, thus reaping the rewards for my lower risk aversion.

That's almost a prisoner's dilemma, but I suppose technically counts as Chicken. You're doing a (very slightly) negative sum interaction in order to siphon zero sum rewards away from other people. Nash equilibrium, everyone does this and ends up worse off than if they just respected the queue. (Although I suppose queues themselves are a bit of a prisoner's dilemma with respect to arrival time)

Are they worse off? Queues are certainly good in some situations but I'm not sure that holds true for bus stops.

Trick question, I would never be waiting at a bus station (and I did have breakfast this morning).

But really, I would go get my first-mover advantage if I could. I can see the case for lining up the same way, but people probably won't, and I'll be damned if I going to get the short end of the stick because of a coordination failure.

What's the distance here? To me, waiting at the next stop makes it sound like they're a block or two away. In that case I think that they're too far away to really have a good objection if you're at the front of the line. On the other hand if the bus pulled up a few feet away from the stop like @DradisPing suggested, then you don't get to jump to the front of the line because the people waiting were slightly off.

The other stop is 10 feet away (I’m bad with feet, more like 5 metres) but clearly a distinct stop. Think of a bunch of separate queues and a few empty stops in between, like an intercity bus station.

I've never seen such a thing, but it seems to me like you're saying those are stops for separate bus routes, and the other crowd was at the wrong one? I feel like in that case one doesn't owe to people to go to the back of the line.

You've never seen anything like this?

https://vikpahwa.com/20140522-waiting-for-a-bus-on-ttcs-modernist-finch-subway-station-bus-platform-toronto-c-1974/

Where each of those signs is a departure point for a different bus route. I didn't realize it was unusual.

I didn't realize it was unusual.

It is! I live in Europe and I've never seen anything like the multiple bus stops in the picture.

Can't say I have. My experience with the bus begins and ends with taking it from one stop on the side of the street to another. I'm not saying they're necessarily unusual, just that I've never interacted with one.

Yep, it's a central bus station so all the stops are beside each other but they go to different towns and cities.

Bus stops are merciless. I've regularly lost my spot at the front of the queue because I was 30 inches to the left of where the bus actually stops and the next person decided to start a new queue.

Of course it's regional. England is legendary for strict queue etiquette. I have no helpful insights if you're in the UK.