That is definitely an annoying cost of this policy, I hate it when traveling takes longer than it needs to 😉

But yeah, if part of the cheaper ticket deal is standing, then stand. It’s the same on the Wellington trains btw.

Although we may have rational agents, the choice to follow rules is a rule based method of maximising utility, which does not involve agents changing behaviour based on the latest information. If agents could re-evaluate their behaviour in their own best interest, the social norm would not hold in the first place.

As a result, any changes to the social norm must be the result of random mutations to the rule, which are not at the behest of individual agents.

There is a difference between the child example and the bus example. In the child example a rule developed that gave an individual information to use in their own best interest, these are likely to be optimal. In the bus example we had a social norm that evolved ‘potentially’ to put the social good above the good of the individual (this involves assuming that the value to sitting is greater for the adult than the child, or that it provides an appropriate social structure for transaction etc etc). It is possible for the social structure to change but for the rule to stay, in this case it may be better to have no rule, than an antiquated rule.

Just look at parenting in the 20th and 21st century. New fadish things were tried in parenting. A simple thing like how to deal with a crying baby had dozens of new and better solutions, but in the end what worked? Wrapping them up tightly, holding them, rocking them, and sssshing in their ear. This was known for centuries, millenia, before the experts came along to tell us a “better” way.

We have no such ones in Canada.

Human nature is so heavily intertwined with social issues that I find it difficult to believe that there will be any ‘mean-reversion’ within social structures. Social structures are not stable equilibrium, that is why they are so dynamic and changing. The only thing on see constant about human nature is the need to maximise utility, and all that tells us is that people have the ability to reference ‘self’ and make choices.

Although you are right that we should be careful about throwing out social norms, just because we feel they do not fit, after all there was a purpose for them in times gone by. However, I think the best thing to do would be to try and understand the purpose of the rule, and see if it still (or in some reasonably conceivable circumstances will) be a rule of thumb that is useful for society.

They are not going to be optimal at every point in time, covering all temporary social arrangements, but in the long-term (as in thousands of generations) they probably do better than their opposite.