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Pretty sure on planes this is more ignorance than malice. It’s self absorbed people that are too selfish to consider someone else might not want to hear what they’re watching, rather than some deliberate anti society thing.

Regardless, no punishment is too harsh, this should be considered the equivalent of lighting up a cigarette on a plane.

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Another angle is kids who have been given a tablet as a pacifier. Their parents are often on autopilot, having checked out months or years earlier.

On topic (and discussed already on HN): https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu

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I'm not a fan of the tablet as a pacifier approach but it's not my business. What is my business is when the parents do so without providing a way for the child to indulge without annoying everybody else. I consider that to be absolutely unacceptable in that if they can afford a tablet they can afford cheap headphones.
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When young children are on airplanes you cheat in whatever way you can.
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I have a three year old and would still never subject others to tablet noise. Yes they’re the literal worst to fly with but don’t export your misery to others.
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Perhaps people can cheat while still giving them headphones or turning devices on silent mode?
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Tell me you don’t have kids without telling me you don’t have kids
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That's rather defeatist. Surely you believe there are other options.

We traveled with a single Nexus 7 and one pair of headphones shared by three kids. Having to take turns taught them to be OK with having entertainment, being a spectator, or being bored. And they understood that if we ever heard it, they'd all have to be bored for a while.

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I’ve brought a tablet on airplanes to watch movies with kids on long flights, but we bring headphones. Flights are the only time we do this.

There is nothing about a tablet or a flight that requires letting them blast audio at full volume. It’s not even a good experience.

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The idea someone doesn’t know they bothering everyone around them is absurd. It is 100% malice.
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I don’t know if anyone remembers the movie Inside Man where at the beginning they are waiting in line at the bank and the woman is having a loud conversation on her phone and the guard comes and tells here to keep it down. It’s this kind of person that I see not using speakers (when the movie was made I don’t think they contemplated humanity could sink that low), at best it’s entitlement, but I still think in most cases it boils down to not thinking about others vs actively trying to annoy them.
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I’m sure it is, much of the time. But I also believe many people are just completely self absorbed and devoid of empathy.
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I am self-absorbed and devoid of empathy but it is still easy to logically deduce that other people don't want to hear my games, videos, or phone calls.
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Being devoid of empathy would mean you may realize that people don't want to hear your shit, but you wouldn't care what other people want
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Hanlon's razor applies. Yes, some people have a bad case of the main character syndrome simply because nobody has ever called them out on it.
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Usually they have been called out on it a time or two. They are often signaling that if you want to stop them, you'll have to use violence, and look -- no one or almost no one is willing to do that.

There are a couple of us who have actually seen someone call them out that are warning folks here what commonly happens. I saw someone get attacked with a knife, another commenter here had a gun pulled on him when they asked them to stop. It isn't about the loud music itself, it's that they're openly saying they are king shit, that no one is willing to challenge them, and broadcasting their eagerness to deliver violence upon anyone that might.

The other side of this is that they often do it on places you can't easily escape, like a train car with stops only every 5 minutes. This gives them a very long time to go to town on anyone that might challenges them. Something I've seen with my own eyes when they were asked to tone down the music.

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> They are often signaling that if you want to stop them, you'll have to use violence

I'm well aware of the types you're talking about, but in my experience this has largely changed. It used to be that these sorts were the most common offenders. But now it's just, well, everyone and anyone. For instance I don't think the little, old lady in front of me on the bus the other day was challenging people to violence.

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I think we're talking about two different groups of people. The ones I mean don't look dangerous, just self-absorbed. The ones you mean I don't have much experience of, they're not common around here. And they're certainly not common on airplanes.
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> I saw someone get attacked with a knife, another commenter here had a gun pulled on him

I though the discussion here was about people not using their headphones on airplanes.

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A lot of people don’t get a lot of things; you know the adage about stupidity being a more likely cause than malice. Just last week I had to explain to a grown adult why spitting on the sauna floor was disgusting and rude to the other gym members. He was shocked.
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It's apathy
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I experienced this in real life and this creature was unable to understand the bus driver telling her to stop. It's like they didn't understand English nor social signals. To me it seemed to stem from a lack of intelligence than from intentionally being malicious.
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They understand English. They just don't want to stop doing what they want to do. This is a quality that they share with everyone else on the planet by definition, but they think they're more important than other people.

There are angry people playing dominance games on one hand, and on the other people who simply don't care what anybody else wants and will do what they can get away with. There's no difference in intelligence between the two, but only the first type can actually be reasoned with. The second type will only pretend to be reasonable until the person that they're intimidated by leaves the room.

Everybody says "social cues," but as you said, the people who "don't get social cues" also don't seem to "get" direct requests or orders.

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Sorry to disagree -- stupidity and self-centeredness have a plan in that too.
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> no punishment is too harsh, this should be considered the equivalent of lighting up a cigarette on a plane.

Okay this is ridiculous. One is a fire hazard and the other is not. Do you really need the hyperbole here?

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The lack of cigarettes on a plane isn't due to the fire hazard.
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I don't think I'd have the wherewithal to jump in and do something if I were a bystander. I'm not the sort to throw hands, I don't carry, and these disruptive types are already a bit feral.

