I think you're dead on with the "boo-hoo god forbid I'd have to sort my trash, raise my own kid, pack my grocery bag, carry my luggage mentality."

Whenever I'm offered these services I feel annoyed - what do I look like, a giant baby? I can carry my own bag.

The larger the wealth gap is in society, the more people become obsessed with comparing themselves to others and the more patterns we see designed to enable them to feel they come out on top in this comparison.

I've never understood porters in hotels. You've just transported your bags for possibly thousands of miles and many hours but they are going to take them the last few meters to your room by elevator on a cart and then they expect a tip for it.

In the civilised days when they began, I assume you had just been chauffeured to the hotel and the chauffeur has handed your bags off to the porter.

Maybe you'd still be wheezing from all of the road dust you'd been inhaling in the carriage the entire ride.

Only the more expensive hotels in the United States have porters. The Courtyard Marriott in Gettysburg, PA doesn't send a uniformed porter to get your bags. As far as porters in hotels in Sweden, most of the luxury hotels do (at least in Stockholm.) Trying to turn this into an "American superiority complex" thing is completely silly. Visit any major city in the world and nearly any full-service hotel in the world and there will be porters -- and it isn't just for the American tourists. I happen to like the Swedes and Sweden, however I hardly consider their culture any more superior than any other. All cultures have value and generalizations of any culture are pretty ridiculous.

man you just love yourself some tangents dont you?

According to what I read about our history, the US tried to get rid of tipping early on, in an effort to have a more egalitarian society, but people couldn't stand the idea.

As far as I have ever seen, most people don't mind sorting the trash, the different bins just aren't there.

In places where there is a single recycling can, I can't remember anyone throwing recycling into the trash can, with righteous indignation, muttering about the extra cost to their personal time.

"Actually, the Swedes really do believe in this. Everyone I know conscientiously sorts their trash."

Too bad they're wrong though. Talk about 'Stockholm syndrome' (get it? I'm so funny)