I think the current state of our society can be exemplified by my repeated experience in going to the bathroom at my university. Every day after my 10am course on semiconductor processing I leave the room and take the most direct route to the nearest bathroom for a piss. I exit the second story classroom left, head down the hall to the set of square stairs. I descend to the first floor, then to the basement. This basement only has water fountains and bathrooms. I piss. I head up to the first floor, then out the middle entrance to my bike, locked on the rack. And go about my day.

Doesn’t seem too bad right? A good routine. Go me, higher education and what not. But alas, no. I am disgusted by the state of our infrastructure, disregard for fellow man, and ultimate culture undertones which shape our behavior.

I was born pre-2000s. Barely. I only missed 1.5 years of my undergrad to the covid schooling. But my god, the younger folks in my classes are abysmal. They don’t answer questions. They stare blankly at the professor. They take notes on ipads. They don’t contribute in any way other than to be confused and lost. I’ve felt it before in other contexts, and maybe you have to. Where there is a thread that we’re all following in a lecture, or conversation, or joke, or movie, or anything that builds to a point or has a value through exploration of topic. And some people are on it, and some just aren’t. They miss the joke, the message in a film, or in the case of school, they miss what the obvious answer is that the professor asks to gauge comprehension. They sit, dumbly. Literally with the “If A goes to B, the B goes to ____. Well class what does B go to??” I’m sitting there with “C, C, C, C!” Screaming in my head, but since I’ve answered the last 5 questions I shut up and let some other sap go for it. But nothing comes, and I’m lumped in with the other idiots as we loop back and try a different way of explanation. I’m probably the dumbest guy in the room most time. All I do is pay attention, follow the thread. But these younger gens are either dumb, or so afraid of confrontation or being wrong that they literally lock up.
It’s a mixed class. Some chemical, some computer, and some electrical engineers. And the electrical crew that sit in the back are by far the worst. P = IV. Simple question. Shit I know from just general knowledge, he’ll pose a question for them and they look, cow eyed toward him, waiting for the answer to be given to them. It’s easy to wait and be stupid than to perform the effort of searching your own mind. Assuming it retains anything. Either dumb, or afraid. Both spell our doom as we hand the mayoral key of the world to the next generation.

Then leaving class. My god. The clicks of people walking in horizontal lines down the hall. Talking, or walking on their phones. No one looks up. No one seems to realize they are blocking the whole damn hall. Don’t you see we’re in this together? Don’t have a beat of compassion in your heart? A single sense of shame or courtesy for others? Does your phone really need to be in your face while you walk? On my biking around campus the amount of people who don’t see a bicycle coming at them because of their phone, or don’t hear me coming because of some headphones in. Its ridiculous. I’m very cautious, extra so because I know no one gives a damn. But seriously, zero sense of responsibility or even base level self preservation. Look both ways! Do you really need 100% stimulation from screens 100% of the time!

If they manage to walk in non-hallway-encompassing-zombie-like fashion and I reach the stairs, without fail everyday, either coming up or going down, there will be someone walking in the way on the left. I’ve literally had to stop for them to see me on the right, and shimmy past due to the central rail. I’m sure different countries have different customs, but in my part of the woods you walk on the right, drive on the right, go down especially stairs, on the right! Or they’ll be in their little groups, unwilling to break the horizontal walking scheme and take up the whole stairway. Then look surprised, or like its my fault when I’m coming up on the right most side and they have to move! My fault you live in your own world. My fault I keep others in mind. My fault I recognize this machine we’re in. The disgusted look from people as I wait for them to get the fuck out of my way, yeah MY way, by social custom the right side of the stairs is MINE. GTFOTW.

Luckily bathroom etiquette remains more or less in tact. First come, first serve. But there’s only two sinks, and only one paper towel dispenser. And these metro sexuals in their stupid outfits are always fixing their hair in the way of other people. There’s like 10 people in this small shitter and you’re holding up 1 of the 2 sinks, and the 1 paper towel dispenser, so lost in your own reflection to not realize you’re in everyone’s way. Then when you manage to reach a sink, its a goddamn push down kind. Not a screw faucet. You push down, and it expels water for a set period. I understand this is to prevent extra water usage. I think its a good thing. But could we at least engineer it to work correctly. You push it to wet your hands, then go for soap. The whole time its running. Then you go to rinse but it shuts off. So you push it again and use a little to rinse. Then it runs after you’re gone. Guess what morons, I just used more water than I would have if I turned it on and off myself, leaving it running in-between the whole time!

And I get it. You can’t trust anyone to bother turning it off. So an auto shutoff makes sense. For that lowest of scum amongst us. I get it, you have to play based on the worst card in your hand. And in terms of humanity, apparently the bottom rung is very, very low. And so I leave the building and go to the back rack to unlock my bike. That’s right. Here, on university campus, in my city, in my state, my bounded community, I need to lock up my personal bike. Don’t you see what that says about our culture? About how trusting and safe you feel from everyone around you? How do you fix it? Really? How does it get better? In Germany do kids lock up their bikes at school? What is so different about America, or my high crime state, in my high crime city? That I know for 100% fact that if I left my bike out plain, it would be gone within an hour. If I didn’t lock my car door, or even if I did but didn’t hide my backpack, something would get stolen. No wonder there’s an anxiety epidemic. No wonder everyone feels alone. Its sick, our society is sick. Diagnosably sick in the first two hours of my day. And don’t get me started on driving, or biking along with cars.