I might be in a minority saying this - and particularly so here on HN - but I struggle to understand why you'd be willing to use a tool like this, as OP did, but not to politely ask someone to keep it down?
My wife and I were sitting in the coffee shop/dining area of our grocery store not long ago, eating breakfast before we bought our groceries. There's a gentleman who's usually there on the same weekend days that we are, and he watches videos on his phone very loudly. It was clearly annoying everyone around, but this being Minnesota, nobody was going to bother him about it (instead they just do little glances over their shoulder or the "OPE" eyes at each other lol).
Finally, one older woman gets up and walks over to him. My wife and I are like "Oh shit, she's gonna let him have it, here it comes." She taps him on the shoulder and says "Excuse me, can you turn that down? It's very loud." And you know what he did? He said "Oh, sorry," and turned it down.
She said thanks and went back to her seat, simple as that.
Thanks for sharing your story about how simple normal requests lead to simple normal social outcomes.
The isolation and atomization of modern individualized living has led people to be so controlled by their anti-social anxieties, fear, and loathing of other people, that they and OP won't even try.
This attitude is what brings the conflict from healthy compromise of competing goals to unproductive power struggle. Why is it so important to you that other people's use of public space is subservient to your own?
If I am on a bus or something I have asked other people to turn their audio down, but most other places it's easy enough for me to just move somewhere else.
I have seen fights break out in the subway over people being loud. People playing loud music in public often seem to be the types to be looking for trouble, they want someone to tell them to turn it down, so they can say no and escalate. In a lot of cities this is a big risk.
To this point, there have been at least a few stories of elderly people being beaten on San Francisco public transit for politely asking people to turn their music down.
OK, I read about someone being murdered by their spouse. That doesn't mean it is going to happen to me. The media reports on sensational stories. That doesn't make them normal.
You tend to know your spouse, you don't know the mental state of people on the train. Especially people who have already demonstrated they don't care about social norms or preserving tranquility in public spaces.
Someone blaring their choice of music in a public space at 90 dB is a “cultural touchstone”?
I don’t drive, I take public transit daily, and am old enough to remember when you would never experience anything like this (even in the heyday of boom boxes in the 80s). So yeah I’m not convinced it’s a “me” problem.
And returning to the point, if you asked someone 30 years ago to turn their music down they would either comply or say something nasty - not physically assault you.
I remember one guy had a whole DJ setup on the subway once. Like he had a table, a laptop, several large speakers, a microphone, monitor headphones, the works. He would have been right at home DJing a kids birthday party.
The music he was playing was ridiculously bad. Obviously subjective but this was such terrible low effort stuff that I am not sure it would even make it to SoundCloud. Think “your stoner friend’s demo tape you try to listen to but can’t get more than three minutes in”
We were in a long tunnel and he turned the volume up, which I don’t think anyone wanted. I yell over the speaker and say he should that shit off. He said people here want it, to which I say “no they actually don’t. See how everyone here has headphones on? If your music was any good you wouldn’t have to force people to listen to it as hostages. If you want to actually test this then go to Washington Square Park, not the fucking train”.
He called me an asshole, turned the music even louder, and kept it going until I left the train. I don’t think he agreed with my reasoning.
Think of it as catering to the fantasy of a geek's revenge.
The keyword is fantasy.
> so i built a tiny app that plays back the same audio it hears, delayed by ~2 seconds. asked claude, it spat out a working version in one prompt. surprisingly WORKS.
Note, they never said they actually played it and then person realized they were being disrespectful and stopped. That whole scenario is supposed to happen in a hypothetic fantasy world, and every reader here is supposed to take in the same way for themselves.
But still, I think the solution is brilliant and I can't wait to try it.
If you ask someone to turn it down, it can immediately come off as confrontational, even if you're being polite. With this solution, though, it's kind of hilarious because in one sense it's more confrontational, but the original music blaster would have to ask you to turn it down - but it's just their music.
I'm a pretty nonconfrontational person, but the one time I lost it was when this late middle aged woman kept chatting away on her cell phone in the quiet car of the LIRR despite other people previously telling her that she was in the quiet car (I believe my exact words were "Hey princess, what part of 'no cellphones' do you not understand" - there is a giant sign at the front of the car that says no cellphone use). But I don't think I'd ever do this in a public situation where the rules weren't so clearly spelled out.
"As with anything in life it depends on a huge number of variables such as location, number of allies the other person has, the threat potential you represent, the number of allies you have, your standing on the social ladder, if you're in a position of power, your ability to understand social clues, the exact method how you ask, yada yada"
Did you walk over? Did you say hi? Did you lower yourself to be around their height? Give them a second or two to get used to you? Tell them first that their noise is loud ? Ask them in a respectable tone if they would lower it, just a bit? Did you give the impression that you were asking, not demanding?
Of course I won't ask a drunk or aggressive looking person. But there is a wrong way to ask, and a better one.
