Taking the stairs instead of the lift

When I moved into this new place, I used to take the stairs once in a while, because one of the two lifts was broken. Many people would wait for the one lift to arrive instead of taking the stairs. There is a gate in the staircase, which many people didn’t even know existed. Once both lifts were fixed, I stopped taking the stairs actively. I forced myself to take it when I went for a run and came back - but generally lift become the norm again.

Before elevators were even a thing, humanity used to take the stairs. Upper floors were even seen as poor mans quaters [0]. They were seen less attractive, because climbing the stairs takes physical effort.

Before elevators, you had to carry your groceries up the stairs, you had to move the furnitures thorugh the staircase, had to carry your kid up the stairs. People who were handicapped were unable to see the upper floors, unless they were helped by others - but it needed organisation.

Now, we live in a world where elevators are everywhere. They might be even enforced by law. In fact, where there is an elevator, there are also stairs. In case the elevator fails to work. Nowadays, I don’t even think to take the stairs anymore, my first choice is immeditaly to take the lift. Some people take it to the first floor, others prefer to walk the first few floors, but it takes some mental effort to reject the lift. Stairs are mostly more accessible than lifts.

Stairs are a fallback in case the elevator does not work. People would easily complain and bash on stairs. They would only take the stairs when no elevator is there, or were really motivated to take the stairs. You would even get weird looks if you suggested stairs instead of the lift.

Noawadays, I feel that we are re-living another transition from stairs to lifts as the default mode of moving up the floors. The perception of lower floors, upper floors, stairs and lifts are changing. We should not forget about why stairs are there, and that effort is needed to use them, otherwise you will never be able to see the upper floors again.

In case you did not get what I am talking about:

• Yes, this article is about offloading your mental effort to LLMS
• Yes, this article is about writing code with LLM
• Yes, this article is about learning when to use AI
• Yes, I had to walk down and up a few stairs to come to this conclusion
• No, there were no matrix multiplication performed writing this article, at least not willingly
• Yes, this article was proofread by other humans - they might have taken the stairs, I told them not to, but can’t guarantee that.

[0] How elevators transformed NYC’s social landscape