Dammit. Edit limit expired. I forgot we were in the pit.
Okay, I want to hijack this thread a bit more to say that **fetus’s ** attitude to the ‘deaf mute’ is disturbing as hell. Animal-sounding noises are disturbing?
God.
Deaf-mute is not just outdated, it’s fucking INSULTING. I’m deaf. Fine. It doesn’t mean I can’t talk. If the woman’s making “animal-sounding noises”, she’s not mute. Mute means physically, literally, unable to speak. I mentioned this to a friend, who’s hearing, and he said that he’d consider it a bit worse than calling someone colored.
Did you even ask her to keep it down? Just about every deaf person who I’ve met is very sensitive about this type of thing. And they definitely listen if you politely let them know that they’re being a bit loud. The comparison to animals isn’t helping your case any, either.
So the patronizing attitude of “Wow, well, that’s disturbing, but what can you expect of a deaf-mute?” is seriously pissing me off.
Okay, not to take any outrage away from using the term “deaf-mute”, I’m still confused as to why someone with that disability was pretending to use a cell phone if they could neither hear nor speak.
Edit to add that, upon reflection, obviously the person described wasn’t mute if they were capable of making some sort of sound. Which just leaves me further confused.
I think your logic is flawed. Sure, people can survive without cell phones. People also survived for generations without antibiotics, ambulances, germ theory, etc. What you are saying is analogous to “heck, I never wore a seatbelt when I was a kid and I survived”. Well, of course you did. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here to tell about it.
The fact that a fair percentage of the population can survive, in a literal sense, without a cell phone, does not mean that there aren’t a significant number of lives saved (due to situations like Diosa calling 911 from her car when she had internal injuries, which she might not have survived otherwise, we’ll never know) due to cell phones.
In particular, I thought this:
Was a totally unprovoked and unjustified attack out of nowhere.
I use mine incessantly. For business, personal, whatever. I keep it on vibrate about 75% of the time unless I am not wearing clothing where I can feel it. I use a custom-made headset in the car. They are gun range muffs with a hole drilled through one earmuff for the microphone. This cuts all road noise down to 15 dB and allows me to still hear surrounding cars, sirens, kids yelling, etc.
As much as I use my phone and love the technology, there are times and places where it is not silenced, but instead is shut down. The recent funeral for a friend was one such place.
I teach college aged and adult videographers. A part of my “housekeeping” talk in the first 10 minutes is this, " Answer your cellular phone. We are all freelancers, I do not want to be the one to cost you a job that could change your career because I insist that you only use it at lunch. Make the calls short and ignore what you can, because I won’t be repeating anything." That seems to work. I have missed calls that indeed would have changed my entire career.
What a dumb analogy: cellphones are now on the level of penicillin and ambulances. This is exactly what I mean about the strident defenses of cellphones. No one is saying they aren’t useful. But they are not as useful as penicillin.
I’d say that the entire percentage of the population can survive without a cellphone. They just don’t want to, and they don’t have to. If they were less rude about having them, no one would care. After all, no one Pits people who take penicillin.
Belabor the point all you want. You’re great at it.
I don’t, and I think you forget what forum this is if you’re trying to guilt-trip me into being “nicer.” This whole little exchange is another example of the irrational defensiveness cellphone users have. The poster who said he wanted to kill the guy who invented cellphones? He was kidding. Diosa went off on him as if he were serious. C’mon, get a grip.
Only if they shoot up in the theater, and “Flight Of The Bumble Bee” plays as they depress the syringe plunger.
I’d be surprised if the number of lives SAVED by cellphones exceeds the number lost due to cellphone stupidity (including traffic deaths).
I have to say that people in my area seem to be reasonably considerate when it comes to cellphone use at the movies. I can’t remember the last time one went off or some dumbass carried on a loud cellphone conversation during a film I attended.*
mean you believe that nobody has ever survived a situation by using a cell phone which they wouldn’t have survived without it? Or are you being hyperbolic, and if so, to what end?
This isn’t a defense of cell phones; I just honestly can’t figure out your point. I don’t see anyone here arguing that people in general could not carry out normal lives without cell phones, which seems to be the argument you’re railing against. The most extreme statement made by the “pro-cell side” was that there are certain specific situations where cell phones can be used to save a life…and this, only in direct response to a statement (hyperbolic or otherwise) that the things should never have been invented. I’m not seeing the reason for your ire.
I do not think they are necessary to life. They can help in an emergency, as could any number of other things. I’m not sure why people feel the need to state this over and over again.
No, the most extreme defense of cellphones was comparing them to penicillin. I feel I’ve explained my POV several times, so I’m not sure what else I can say to get it across to you. Diosa was ever so condescendingly stating the obvious: cellphones are useful, don’t kill the inventor! As if it were a serious statement in the first place, as if people who hate cellphones because of their owners’ bad behavior were trying to negate their usefulness in certain situations (which I am sure rarely come up, whereas the annoying applications of cellphones are rampant and experienced daily). I think the vast majority of people who have them DON’T need them, but don’t try to tell anyone that, because then you get the whole tired “But cellphones save LIVES!” speech. That’s utterly beside the point.
