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Back Stateside
Apr. 30th, 2001 05:03 pmJetlag doesn't begin to describe it.
The Catalunya Internet cafe went down last night in mid-post, then apparently came back up again after I left, with me still logged in. My sister said she saw my AIM live, but it wasn't me using it. Meanwhile, I was making it back to my hotel at 1AM Barcelona time, to grab 4 hours of sleep before catching my plane to Germany, then here. 12 hours on planes today. 4 countries and 3 airlines in the last "day" for me. It's (mostly) good to be back in the States.
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Anecdotal aside -- in High School psychology, our teacher pointed out a group-psychology study where they put a couple people in a room, then wafted smoke under a door. The rest of the room was filled with people the psychologists planted there to ignore the smoke. Apparently, the group herd instinct was so strong, that if most of the room ignored it, the test subjects would, too. This has been seen in real life in certain disasters and crimes, where witnesses stood still without going for help.
The fact that the group instinct could be that strong completely horrified me. I think even back then a bit of libertarian core in me revolted against that loss of individuality, even if it was something caused by a physical evolutionary clump of neurons in our hindbrains somewhere.
Here's where I'm leading with this. The Atlanta International gates are on the farthest side of the airport from the baggage claim. There's a little underground subway train that takes you to each of the concourses. At the second to last stop, the subway jolted to a stop short of the concourse and the doors didn't open. The stupid electronic chip in the subway (they're unmanned) knew something was wrong, but couldn't get the doors open. It gave up and moved on. Just before the final stop, the entire train jolted to a stop 3 feet from the doors. We sat there for a couple minutes, patiently waiting for the doors to open. I eyed the emergency phone, and saw everyone else eyeing it as well, but none of us did anything, we just stared at the doors and made computer jokes. I remembered that stupid psych-class example, it annoyed me, so I opened the emergency phone and dialed up the faceless command center from which the trains were babysat. I never did get anyone human to answer the phone, but the phone did go offhook, followed by the doors opening (with all of us squeezing through doors two feet out of sync). Maybe the buzzing phone got the rent-a-dork to wake up and look at the console. A couple of people told me they were thinking of using the phone, too, but figured they'd just wait a little longer.
I know, nothing like a fire or hideous crime or anything, but it was still very satisfactory breaking from the herd.
The Catalunya Internet cafe went down last night in mid-post, then apparently came back up again after I left, with me still logged in. My sister said she saw my AIM live, but it wasn't me using it. Meanwhile, I was making it back to my hotel at 1AM Barcelona time, to grab 4 hours of sleep before catching my plane to Germany, then here. 12 hours on planes today. 4 countries and 3 airlines in the last "day" for me. It's (mostly) good to be back in the States.
----
Anecdotal aside -- in High School psychology, our teacher pointed out a group-psychology study where they put a couple people in a room, then wafted smoke under a door. The rest of the room was filled with people the psychologists planted there to ignore the smoke. Apparently, the group herd instinct was so strong, that if most of the room ignored it, the test subjects would, too. This has been seen in real life in certain disasters and crimes, where witnesses stood still without going for help.
The fact that the group instinct could be that strong completely horrified me. I think even back then a bit of libertarian core in me revolted against that loss of individuality, even if it was something caused by a physical evolutionary clump of neurons in our hindbrains somewhere.
Here's where I'm leading with this. The Atlanta International gates are on the farthest side of the airport from the baggage claim. There's a little underground subway train that takes you to each of the concourses. At the second to last stop, the subway jolted to a stop short of the concourse and the doors didn't open. The stupid electronic chip in the subway (they're unmanned) knew something was wrong, but couldn't get the doors open. It gave up and moved on. Just before the final stop, the entire train jolted to a stop 3 feet from the doors. We sat there for a couple minutes, patiently waiting for the doors to open. I eyed the emergency phone, and saw everyone else eyeing it as well, but none of us did anything, we just stared at the doors and made computer jokes. I remembered that stupid psych-class example, it annoyed me, so I opened the emergency phone and dialed up the faceless command center from which the trains were babysat. I never did get anyone human to answer the phone, but the phone did go offhook, followed by the doors opening (with all of us squeezing through doors two feet out of sync). Maybe the buzzing phone got the rent-a-dork to wake up and look at the console. A couple of people told me they were thinking of using the phone, too, but figured they'd just wait a little longer.
I know, nothing like a fire or hideous crime or anything, but it was still very satisfactory breaking from the herd.
