In the US anyway it feels like the battle for public spaces has been lost. Everywhere I go people are listening full blast to their phones with no headphones - I find this about 100x more obnoxious than filming. I think both should be banned with Singapore-style punishments but I expect even if companies posture about this nothing will happen. United famously prohibited using your audio without headphones but based on my trip with them last week that has done nothing. At this point it’s a societal problem that needs a tougher approach.
Public space is precious, but I’d just like to make it clear for the casual HN reader that suggesting “Singapore-style” punishment for antisocial behavior implies a pro-caning stance. Caning is a violent, abhorrent, and cruel practice that violates the fundamental human rights of the convicted person. It leaves the victim of state violence with permanent scars and long-lasting trauma. Time and again it has been shown that capital punishment is not any more effective at preventing recidivism than rehabilitation or compulsory community service.
If you want positive, lasting change, you have to start at the start, modeling positive social and emotional programs in public schools and community programs. Our society is only as healthy as the core beliefs that are willingly held and practiced by its population. Raw state power through fear and intimidation does not change people’s minds as much as widespread belief about what is inherently right and wrong.
> Time and again it has been shown that capital punishment is not any more effective at preventing recidivism than rehabilitation or compulsory community service.
I think you meant corporal punishment, not capital punishment. The latter is when you lose your life.
Do the same studies hold true for corporal punishment? I am not familiar with the literature.
I would suspect that they do. My understanding is the vast number of people who commit crimes do not consider the ramifications of their actions, so there is no amount of punishment that materially changes their behavior.
I struggle with this. Growing up, I was spanked and it was highly effective at changing my behavior, but my older brother was very impulsive and he would get spanked a lot and it never seemed to chang his behavior. He settled down in his 20's after a lot of legal consequences, but I do wonder is there would have been any change for him if my parents went with a different style or if I would have turned out differently.
I hope it's not fully lost, I hate when people play music in public and don't have a good answer about filming people in public with these glasses but I don't want it.
Honestly making it socially unacceptable is probably the only solution. Not sure how that happens though...
First amendment doesn't mean anything goes...for example, protesting has a time, place, and manner restrictions, even though you would at first glance think any restriction on protesting would be illegal.
> You can't make it illegal. The first amendment protects it.
I'm not a legal expert but the first amendment doesn't generally give the right to secretly record people, especially in places where there are already laws about hidden cameras, recording, privacy, etc.
It's not about the shape as much as the intention and execution.
Perhpas they were talking about blasting music in public spaces.
In which case, the First Amendment still probably wouldn't apply, unless we're talking about laws against specific musical content, since content-neutral restrictictions on public speech are broadly legal.
The 1st Amendment does not apply to private property. Property owners, even owners of public utilities, can absolutely set boundaries and trespass people. In some states, property owners can literally shoot trespassers to death.
Yes, but the top post said "Public spaces". Private property isn't a public space.
In the case of truly public spaces, historically it's considered that other then in very specific situations (bathrooms for example) you have no expectations of privacy and can be recorded regardless of the shape of the camera.
On private spaces, which people constantly mix up with public spaces, you're absolutely correct that it is able to be restricted and can define very granularly what's acceptable. A plane is a private space. They can restrict anything they want (limited by protected class/characteristics in the US. Other countries may vary).
> people are listening full blast to their phones with no headphones - I find this about 100x more obnoxious than filming
Two very different concerns. One is annoying in that very moment and has no lasting consequences. The other can have all kinds of consequences depending on what was secretly recorded, and where that recording was used.
> listening full blast to their phones with no headphones
There's something even worse, taking my 97 year old mother to her gerontologist :-). Her HMO has a group office of 8 gerontologists with a shared waiting area which easily seats >60, but is always packed since most 80+ year-olds treat doctor appts like plane flights and arrive an hour early. Most of the patients can't hear well and take calls on speaker phone at FULL VOLUME, then constantly remind the caller to talk louder.
It's maddening enough when I go maybe once a quarter and sit there for an hour but imagine working in that room every day. Last year the reception desk relocated closer to the elevator and a very solid wall with thick auto-close door was constructed in-between. Perhaps OSHA has a 'cruel and unusual' designation :-)
[Empathetic side note: hearing loss in the elderly is a serious hardship which not only socially isolates but also accelerates cognitive decline while decreasing independence. According to several audiologists we've consulted, my mom isn't an outlier. It's normal that even state-of-the-art, high-end (>$5,000) hearing aids, properly calibrated, only help a limited amount at >80+ yrs old. My mom, despite occasionally struggling to remember an infrequent word, is still mentally sharp. Yet it's rare she can understand people on the phone well enough to make her own appts etc. I'm really hoping DSP, MEMS and AI offer better hearing solutions before I need them.
Inevitable hearing loss combined with forced 'app-ification' and mobile UX trends are increasingly making the modern world inaccessible to the very elderly, cutting off even those who are mentally capable. Talking to the staff at my Mom's independent living facility, it's a shit show and getting worse with every major OS update. They've been forced to staff a Mobile Phone Support Desk. I really wish Apple & Android UX teams were required to work a week at that desk.]
> I think both should be banned with Singapore-style punishments but I expect even if companies posture about this nothing will happen.
SG fines/punishments are overrated, more of an urban myth, I remember visiting and chuckled when I saw local fishing right under the sign No fishing and mind you this was in very frequented touristy place close to Singapore Opera house.
