Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The AirPods Effect

theescapenewsletter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 824 posts

Re: The AirPods Effect

#501

Post by goodmythical »

wvenable wrote: post #487
goodmythical wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it? You're making a choice to insulate yourself from your surroundings. That choice has effects on both you and your environment. You see it as a simple salve, but the poor souls you're choosing to ignore see it as a just another bourgeoisie wall. I used to live in a prison. Headphones were a huge fighting issue. People who couldn't afford them would borrow…

> I can sleep, eat, shower, and meditate just as well in the middle of a deadly riot ... as I can in a forest or a dead silent bed room. You should realize that there are people who can't do that.

There was a point in my life that I couldn't do that.

To suggest that it is impossible for a given individual is different from suggesting that it is difficult which is different still from suggesting that it is suggested.

I have personally benefitted massively from deconstructing the walls that my parents and peers suggested I build as a child. It was work to do, and is work yet to be done, but I value it.

I am no longer angry in traffic when "the jackass can't see I'm late" or whatever other silliness. I no longer dread the stench and noise of public transportation. Both are natural. Just the way humans are. Being perturbed by it is a choice that I've decided I could do without.

Minus some socio-behavioral-mental deviation from the norm, and even then considering advances that can be made with therapy...I just don't see it. Why should I be bothered by people on the train when I know that it is possible to just...not?

Re: The AirPods Effect

#502

Post by minitrollster »

kleiba2 wrote: post #498

I stopped chit-chatting at the water cooler because I have a specific sense of humor that not everybody likes. And by "not likes", I mean the feminist women in my department get offended. Very easily. And because they're women, they hold special power wrt HR. So I just quietly spend my day now.

Um I think this might be on you and not them.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#503

Post by krapp »

kleiba2 wrote: post #498

I stopped chit-chatting at the water cooler because I have a specific sense of humor that not everybody likes. And by "not likes", I mean the feminist women in my department get offended. Very easily. And because they're women, they hold special power wrt HR. So I just quietly spend my day now.

So you literally cannot hold a conversation at work without making offensive and misogynist jokes in front of female coworkers? Is this something you need to see a doctor about?

Re: The AirPods Effect

#504

Post by wvenable »

overfeed wrote: post #476
wafflemaker wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way you're right, but what you can do comes from a significantly high spiritual development level. For an average Joe it's quite abstract and maybe even unattainable in this life. OTOH, there are people who get sensory overstimulated more easily. Add to that a foreign place, lot of people and chaos around, and even a neurotypical individual can feel anxious. Putting on headphones and playing Chopin is much more…

I believe we wouldn't have a tenth of the chaos we are currently experiencing if people talked to their neighbors and fellow commuters more.

With or without headphones, people aren't just chatting around on the subway all the time. I love my headphones and I also chat with my neighbours.

This is just the same argument that has been repeated since the dawn of the walkman.

50 years ago when people weren't looking at their iPhones on the bus, they were reading the newspaper or a book. Not a lot has changed.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#505

Post by goodmythical »

petsfed wrote: post #481
IncandescentGas wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few who paid their debt to society and moved on are excited about random strangers wanting to do their own petty little performative mock show trials to sit in smug judgement over them. Please stop.

Almost as if there's a limit to how many demands strangers can reasonably place on a person before we as a society agree that the person should put up boundaries (like, say, putting on headphones and outright ignoring the demands) and even go out of our way to encourage strangers to respect those boundaries. I'm not calling you out, IncandescentGas, you're right and you're doing a good thing. I'm just saying its iron…

No defence needed in my case. I made a mistake and paid my price. I feel bad for people who are so bored and miserable in their own lives that they feel the need to elevate themselves by trying to diminish me.

It's too bad that they don't live more fulfilling lives that don't require them to feel the need to attempt to insult people.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#506

Post by goodmythical »

Barbing wrote: post #393
goodmythical wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the point the article is making though, isn't it? You're making a choice to insulate yourself from your surroundings. That choice has effects on both you and your environment. You see it as a simple salve, but the poor souls you're choosing to ignore see it as a just another bourgeoisie wall. I used to live in a prison. Headphones were a huge fighting issue. People who couldn't afford them would borrow…

Wow, was it a computer fraud abuse act thing, I mean claimed to be? Obviously nothing violent! Thanks for sharing.

