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.<p>Very rarely does anybody call them out or otherwise try to reign it in, because you're as likely as not to be physically attacked and in America, the odds of bystanders coming to your rescue are... Not zero, but not great.
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.<p>Regardless, no punishment is too harsh, this should be considered the equivalent of lighting up a cigarette on a plane.
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.<p>On topic (and discussed already on HN): <a href="https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu</a>
The idea someone doesn’t know they bothering everyone around them is absurd. It is 100% malice.
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.
I’m sure it is, much of the time. But I also believe many people are just completely self absorbed and devoid of empathy.
It's apathy
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.<p>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>My business</i> includes <i>my ears</i>. If you don't want me in <i>your</i> business, keep your business to <i>your</i> ears.
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.
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)
Happens elsewhere too. Can be an issue in Dutch trains
20%? That's a bit insane. This does happen in Europe but is heavily looked down up on and usually quickly corrected.<p>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.
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.
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?
> and in America, the odds of bystanders coming to your rescue are... Not zero, but not great<p>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.<p>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.
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.
I’ve absolutely seen this nonsense in the UK.
Doesn't surprise me, but I'm only speaking from my experience in America.
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...
>is a very "traditional" way of fucking with people and expressing your broad contempt for their society.<p>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.
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.
It was referenced in the 1986 Star Trek movie -Spock incapacitates a guy after he refuses to turn down his stereo.
>I get what you're saying, but blasting music on buses has been a thing since boom-boxes were invented, it's nothing new.<p>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.