I'm all for asking nicely in general but it doesn't work well with entitled people who don't give a shit about the people around them.
The chances, regardless how nice you try to ask, that the person who elected to broadcast their tiktoks or calls to the whole wagon at full volume goes "oh, sorry, I'm so embarrassed, I'll turn this off", are very low.
Last time I tried to ask "can you use headphones?", the guy answered "I don't have headphones" and put the volume even louder.
A person who cared even a tiny bit would not have started to begin with. Asking is almost futile. These people simply seem to be used to get away with inflicting themselves to people around without consequences. The worse part is that if you do nothing, you participate in this.
What can you do.
I think it can only work if it becomes very socially unbearable, or if they got fined for this. Or, indeed, if it brought them nuisance. In that regard, this HN post's solution is interesting (not sure it's good though).
i agree with this one, in this particular order, how things be in large cities & crowded areas:
- loud person does not care in the first place, that's why they do the loud act
- usually they are more than 1 person, outnumbering me
- although some places have public disturbance prohibited laws, unless there is a law enforcement/security around, chances of me being ending up in a hospital is higher than chances of stumbling on a decent person
- it is easier to act or play stupid
---
on a similar note, last time when i asked someone to lower their volume while having headphones on me, they demanded my headphones because they claimed they were too poor to buy one. -- i am talking about 20$ type-c earbuds vs 16" macbook size marshall speaker. -- as a result, i did not give my headphones and they continued to play music.
I'm not really sure where you're from or what sheltered life you've lived but this does not jive with reality what so ever.
Seems like you're from western Europe, and maybe people are nicer there, but once you get to a place with strong racism, classism, wealth disparity, you suddenly find that being civil has little weight.
> Did you walk over? Did you say hi? Did you lower yourself to be around their height? Give them a second or two to get used to you?
I personally detest the kind of people who behave like this. It all just exudes deliberate fakeness; if anyone were to try this on me I'll only be irritated more than anything else.
While I agree and I'm not the OP you're replying to this feels like the burden of societal correction needs to be on the wronged and not on the person committing it?
It's tolerating the intolerant (their intolerance to understanding social order). They need to be bludgeoned back (metaphorically).
in my experience, the more polite you are, the more likely you are to get punched in the face
If you are in a venue where politely asking someone to keep it down, results in them actually responding, you generally don't need to ask. You are among conscientious people to begin with.
For the most part, about 99% of the time, the whole point of drawing attention is waiting for someone to politely ask them to turn it down. And it isn't so they can respond in kind.
I left my Mac on top of my car in San Francisco once and the next day when I came back it was still there. The thing with catastrophic events that occur at 1% is that even if everyone were to risk it ten times (that's a huge amount for this I think) 9 out of every 10 people would say "nah, nothing happens, I've done it ten times without anything happening" but then 1 out of 10 would die.
So then the question becomes how well you've sampled that catastrophic risk before you say what the real risk is. As an example, I've been mask off and partying since as soon as that became legal. Haven't gotten sick from COVID yet. Shows, house parties, sharing drinks with people who later had it. Tested often because I was this high risk. Zero positives.
I could say "actually, if you just do the things that I did you'll be fine". After all, I've been fine. Nothing happened. I just didn't get sick. I've got the winning formula.
No. People who are loud do that because they want to be loud. They want to hurt people. And they get off to weaklings being polite. The law is too slow and too forgiving for these destructive forces. We need to bring violence back in a big way.
If we're going to bring violence back in a big way then those with the least consideration for others (the ones you say want to hurt people) will have an outsized advantage in its deployment.
My experience has been that people are usually (>50% of the time) offended and non-compliant, no matter how politely you ask. Who am I to ask them to be quieter? They only stop if something annoying is happening for them, like this app, or audibly responding to their call/video.
It is very difficult to stay polite while getting very angry. Politeness is usually reserved for respectful people. If somebody acts in a way that is perceived as intentionally disrespectful (whether that's actually the case or not), there is a severe psychological dissonance to overcome. Also physiologically people will get nervous, voice shaking, facial tension and twitching, heart racing, mind getting foggy when severely agitated which makes trying to act polite even more difficult. It's easier and seemingly more sensible to just skip straight to snapping or ... bottling the rage up to eventually release it against somebody sufficiently harmless - humans are monkeys after all (which isn't even necessarily bad, we should just strive for civilizing the chimp and strengthening the bonobo within us.)
Because social anxiety, typically. “What if the person tells me to fuck off? What if they make a scene of it?” Especially if six years ago you are the person who was in your teenage years, chances are your social skills are not what they could be if you didn’t spend a year in lockdowns.
Conversely, if you are the kind of person able to come up to a stranger and ask them (politely and respectfully!) to change what they are doing, you likely the person with the social skill to do other things well too.
I follow that, and it's something I've struggled with in the past, but doesn't this sort of solution make them more likely to tell you to fuck off or to make a scene, rather than less?
