Not discussing pay rate with coworkers/colleagues. I mean, talk about complicity via fear. 🫪

Socrates would say, and I would agree, that by following the rule we have already agreed to it.

No one alive today agreed to Daylight Saving Time.

Hands clasped behind the back means, "just looking". Seems pretty universal. People do this in stores all the time.

The elevator one seems pretty universal, but "ope" is regional.

These kinds of social norms aren't universal.

One that I wish were more universal would be standing on the right when using an escalator, and leaving the left side for walking.

‘How are you today?”

“Good, you?”

“Good, thanks.”

Neurodivergent peeps in this thread: 👀

Order of Adjectives. You do this unconsciously and don't even know you're doing it.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/adjectives-order

"The big black house up on the hill."

Never "The black big up on the hill house."

1 - opinion - unusual, lovely, beautiful
2 - size - big, small, tall
3 - physical quality - thin, rough, untidy
4 - shape - round, square, rectangular
5 - age - young, old, youthful
6 - colour - blue, red, pink
7 - origin - Dutch, Japanese, Turkish
8 - material - metal, wood, plastic
9 - type - general-purpose, four-sided, U-shaped
10 - purpose - cleaning, hammering, cooking

I like the tradition of "bless you!" when someone sneezes, but it is surely not necessary. And why do we say that for sneezing but not coughing?

feel the need to say 'ope' when we almost bump into someone

Found the midwesterner?

Having to sell our labor for a fraction of the profit and being outcast if you want to opt out.

Coupling healthcare to employment.

Forcing the majority of retirement savings to be tied up in the stock market and killing company sponsored pensions.

Showing respect to or emulating rich people.

All of them, in a way. We don't sign on to social rules we just kind of learn them, usually from our parents, then from other kids. Someone who's never been in an elevator might face inwards. I'm from the North of England. The first time I took a ride on the London tube I was 30ish, and I was completely unaware of the incredibly complex and subtle social rules at play there. I made eye contact and even smiled. I tried to strike up a conversation. This was completely wrong to do, it turns out. I never agreed to be so unfriendly, specifically on the tube, but now, I am.

So anyway to answer your question, the weird requirement to sort of suppress your humanity on public transit in big cities is maybe necessary, definitely not hilarious, but very, very strange.

I miss the days of stopping at a yellow light to let the person turning left go.

"Ope! Lemme just scooootch on by ya!"

i wonder if there is natural instinct to not have your back to the only opening in any space... which then leads to the question of how can you discern a 'silent social contract' from instinct? is there even a difference?