Sometimes a simple act of performing daily chores turn out rather philosophical for me. Consider this seemingly mundane scenario: the beep of a washing machine signals that the clothes are ready to be moved to the dryer. I mechanically transfer the laundry out of the washer into a bucket and investigate the lint trap. Once again, it's dirty. My roommate, it appears, hasn't cleaned it — again.

Usually this sparks annoyance but today it's a moment of introspection for me. I notice a pattern: the ratio of the number of times the lint trap is cleaned to the number of times the dryer is loaded greater than 1 for me while it is less than 1 for my roommate. Yet, when I add these ratios together, the sum is exactly two, and the average is precisely one. I remark, this offers an intriguing analogy for the distribution of responsibility and thoughtfulness within the society as a whole.

The lint theory of society — Do you clean up the trap after using the dryer, ensuring that the next person encounters a clean slate (lint cleaners) or do you clean up the slate only before using it, occasionally finding it clean and not having to clean at all (lint ignorers). The concept parallels everywhere in our collective lives — paying taxes for using public services, holding the door open for someone after passing through, choosing early or late exits on highways, the "take one, leave one" principle in little free libraries, returning grocery store carts, refilling the water cooler, and so on.

This leads me to asking: are lint cleaners better than lint ignorers for the society?
I would argue not — The existence of lint cleaners inherently implies the existence of lint ignorers, and vice versa. In a world where everyone ignores the lint, there would be no dichotomy, no division of roles — only a unified state of being. The range of expected value of the number of times a lint cleaner cleans the trap for every dryer use is between 1 and 2, this range, however, for a lint ignorer is between 0 and 1. If buddha becomes real and everyone turns into a lint cleaner, the world's expected value would be 1 which is same as if satan becomes real and everyone is a lint ignorer. The range of expected cleanings for a lint cleaner is higher than that of a lint ignorer therefore, one might argue that lint cleaners are superior. They bear a greater burden, sacrificing their time and effort for the collective good, and are thus superior in their selflessness. While true in a sense, this perspective misses the bigger picture. Lint cleaners, while enduring the physical inconvenience of cleaning up after others, also gain a sense of virtue, a mental comfort in knowing they’ve acted righteously. Lint ignorers, on the other hand, simply remain unaware of this satisfaction, as the concept of virtue (for an insignificant stupid lint) simply doesn't resonate with them. At scale, the suffering and the comfort, the burden and the virtue, all evens out, all is at peace. The universe finds its balance.

For a moment, I find contentment in this realization — with some overreaching mental gymnastics I've established my roommate suffers no less than me. I clean up the lint trap and look into the dryer. Horrors. My theory has collapsed. My roommate hasn't even removed his laundry from the dryer from two days ago. Fuck virtue, I am back to annoyance. In a moment of defiance, I decide not to clean up the lint trap after me.

Is this how war works?

PS: I love my roomate, he's chill