So the elevators in the building where I have my office now sport LCD panels that play adverts on a continuous loop.

I’m curious, in the future, will elevator operators claim that if we don’t watch the ads that we’re stealing elevator rides from them? Just like the TV execs do today when you record a TV show with your PVR and then skip through the ads. Will there be a camera placed in each elevator to ensure you watch at least your fair share of the ads? The only thing that a TV showing ads in an elevator guarantees is that it won’t kill the conversation. There never is any! Mundanes riding elevators never talk to each other, even if they know everybody around them, haven’t seen them in a long time, have some really important news to tell – like the building is collapsing – or they were having a conversation about some really deep subject just prior to stepping on the elevator.

Put a few mundanes in the stairwell of the same building and they’ll start talking to each other as they take the stairs up to their office – or at least they will for the first few floors, then the huffing and puffing starts and the conversation starts coming in gasped bursts.

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