Yes, in the context of "things that didn’t used to exist and yet society persisted, but have legitimate uses today which justify their current prevalence ". Max can feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt he intended to draw a parallel between lives saved by cell phones and lives saved by modern medicine. Perhaps a more apt comparison might be the television: nonexistent for the vast majority of recorded history; now nigh-ubiquitous, often more annoying than useful – indeed, I can think of substantially fewer critical uses for a television than for a cell phone – and yet, few if any are calling for its destruction.
Beside what point? The point that cell phone users do rude and annoying shit from time to time? Is anyone disputing that? The reason for the “cell phones save lives” bit is that it’s a pat rebuttal to an argument that the world would be a better place without them; at worst, it’s a strawman, if nobody has seriously put forth that idea. If you don’t hold that position, then your argument is not with cell phones, but with the etiquette of their use…and on that, I think we’re all agreed that the average user could stand some education.
Ultimately, apart from one hyperbolic comment, there seems to be a general agreement that the existence of cell phones is acceptable but the current standards of their usage are not. The “save lives” spiel neither favors nor opposes that point. With that in mind, I ask in all sincerity: what are you arguing against?
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that since you aren’t talking about private stuff that your one-sided conversations aren’t annoying to other people within earshot. You might be having a perfectly normal conversation, that you would be having with your friend if she was with you, but she isn’t with you, and all your other shoppers are hearing is one-half of a conversation, which reduces it to irritating noise.
I don’t mean to pick on you, Tasha. This is directed at all people who talk on cellphones in public. One-sided conversations are annoying for people within hearing of them, especially cranky old ladies like me who used to enjoy shopping and walking in peace and quiet.
And I don’t mean to pick on you, but I don’t see how listening to half a conversation is any more annoying than a whole one. It’s all just annoying background noise, and “shopping” and “peace and quiet” aren’t even remotely near each other anymore, unless you’ve got a small neighborhood grocer you go to or something (do those even exist anymore? 'round these parts we’ve got a few grocery stores, huge, and a Wal-Mart…that’s it). Even in convenience stores there’s that annoying “Ding ding!” you get when the door opens, and the sound of the nacho machine melting cheese and the ice machine knocking ice out. How is half a conversation any more annoying than a whole one? Are you really paying that much attention to it?
I’m not being defensive, I’m genuinely curious here - how is half a conversation more annoying? Because you don’t know what’s being said? Why do you care?
Most TV use is private. I doubt most people’s TV watching habits interfere with the daily business of others, contribute to car accidents, or cause public rudeness. Sure, less useful, but affects no one else.
Yes, that’s exactly what I was trying to say-- it was a straw man to go on and on about how they save lives. No one is seriously calling for their abolition, because you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. I do wish they’d go back to being used for necessity only, but that’s unlikely because people are addicted to them like crack.
Likely true. But what makes you think that’s true about any of the people in this thread? In particular, either myself or Diosa? As far as any evidence in this thread shows, Diosa has only made two cell phone calls ever, both in emergencies, and I’ve made zero. Why must someone be addicted to something in order to point out benefits it might have in certain situations?
This all started with this quote from Subterraneanus: “I’ve said it before here and I’ll say it again: I’d like to find out who invented the cell phone and kick his ass.” Now, clearly that’s hyperbole, in that we assume that if Subterraneanus actually met the inventor of the cell phone, he would not, literaly, kick him in the ass. But should we read that statement as “I despise cell phones and honestly wish they had never been invented because I hate them so much that it far outweighs any benefits they might possibly provide” or “While I recognize and appreciate the many legitimate uses of cell phones, I am frustrated by the lack of etiquette many people show while using them, and wish to express my distaste for that lack of etiquette in a humorous and exaggerated fashion”?
Honestly, it seems more like the first than the second, because the hyperbolic ire is directed not at asshole cellphone users, but at some random inventor who almost certainly was motivated by some combination of:
(1) the thrill of discovery
(2) an honest desire to help people communicate better
and/or
(3) the desire to get rich
None of which have anything to do with assholes in supermarkets.
Oh, and Roland: Don’t ever compare anything to anything while arguing with Rubystreak. The conversation will immediately get derailed into her pointing out the flaws in your comparison.
When someone is making a joke about kicking the ass of the inventor of the cellphone, and you come in as serious as sin going, “But they save LIVES!!1!” then you are going to get a :dubious: from me wondering why you have to bring up this obvious straw man.
Um, I would say choosing to read it as the former so that you can use it as a launching pad to make a self-righteous little speech about how “cellphones SAVE LIVES!!1!” would be the wrong way to read it, and quite self-servingly obtuse.
I think what would be more accurate and less dickish of you would be to say “don’t make inaccurate and idiotic analogies when attempting to argue with Rubystreak because she will call you on it.”
Part of it is because humans are extremely good at pattern recognition and filtering. When we go shopping, we recognize all the sounds and filter them out so we don’t even register them (the noise of registers, the hum of conversations, etc.). The problem with half of a cellphone conversation is that is it just that, half a conversation. If it was two people talking, my brain would register it as such and stop paying attention. As half of a conversation, my brain keeps registering it because of the nonsensical nature of it. Maybe after a couple of decades of hearing half conversations our brains will filter those out, too, but at this point, they’re distracting noise.
