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The AirPods Effect

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Re: The AirPods Effect

#671

Post by MarkSweep »

brailsafe wrote: post #564
MarkSweep wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say “as long as it's not clearly harassment” as if that is uncommon. Outside of giving directions at train stations, the times when a stranger has started talking to me in public have been almost universally negative. Often times it starts as a friendly conversation before the harassment or begging for money or scamming starts. Other times the people just start out crazy or harassing. I feel like your conception…

> I feel like your conception that “ignoring people either consciously or through technology is rude” makes more sense in higher social trust situations. Yes, but I meant that the more people who block everyone out by default, passively and indiscriminately, contributes to social rust rather than trust. Ignoring or especially telling some people is not inherently rude or bad, but conducting yourself as though everyon…

> people who block everyone out by default, passively and indiscriminately, contributes to social rust rather than trust

I'll turn this around: when I see people wearing headphones on the train or the bus, I appreciate that they respect everyone around them. Silence is a commons, and the headphone people respect that not everyone wants to hear their TikToks, their phone calls, their hallucinations, or their small talk.

> conducting yourself as though everyone is de-facto untrustworthy is a problem that doesn't seem likely to be solved by passively blocking the world out

Actually it does. Dealing with touts and sales people by ignoring them is usually more effective at getting them to leave you alone. If you engage at all, they manipulate your sense of politeness to draw you into a longer conversation or get you to do what they want. This is also true of most types of grifters and assholes.

Every time I got drawn into a scam or harassment, I could have prevented it by simply not engaging in the first place.

> I don't know why I'd pay to live somewhere where I'd prefer not to interact with anyone. If the place actually does suck, then I should do everything in my power to find somewhere that sucks less.

I live in the SF Bay Area and frequently visit Boston and Japan. In this limited experience, I've had a great time meeting strangers in social situations like at bars. I have never had a positive result from giving a stranger the time of day in public places (outside of giving directions). Maybe these places suck and I should leave, idk, but don't judge me for taking a default deny stance after consistently having negative experiences.

And this is just my male perspective. My female friends have even stronger stances against engaging with random people in public.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#672

Post by [deleted] »

itake wrote: post #579
oceanplexian wrote: post #539

Yeah, great article. But it should get to the point. The reason you need to physically remove yourself is because of the insane lunatics that blast trash music and do a dance while aggressively panhandling or screaming at you for trying to commute quitely on the train to work. A hallmark of daily life when I worked in SF and in NYC. A great way to fix the fake problem would be to aggressively enforce the existing law…

I’ve been in the Baltic countries for a few weeks. I do not see any of the behaviors you mentioned, but all the behaviors mentioned in the article. I don’t think this is a bad music problems

[deleted]

Re: The AirPods Effect

#673

Post by dredmorbius »

SenHeng wrote: post #421
russdill wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be cool if this situation could be detected and when you hit pause it would actually repeat them for you?

So you want your magical EarPods to be always listening and recording everything from the past, say 5 seconds?

A brief ring buffer is a fairly privacy-respecting implementation, as opposed to long-term capture and storage.

Demonstrating that such a capability is in fact a brief ring buffer to the average Joe or Josephina on the street might prove more challenging, and numerous similar technologies have rapidly acquired a highly pejorative taint, e.g., "glassholes".

Re: The AirPods Effect

#674

Post by dredmorbius »

mcculley wrote: post #535
rogerrogerr wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever thought about wrapping your AirPods to be skin-colored? I wonder if that would be more inviting for strangers than the stereotypical white color.

No, it never occurred to me. This has prompted a fun discussion with my wife. I suggested I could grow some stem cells into a skin that would match the color of my ears. She suggests that I should not have these ideas.

