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Headphones Everywhere

newyorker.com

61–70 of 105 posts

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#61
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that sunglasses and beards are not banned.

Sunglasses and beards do not obscure your entire face to the point where you are unrecognizable whereas a burka obscures all but your eyes. Surely you can see the difference?

A beard, large sunglasses, and a hoodie can obscure all but your nose. Do you really believe a burka is that much different where one should be legal and one should not?

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#62
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that's the primary reason? Allowing communication is a reason that was put forward, and the ECHR's quote implies it's the reason they accepted the ban. Anyway, as I said to someone else, sunglasses and beards are not banned. It's also questionable whether the government has any reasonable right to demand that you are clearly identifiable in public. Should everyone wear license plates? Identifying som…

Because identifying someone is a prerequisite for "communication". > It's also questionable whether the government has any reasonable right to demand that you are clearly identifiable in public If the police is looking for you, it makes sense that they would discourage concealment en masse.

The police can already ask any individual to produce their identification. What they are wearing doesn't matter. If the person is wearing a niqab, a female officer can privately verify her face matches her ID photograph.

It seems to me that the demand for 'public recognizability' is really a demand for effective mass surveillance. It's not about being able to verify identity, it's about being able to monitor and track large numbers of people via camera and facial recognition.

It makes sense that the police would want this, as they want their jobs to be easier. But the police should not get to dictate the law.

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#63
post #55
post #15

> Is the ubiquity of headphones just another emblem of catastrophic social decline, edging us even deeper into narcissism and unsociability? No. * closes tab

Maybe you should have kept reading, you'd have found out the author agrees with you

Betteridge wins again.

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the ubiquity of headphones is telling us that our shared spaces are too loud and full of background noise. Think piped music, announcements, adverts, engines, etc etc..

> Maybe the ubiquity of headphones is telling us that our shared spaces are too loud Or maybe the shared spaces are plain boring . I don't know what the author expects people to do on flights, but I'm not going to be twiddling thumbs for any flight longer than 30 minutes. Substitute headphones for paperbacks or newspapers, and the rant would still be relevant (for the lack of a better word).

I'm not sure if it was intentional or not but it's interesting all of your alternatives are solitary activities? How about talking to the people you are travelling with (family/friends)? Seems to me that's the kind of thing the article is hinting at.

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#65
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because identifying someone is a prerequisite for "communication". > It's also questionable whether the government has any reasonable right to demand that you are clearly identifiable in public If the police is looking for you, it makes sense that they would discourage concealment en masse.

The police can already ask any individual to produce their identification. What they are wearing doesn't matter. If the person is wearing a niqab, a female officer can privately verify her face matches her ID photograph. It seems to me that the demand for 'public recognizability' is really a demand for effective mass surveillance. It's not about being able to verify identity, it's about being able to monitor and trac…

> is really a demand for effective mass surveillance

Yes, like it or not communities require trust. States are communities. There will always be a level of mass surveillance.

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#66
post #2

this comes off like such rambling with no real point to it. I suppose if I had to try and find his points they would be: * "headphones are bad because they cause us to be isolated" * "Millennials are seeing themselves as hard done by" The second point might not be what the author means though, but the former has strong tones throughout the piece. I do not agree, headphones are a way of having some level of privacy in…

Interesting about the stats and the sudden increase in 2012. I have personally been listening to music in public since 2004 and days of iRiver [1] for the reasons the parent post mentions.

[1]: http://www.superfi.co.uk/images/product/large/100001914_1_.j...

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#67
I sometimes listen to music, through headphones, when I'm travelling on my own on a train. Since I regularly make the same journey, it can get a little boring. I'm not always in the mood for work and I don't always carry a book/magazine with me; music is an excellent alternative. I wouldn't dream of playing that music out loud, inflicting it upon everyone else.

That's the boring explanation. It may lack the keen social commentary that the article speculates on, but it happens to be true.

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#68
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also one of the main points of this article.

It's amazing how few commenters seem to show any comprehension of the article.

No wonder given low wheat/chaff ratio this article has.

Most people are working and can only quickly scan through it trying to find the main points.

If the smart people in ycombinator get the wrong point it probably means the article was poorly written.

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#69
>“Do people really like music this much?” I have wondered, incredulously, while tallying endless white earplugs.

Does the New Yorker really pay good, honest money for such laughably sheltered premises? It's no accident Taylor Swift's take-home last year was $170 million. Sometimes people wear headphones simply to tune out the grocery store's bland Adele-centric easy listening. Loving music is pretty much a human being thing.

Re: Headphones Everywhere

#70
post #44
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also one of the main points of this article.

which one exactly? I quickly scanned though it and didn't find anything interesting but the usual cliches

> It turns out that observers have been fretting about headphones—and the disconnection they facilitate—for decades. Early Walkman prototypes included a second headphone jack so you could share your tunes with a buddy ...
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