Live data from Hacker News

Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

cnn.com

101–110 of 258 posts

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#101

We need to also ban people taking calls on speaker in public places like cafes or trains.

I don’t think United airlines has the authority to do that. That is to say, do you really want a federal law passed about this? I vote we go with social shaming. Worked for cigarettes.

Of course they do - they modified their contract of carriage - which you basically agree to why buy a flight (https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html) it’s the same mechanism they use to deny you boarding if you are barefoot etc.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#102
post #31

Is this really a thing?!? Blasting the others with unwanted noise. I never been in a flight, or train across Europe where passengers showed just lack of respect for the others. The only ones pumping anything loud, on trains or busses, usually get quickly pointed down by other passengers, personal or security. Ah, and then there are the rebellious kids or gangs, as the other exception, which usually don't take flights…

Local trains are full of them.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#104
post #31

Is this really a thing?!? Blasting the others with unwanted noise. I never been in a flight, or train across Europe where passengers showed just lack of respect for the others. The only ones pumping anything loud, on trains or busses, usually get quickly pointed down by other passengers, personal or security. Ah, and then there are the rebellious kids or gangs, as the other exception, which usually don't take flights…

In America, a small number of people derive pleasure from being disruptive to everybody, and blasting music on public transit with captive audiences is a very "traditional" way of fucking with people and expressing your broad contempt for their society. I'd estimate that maybe one in five times you get on a city bus in America, you'll encounter somebody like this. Very rarely does anybody call them out or otherwise t…

> 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.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#105
post #72
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The idea someone doesn’t know they bothering everyone around them is absurd. It is 100% malice.

It's apathy

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#106
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I did this on a bus and had a gun pulled on me, so your mileage may vary

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#107
post #31

Is this really a thing?!? Blasting the others with unwanted noise. I never been in a flight, or train across Europe where passengers showed just lack of respect for the others. The only ones pumping anything loud, on trains or busses, usually get quickly pointed down by other passengers, personal or security. Ah, and then there are the rebellious kids or gangs, as the other exception, which usually don't take flights…

It is - there are three groups of people that do this generally the completely self absorbed, people from places where it’s culturally acceptable, and people that like the feeling of empowerment that comes from inconveniencing others (the same people that will walk out into traffic with no light / crosswalk)

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often see younger people in parks near me blasting loud music on speakers. It’s so disrespectful to those looking for a peaceful place. Especially when they’re playing explicit rap music with everyone’s families and children around.

> It’s so disrespectful to those looking for a peaceful place Idk, they’re not looking for “a peaceful place” and are using a public space without damaging it. Nobody is forced to use the park at the same time as them. This seems like a difference in preferences which is fine.

That same line of reasoning could apply to music on planes. No one really needs to use a particular airline at a particular time or use a public park at any given time. It ceases to be a public place if a small group of people can de facto monopolize it by making it unpleasant for most other people to be there.

James Q. Wilson talked about this problem a long time ago... and why standard neighborhood shaming cannot really police it. Maybe there is an increasingly different set of norms among different generations which is why you have a breakdown in manners and even high school kids from affluent areas hitting "devious licks."

    Because the sanctions employed are subtle, informal, and delicate, not everyone is equally vulnerable to everyone else’s discipline. Furthermore, if there is not a generally shared agreement as to appropriate standards of conduct, these sanctions will be inadequate to correct such deviations as occur. A slight departure from a norm is set right by a casual remark; a commitment to a different norm is very hard to alter, unless, of course, the deviant party is “eager to fit in,” in which case he is not committed to the different norm at all but simply looking for signs as to what the preferred norms may be.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#109

Airlines have been quietly expanding what they can remove you for. This isn't really about headphones. It's about how much discretion crew have now and how little recourse you have at 35,000 feet.

The ones with limited recourse are the flight crew who are trapped with you and a hundred other asshole for hours with no escape and very limited options in case of a serious disruption. If there is one space that has justification to act as temporary dictatorship, it's an aircraft in flight.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#110

We need to also ban people taking calls on speaker in public places like cafes or trains.

Join the conversation, works every time.

I've thought about doing that several times, seeing as they're already including me. Just need to become a bit more brazen of a person.
Post reply on HN