I find the concept of a morgue on rails (no phone calls, no "loud" conversations...) pretty amazing. How'd we arrive to the point where we expect people to not be social in public places?
By letting people behave antisocial. In public transport, you cannot tell the noisy stranger to lower their volume because you risk being punched or worse. What is considered normal behavior in a typical subway is not considered acceptable where I grew up.
Well I guess you didn't grow up near the subway. It's a lot better now than it was.
A morgue is your best example of a place where people are expected to be respectful of other people in their close proximity? And yes, the fact that you’re in public and necessarily in very close proximity to other people is precisely why you would hope that people would be respectful.