Now look, the guy was already in the Apple store.
It probably was John Holbo who came to replace his hallucinating USB port.
He gets in thru some other entrance, tech-support entrance.
He replaces the USB port and he walk in to the store.
He sees the queue, he realizes it’s that day when crazies line up for the new iphone.
He thinks it would be cool to get one now, today – what a story to tell in the university canteen.
He gets in line – the part of the line that’s inside the store – because he is already inside the store!
Yes, technically it’s cutting in, but is this really so terrible?

I moderately sure that I’ve never cut in line in my life, except by accident. For me, the importance of this norm has a lot to do with its triviality—that is to say, it’s a tragedy of the commons sort of thing.

In contrast, there’s a large number of social norms that I violate. The difference between what I violate and what I accept is generally how I evaluate the utilitarian function of the norm. I do have a moderate compulsion to rebellion, but believe that rebellion for rebellion’s sake to be immature and counter-productive.

Abb1’s simplistic argument assumes that people are either conformists or rebels with no distinctions made beyond these temperaments.

earlier in the evening, FomS and her pal had been in line for a club (£10 entry, limited capacity): an exciteable guy (and HIS pal) had pleaded with them to be let in line before them, and offered to pay for all their entries if they allowed him in—they accepted this if he also paid for the girl behind them, which he quite happily did… they rationalised this by a. finding it all a very strange and amusing adventure, and b. feeling that entry manifestly meant more to him than to them and probably many others in the queue, as witness how much more than the going rate he was prepared to shell out, so why not?

(also: they said the club turned out to be lame, even if you’d paid £0 for it, but i don’t suppose this should be included in the moral equation)

Btw, in some hierarchical situations backsies is a perfect expression of clique-based precedence: “My gang/entourage goes ahead of your gang.”

Otherwise – very good point.

I still don’t understand why no one here would support the idea that the line member who allowed the breach is the one who deserves the death penalty. This member has committed treason, she is one of us who has betrayed us all. The cutter himself isn’t doing anything unconscionable like that; nothing shocking really, we all understand that everybody wants to be a member of our line.

With most reasonable simple methods for calculating utility here, the person who allows someone to cut in front of them is losing the most, because their wait time increases by a larger fraction than anyone else. (Of course, that’s no reason for them to gain all the compensation from the transaction, as they typically do, but in a repeated-interaction world this should all balance out.) Then again, simple models aren’t really appropriate when stores have limited stock or limited open hours, or a significant number of people have hard constraints on their time (e.g. lunch hour). In those cases, cutting should be a capital offense, and the person who offers to let someone cut in front of them should be considered a co-conspirator.