Imagine you are sitting in public watching TikTok videos and someone sitting two seats down from you just turns on this app. Are you more likely to say “hey sorry mate I didn’t realize it was bothering you.” or are you more likely to turn it up louder and/or tell them to fuck off?
Now imagine the same situation but the person comes up to you and says “excuse me but would you mind turning your volume down a bit or using headphones? The sound from your phone is really bugging me and I would really appreciate it.” Which situation is more likely to piss you off?
And sure you might respond poorly to both but I see no universe in which you respond positively to the first while I think there is a good chance you respond well to the second.
On the other hand if the person approaches you and says “hey buddy turn that shit down”.. but the kind of person to use this 2 second delay thing in my experience would never have the confidence to do something like that so not even worth considering.
Just wait until Claude doesn’t want to be friends anymore and Alexa isn’t returning your calls. Siri will always talk to you but you don’t want to talk to her :)
I was at a Bills game in Buffalo last year. 5 rows ahead of me was big tall dude, who stood up and would not sit down. This was blocking the view of everybody behind him. People grumbled, but nobody said or did anything for about 20 minutes. I was quite peeved. Then an old lady right behind him gently tapped him on his shoulder and reminded him that he was blocking the view of several people behind him. The dude shrugged his shoulder and said, "not my problem, you can stand up too if you want". I am a mega-nerd, but I lost my cool right there and then and started screaming at the guy. My girlfriend, who didn't want to see me get beat up, pulled me away from the scene.
Many people are just massive assholes. Asking nicely does not work. Particularly big drunk dudes at an American football game. That was my first and last visit to a football stadium.
That really sucks, but don't deprive yourself of something you think you might enjoy because of that one jackass. Chances are that next time you won't experience something like that.
Also, basically every pro and semi-pro sports stadium nowadays has cell-phone-contactable security that you can summon to handle situations like these. The threat of being kicked out of his $250 seats is way more of a threat than that of being confronted by a "mega-nerd".
I wouldn't make a habit of contacting security over every little annoyance, but if they're obnoxiously blocking an old lady, that's the time to use it.
This feels like a case of imaginary revenge. I doubt the tool was actually used. Creating this tool was part of a revenge fantasy.
If someone has too much social anxiety or is too afraid to politely ask the other person to turn it down, using an actively annoying option like this isn't going to help. This is more likely to induce a confrontation.
It's a great example of (effective, apparently) passive aggression, and, I would guess, is motivated by all the same reasons as any other kind of passive aggression. E.g., fear of open confrontation, or a desire to create a situation that is just as or more undesirable for them so that the other person actively chooses the thing you want, of their own free will.
Exactly! Every time I asked someone respectfully to lower their noise, it worked. Most times they apologized, I think sometimes people don't realize they're annoying others. It might be intimidating the first couple of times, but it's so much better to feel assertive and not be annoyed anymore.
Last time this happened was in a bar, there was a pianist playing, and a group sat right next to the piano and started being very noisy. I went and asked them to lower their voices. They apologized, and shut up entirely. Later, someone came to thank me for that.
On the other hand, I would never dare using that tool, it feels a bit childish and would make me feel like such an ass!
I guess you’ve never experienced asking, and then having the person(s) act out from turning up the volume, aggression, following you on you hike or off the bus. All these things have happened around me or to me. I’ve stopped asking. It’s not worth the risk.
People doing these kinds of things don’t give a F about anyone else. They’re terrible “humans” and should be treated as such.
1. This is a lighthearted joke that someone made after having a bad experience with others being noisy in public. (Most likely scenario.)
2. The author is going to actually use this tool in public, in which case they are either a power-tripping asshole who gets off on "outsmarting" people, or a limp-wristed coward without basic social skills.
Yeah except being passive aggressive actually tends to escalate the situation. Because sometimes people will just respond to a polite question, but now you've just been the same asshole to them, so there is a higher chance that they're just going to get offended.
The whole PA phenomenology originates from the military, where hierarchy prevents direct confrontation. So subordinates lash out in ways that are harder to counter. I feel like it's a similar dynamic here.
Absolutely, but the key word in the GP's use of "avoid direct confrontation" is direct. Being passive-aggressive is indirect, and even if it's more likely to cause an escalation, to many people it feels safer, even if it really isn't.
You have to understand though that this is X (rip twitter) we are talking about and from the verified account, the 14k follower count, it is evident that this person either is or is trying to be a tech "influencer". Posting controversial rage-baits is pretty much the pattern every influencer follows today to stir up discussion, increase their visibility, and get more followers.
> I don't think he cares about being polite.
If you're polite, debate civilly, say reasonable things and act like a normal person, you are a nobody on X. Nobody will see your tweet. Nobody will engage with it. You might as well have not said anything.
This. People are scared of human interactions more and more. It's all about being passive agressive or avoiding the good ol' conformism through connection.
On the other hand if you can force people to behave through machine processes it's much more effective than human processes