I plead guilty to financial fraud, thanks for the interest!

Curious how you project certain assumptions, though. Makes one curious about your own activities.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#507

Post by scoofy »

cassepipe wrote: post #348

To be fair when you live in a big city and you have to take the subway all the time, it just feels physically nice to remove the background noise whether it's the noise of the train itself or the musicians or the people asking loudly for money. I don't even have airpods, I have good old earplugs because I often too lazy to choose the soundtrack of my own life. It's not that don't want to talk to unknown people, it's…

I agree with this comment.

Noise canceling headphones is the only reason I’m able to use the bus in SF. The author writes from Germany, which has reasonable social etiquette in place in most cities. That social contract just doesn’t exist in large parts of America. In Chicago, they have a real problem with people smoking on public transportation. They don’t make noise canceling headphones for your lungs yet.

The people wearing headphones all day aren’t the ones “losing touch with their neighbors”… no, it’s just that their neighbors are assholes, and they just want to get through the day.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#508

Post by wiseowise »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #399
steve1977 wrote: post #144

What I find interesting is that the article seems to imply that wearing earbuds to isolate is somewhat "unnatural" (for lack of a better term). However it does not take into account that the kind of social interactions where people wear earbuds (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with. For me, isolating myself acoustically is a way to n…

> (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with. What is unnatural about this? We have plenty of anthropological evidence that humans have been doing massive festivals for at least many thousands of years i.e. people voluntarily gathering together with strangers in loud and busy environments with all sorts of sounds and smells.

We have anthropological evidence that humans lived like sardines in a can 24/7? Where?

Re: The AirPods Effect

#509

Post by groceries8192 »

tennfown wrote: post #451
derektank wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your suits feel bad you’re probably not wearing the right suits. They are expensive though, that’s definitely true, so it does reveal some of their preferences.

How much money do I need to get a suit that’s not miserable in 90f+ humid heat where even stepping outside in shorts and a t-shirt has you sweating after a few minutes?

I don't think it's necessarily the suit in that case. As a Florida resident, however, I like my Tommy Bahama suit's breathability but it might not be formal enough for every occasion. There's also some "super breathable" suit that I see being advertised a lot, but I haven't tried one of those.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#510

Post by arrrg »

port11 wrote: post #488
GJim wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupidly dangerous and (in my country) illegal. Please retract your comment and don't encourage such stupidity. EDIT: Since this is being misinterpreted... Earplugs that deaden sound are fine and encouraged on a motorbike, playing music in your ears is what masks other sound and is both stupid and illegal.

At least in Germany I think wearing headphones in ANY vehicle is against the law, even a bicycle, and even if you’re not listening to music (IANAL).

That’s wrong. Wearing headphones is not banned. Isolating yourself to a degree where you cannot hear warning signals (emergency vehicles, car horns) is (10 € fine), though that’s not the same as being able to hear all traffic sounds (which would be non-sensical, given that cars are and have been for a very long time quite sound isolating. Horns and emergency vehicles are two of the only things that really get through.)

In practice this means that police won’t do anything about people wearing headphones. Wearing them is totally fine. However, if you get into an accident you might get a larger part of the blame if it’s determined that you not hearing so well contributed to the accident. (The rules of the road do have a general clause that you need to pay sufficient attention – so anything distracting might get you to shoulder more of a blame in case of an accident, even if it isn’t explicitly banned. Use common sense …)

As I said, cars are inherently quite isolating, so car-centric maniacs better try not to legislate my right to wear headphones while riding the bike aways while they sit in their sound dampened boxes, casually overtaking me with too little distance.

(I strongly suggest to never turn on noise isolation while riding the human powered kind of bike and I also recommend either turning on the pass-through mode or just putting in the earphone on the side away from the road.)

Post reply on HN