Only rational if you're the last person in line and not moving doesn't spill people out of the designated waiting ropes.

Its only the same if you strictly consider 'the time I stand in this line'.

Its different because everyone behind her loses a feeling of progress from moving up, and it increases the queue length (at least visually) which can impact other people's decision on which queue to join which, of course can impact the other queues.

To think the way the image suggests is to be inconsiderate to others around you.

If people don't more forward, the line ends up overflowing past the stanchions and maybe even outside. It's not the same :P

Nah, move your ass forwards. It's no different to you right there in that point in the line.

But at the back of the line its no longer people queuing in the barriers, they have started making up their own queue which has now branched off in two directions and new people arent sure which branch to join. Other people are trying to get to something on the other side of these queues and have to squeeze past people.

I get the logic, and it's quite a good point if you have unlimited space for the queue, but stop being so entitled and move your stinky ass up the queue.

I get it, but I'd be worried that someone approaching the queue would see the big gap and mistake it for the back of the line. Then, instead of zig zagging through from the back, they duck under the ropes in front of her. She'd have her face buried in her phone and wouldn't notice. SO, this puts me in a position of having to watch out for such an occurrence - which stresses me out.

She should just move the fuck up.

I once got berated by a Costco employee for ducking under the queue ropes instead of zigzagging my way through. There was no one in the queue. Sometimes society needs more logical thinking.

Okay but in all fairness, psychologically it isn't the same. Humans perceive time moving faster when they're moving around in line or moving while waiting for something than they do when standing still while doing the same thing. So while technically time moves the same either way from an outside perspective, mentally if you aren't moving periodically as the line moves you perceive the time as passing more slowly.

I hate it so much when people do that with their cars. It just makes the traffic jam much longer than it needs to be, possibly even extending it over the previous exit. It's not rational, it's just plain stupid and annoying.

It's the same for her, not for everyone behind her. She's a perfect example of thinking only of herself.

Hyper rational in one dimension of thought.

What is rational for YOU might not be optimal for SOCIETY. This is the first lessons taught to toddlers when they learn about social ettiquete and mores.

A perfectly rational agent should choose behavior that works when other agents apply the same behavior.

If everyone uses her strategy, the queue can only get shorter if there's exactly one person left in the queue, but it gets longer each time someone joins it.

In an idealized world where everyone can instantly teleport, this doesn't technically reduce the throughput of the queue, however it does still increase its size unnecessarily. (and in the real world it also decreases throughput, potentially by a significant amount if the queue is physically long enough)
 

Even granting that she doesn't care about anyone else, the strategy is still slower for her even if she's the only one using it.

Judging from the picture, she will lose at least a few seconds when the person in front of her leaves the queue and she still has to walk the remaining distance to the front of the queue.

For a more extreme example, imagine the queue is a kilometer long. Assuming everyone before her shuffled along like the average queue enjoyer, she would now be one person-width away from the goal had she shuffled along with them.
If she used her "perfectly rational" strategy instead, she would now have to walk a full kilometer which, being very generous to her, would cost her an additional 12 minutes.

Perfectly rational behavior, if your only objective is to annoy others.
 

(there is perhaps an argument in favor of some variant of her strategy, if there is a high time/effort/opportunity cost associated with starting and/or stopping, but I think realistically this will rarely if ever be the case in an airport security queue)

Had a guy losing his fucking mind behind me in bumper to bumper traffic. I always like to keep about 1.5ish vehicle length (obviously not a real metric, just a guess) between me and the person in front in case people need to switch lanes or if I'm hit from behind.

When I say the guy behind me was mad, he was fucking LOSING it. He was screaming, he was flailing his arms, he was beating on his steering wheel, he was honking a shit ton.

He eventually just cut the lane beside me and the person next to me, just to get into the 30 feet of empty space in dead slow traffic. No idea why he thought this would somehow make any difference.

I honked at him several times just to fuck with him

Behaving rationally in a society means taking into account other people, as that's literally what a society is. This is irrational and selfish behavior.

A few years ago (when I commuted) I was driving in stop start traffic. I basically kept my car moving at tickover in 1st gear while the cars in from would pull about 8 car lengths ahead, stop, I'd creap up on them, then with luck traffic would start again and repeat. A chimp behind me couldn't hack this and switched lane, passed me out then reentered my lane so they could get ahead of me and join the rest in stop and start routine

Yeah nah, there's etiquette to proper queueing, and that ain't it

Standing in line is where society breaks down. It's a weird thing I enjoy; standing in line and observing those around me. I encourage anyone to try it. Just watch, and you'll start to see patterns of a handful or so of the same types of people.

If someone askl her to move why don't she ? As it don't change anything out worlds both ways. In a society people take care each other. It's just a stupid and childish behavior

I am the main character

Does she think this way at the bottom of an escalator? Stupidity