I'm not sure it's contempt they're expressing, or if they're expressing anything at all. There really are people who enjoy and defend it, too; "it's just a guy playing music, mind your own business." Truly alien.

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My business includes my ears. If you don't want me in your business, keep your business to your ears.
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I've found that looking the person in the eye and giving a quick "hey, forget your headphones?" sometimes does the trick, and has yet to start a fight. Everyone has to act in ways they are comfortable with - but mass inaction is what creates space for this shitty behavior in the first place.
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I did this on a bus and had a gun pulled on me, so your mileage may vary
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Yes exactly. If they are blasting ethnic music while in an ethnic hood it is usually because they are repping their hood, and sometimes in a way to intentionally bait someone to say something. If you ask them to stop they will pretend it is a challenge on their hood/race (no matter that they will play it so loud everyone's ears are splitting and all they want is not to get hearing damage). I watched a guy pull out a knife and start slashing as soon as he was asked to stop.

If you ask such person to stop it is implied they expect you to back that up with violence and you've already consented to a battle.

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>you've already consented to a battle.

More like you've already admitted cowardice, which makes you fair game. If it's the music that upsets you, come at me with louder speakers!

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My go-to technique has been to offer the offender a pair of headphones, saying something to insinuate that they must forgotten theirs or be too poor to afford them. Most of the time they say “oh I have headphones!” and then realize that they’ve outed themselves. (I stockpile the free headphones from gyms or airplanes, or get the $2 ones from AliExpress)
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But on a plane they'll have already been asked by a flight attendant either by the time the plane takes off, or as soon as it stops climbing. So clearly this isn't working on the people this rule targets. In fact I think this rule is actually the ideal response from the airline and should be adopted everywhere, as anyone who is so unconcerned with the wellbeing of others as to play audio on their device without headphones shouldn't be allowed to fly, as they're obviously happy to fuck up everyone's day, and won't follow instructions.
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Bluetooth headphones too?

This is actually a really good response though. Because the act of having a device blaring demonstrates contempt for everyone one around them. It's hard to act in a hateful way to someone who just offered you something for free.

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Exactly. To refuse the “gift” is an explicit statement of “I know I could do this silently but I want to bother everyone around me.”
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Big "Kill them with kindness" energy.
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Happens in Canada too. Calling them out can be dangerous, people have been injured.
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Happens elsewhere too. Can be an issue in Dutch trains
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It happenes in Dutch trains, but it's not the Dutch doing this.
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20%? That's a bit insane. This does happen in Europe but is heavily looked down up on and usually quickly corrected.

On the other hand I did get a chewing out from an older guy for having a conversation with friends on a train once, so some people take it perhaps a bit too serious.

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It’s very much a thing on US public transit, with the added negative bonus that no one ever confronts the person doing it, because chances are they’re either crazy, armed, or both.
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I can guarantee you that's not only America's problem.
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Sure, but also you might be on a city bus for... half an hour? It's not pleasant to have someone blast noise but it's nothing like a multi-hour flight. Why bother?
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> and in America, the odds of bystanders coming to your rescue are... Not zero, but not great

Yes, because there's been a recent push to more heavily punish good Samaritans than perpetrators. When good men get metaphorically crucified for helping, they stop helping.

If that seems like a common sense outcome of such policies, you're right. But as we've seen time and again, common sense is not a flower that grows in everyone's garden.

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I mean, you are painting it as some moralistic judgement, but if you’re asking me for on one hand listening to some annoying music, and on the other hand having some chance (however slight) of bodily injury, knife wound, or whatever… I know which one I am going to choose.
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I’ve absolutely seen this nonsense in the UK.
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Doesn't surprise me, but I'm only speaking from my experience in America.
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Yup. Eg guys getting on Thameslink services in south London, walking right up to the area behind the driver's cab and and start creating a disturbance. Driver stops the train and has a go at them if he's feeling in the mood...
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>is a very "traditional" way of fucking with people and expressing your broad contempt for their society.

Motivated in large part as a response to society saying fuck them. I'm not defending assholes being assholes, but I think what we have been seeing in the US over the last 5 or 10 years is classic collapse of the social contract stuff. The less a society cares about its people the less its people will care about the rest of society.

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I get what you're saying, but blasting music on buses has been a thing since boom-boxes were invented, it's nothing new. I am also not inclined to blame systems instead of individuals because most people with the same background of injustice will choose to respond to that injustice by being better than it. It's only a very small number of people being disruptive like this, while the number of people with fair and understandable grievances against society is massive.
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It was referenced in the 1986 Star Trek movie -Spock incapacitates a guy after he refuses to turn down his stereo.
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He returned in Picard (notice his reaction with his neck). https://youtu.be/r6wDR6heQcU

What I did not know is that he was one of the producers for Voyage Home. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0857130/

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>I get what you're saying, but blasting music on buses has been a thing since boom-boxes were invented, it's nothing new.

Yes, because people have always felt like outsiders in relation to society. My point was that this sort of public misbehaving is getting worse because social cohesion is getting even worse. Not everyone with grievances against society will respond this way, but as more people have grievances against society, more people will respond in a manner like this.

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