You could also tint your ears white, I suppose ... ;-)

Re: The AirPods Effect

#675

Post by retired »

cglan wrote: post #549
oceanplexian wrote: post #539

Yeah, great article. But it should get to the point. The reason you need to physically remove yourself is because of the insane lunatics that blast trash music and do a dance while aggressively panhandling or screaming at you for trying to commute quitely on the train to work. A hallmark of daily life when I worked in SF and in NYC. A great way to fix the fake problem would be to aggressively enforce the existing law…

Coming back to the states after traveling abroad is always astonishing. For all our wealth, it genuinely feels worse than somewhere like Brazil in many of our big cities

There is a difference between being a tourist somewhere and actually living there.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#676

Post by Lio »

Back home in the UK I find I need to always have my airpods with me because of the number of shops, supermarkets and cafes that blast out irritating pop music.

I’m… sensitive to music I don’t like and find the experience almost painful otherwise. Small pocket, noise cancelling headphones have been a real game changer for me.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#677

Post by XorNot »

exmadscientist wrote: post #494
wvenable wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Being able to do it in the middle of a riot is, absolutely, a hard-earned skill. But it is, like so many of these things, a skill. You have to practice it. I think that putting earbuds in and checking out of the world around you is a really awful thing to do as your default in life. As a "sometimes" thing it's fine, even healthy. There's a lot of talk of public transit in this thread. If people do it during riding tr…

I think if you're placing the ability to block out the world by force of will o a pedestal but judging people for wearing noise cancelling headphones, then you're just being a hypocrite.

You don't disagree with the need or the concept, just the means for irrelevant reasons.

Its like people attempting to shame for going on ozempic to lose weight.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#678

Post by dredmorbius »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #630
antinomicus wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s sad man - I also talk a lot to strangers and yeah most of the time you get average people, but then you meet that one in a million person and learn something truly fascinating or expand your sphere of knowledge or emotion or art or whatever. I’m always on the lookout for the next brilliant engineer, sensitive artist, or just a well read janitor.

Wouldn’t you consult a book or a video and practice a skill if you really wanted to expand your knowledge? And a “well-read janitor”, while certainly possible, is a trope more often seen in works of fiction. And what does “expanding your emotion or art” even mean?

Conversation tends to be a less-curated alternative. You're going to read something you've elected to read, and have expectations of, whether that's a topic of interest, favourite author, recommendation by an acquaintance, current best-seller or well-reviewed work, something hunted down through references or footnotes, etc.

The people you encounter daily may well also represent selection biases, but they're probably going to be at the very least along a different axis, and you might be surprised at what comes up. I like to have a balance of intentional and serendipitous feeds in my life, whether technically-mediated or organic. Keeps things interested.

Having the book or a podcast on tap as needed isn't a bad backup. But talking, even briefly, to strangers may prove provocative.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#679

Post by retired »

andrepd wrote: post #561
oceanplexian wrote: post #539

Yeah, great article. But it should get to the point. The reason you need to physically remove yourself is because of the insane lunatics that blast trash music and do a dance while aggressively panhandling or screaming at you for trying to commute quitely on the train to work. A hallmark of daily life when I worked in SF and in NYC. A great way to fix the fake problem would be to aggressively enforce the existing law…

Eh I don't think so. Commutes are as clean and peaceful as they can be in the Netherlands or Switzerland and people are no less buried in their phones with noise-cancelling earbuds on.

The Netherlands has plenty of crazies using public transport. Every other window on the train has the emergency number on it for a reason. I refuse to travel in second class, hate being close to people that blast music, use drugs, puke or eat a broodje pindakaas.

The Netherlands even has segregated busses for asylum seekers because there was too much violence. Dutch people have their own busses and asylum seekers are required to use a separate bus with extra security. Upside is that asylum seekers don’t have to pay for a ticket.

Re: The AirPods Effect

#680

Post by mpyne »

braiamp wrote: post #654
vicnov wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be poor and obey the law. You can protect the poor and enforce the law. It is the weird identity politics is what gets in the way.

There's a easier solution by crime caused by poor people: they stop being poor. The fact that nobody tried is the thing that should be studied instead.

I grew up poor and that was never an inducement to commit crime. I took plenty of "food I didn't want" off my friends' hands at lunch in middle and high school, but never even thought of crime.

Although my parents weren't rich they still tried to teach right from wrong, respect for others and all the rest.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but there's plenty of examples of rich assholes who act as if money makes them immune from justice.

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