Don't be ridiculous. Fear of terrorism is not the only factor. Cellphones are one of the past century's greatest contributions to public safety.
If you want to be antagonistic about the threat of a bombing, how about a more commonplace example: you're a very drunk young girl who's been separated from her friends at the concert and a pushy, aggressive guy you don't know is trying to get you into his car to go home with him. You can't text your friends that you need help because your phone is locked.
Or how about this? You're a parent and you've lost track of your kid in the sea of people. You can't text or call them, because your phone is locked.
Or how about this? You're alone and you have a medical condition and something goes wrong, and you need immediate attention, but you can't call 911 because your phone is locked. Your only option now to hope someone else in the crowd notices that you're passed out on the ground not from drunkenness, but from something much more urgent.
Don't act like cellphones have no practical use and are just social media machines. How absurd. They save lives every day and this policy is insanely dangerous for everyone. People here saying "How did people survive before cellphones," well, guess what, in many cases they probably didn't.
> Or how about this?
> Or how about this?
> Don't act like cellphones have no practical use
sigh Humans have survived for hundreds of thousands of years without cellphones. For any new tech, you can continually imagine scenarios where survival "absolutely depends on" having this tech.
How about this? You're sitting in your ISS sleep capsule and suddenly the station starts to depressurize. You hop into your reentry-safe spacesuit and exit the station, set the suit to auto-reentry and then aero-brake from Mach 18 to 0 and touch down safely in your backyard with your parachute. See? A reentry safe single-person spacesuit is absolute essential to survival.
Your example is that you pass out at a concert with literally thousands of people around and no one helps you. Or you are drunk and a guy is hitting on you. Or your kid is missing.
And you call the person you are responding to ridiculous.
Cellphones have made people into helpless, scared sheep.
I find this argument supremely unconvincing. It’s true that humanity survived, but people died in all sorts of awful and now preventable ways. This argument could be used to argue against vaccines, sanitation, or good nutrition. Is that where you want to be?
When it comes to safety, I want to set the bar somewhat above “this will not literally drive the species to extinction.”
sigh, you are not the Human race. Yes, Humans as a race have survived without cellphones, but that doesn't mean for an instance that the same applies to individuals.
You can't simply brush aside the parent's comments because you don't agree with them. A potential rape situation, or a lost and frightened child are very valid, and very real examples of how having a phone could help.
> Cellphones have made people into helpless, scared sheep.
You realise that people can be scared and helpless without being sheep, right? You also realise that simply being able to contact someone can remove the fear and helpnessness?
> You can't simply brush aside the parent's comments because you don't agree with them. A potential rape situation, or a lost and frightened child are very valid, and very real examples of how having a phone could help.
A lot of things could help too. Like a gun or an epipen. My point is that cellphones have become people's #1 indispensable safety blankets to the point that being without fills them with fear. Why are we so afraid of everything? If you've got ID, keys, and a little bit of money, you're mostly golden. And even taking away one or all of those, you won't die instantly.
> You realise that people can be scared and helpless without being sheep, right?
The fact that people become so uncomfortable and literally afraid when they are separated from their devices that didn't even exist 10-15 years ago is not a good sign.
I wish everyone would just stop pedaling fear like this. You'll be fine without your phone for a few minutes. There aren't rapists, terrorists around every corner; aliens aren't abducting people, and you probably aren't going to have a brain aneurysm and be unable to call for help.
There should be some sort of public phone that people can use, perhaps in booth format. Or maybe some sort of minimal electronic device where text messages can be passed, where you could, in essence, 'page' someone. Hmmm.
"Cellphones are one of the past century's greatest contributions to public safety."
Don't you think that's a bit if a neurotic and control freak way to look at it?
Humans survive splendidly on oxygen and agreeable temperature for days and are really hard to kill.
If we lived in a Syrianesque dystopia all around I would get your anxiety but any above median income metropolis should be just fine for supporting a humanoid lifeform for brief excursions out of ones home environment.
Phones are fantastic for public surveillance, but that's another thing entirely.
I'm a parent and I get the anxiety but worrying too much and helicoptering the children out of all rough spots is really not a skillfull way to worry through ones life.
Lets all just bury all of our light up rectangles and move to the woods. Twitter has brought us so much pain it's time to go back to dirt farming.
I'm only half joking. I've given up my phone for a DIY LTE project that barely works but is fun and I'm off social media for 4 years. Sure there is safety and stuff, but if you wanna watch the white stripes shred or some other exclusive art, maybe that's a thing you can deal with. You can also just not go and buy the Mp3s to load on your precious digital leash.
I'm gonna go walk to the grocery store repeatedly hitting refresh on HN on my kludge phone just to prove how much I don't need it.
But you have a choice. Just don't go to the show. If you think 2 hours without your phone puts your life at risk, simply do not put yourself in these dangerous situations. Let other people enjoy the experience.
If you want to be antagonistic about the threat of a bombing, how about a more commonplace example: you're a very drunk young girl who's been separated from her friends at the concert and a pushy, aggressive guy you don't know is trying to get you into his car to go home with him. You can't text your friends that you need help because your phone is locked.
Or how about this? You're a parent and you've lost track of your kid in the sea of people. You can't text or call them, because your phone is locked.
Or how about this? You're alone and you have a medical condition and something goes wrong, and you need immediate attention, but you can't call 911 because your phone is locked. Your only option now to hope someone else in the crowd notices that you're passed out on the ground not from drunkenness, but from something much more urgent.
Don't act like cellphones have no practical use and are just social media machines. How absurd. They save lives every day and this policy is insanely dangerous for everyone. People here saying "How did people survive before cellphones," well, guess what, in many cases they probably didn't.