Why are people upset Mayor Bloomberg wants to warn people about the dangers of using earbuds and headphones?

Maybe it isn’t so much that he is warning about the dangers of using earbuds as the fact that he wants to tell people how to live. He wants to tell women to delay child bearing, he wants to tell people to stop drinking large cola drinks. I would not listen to him if he were my mayor.

People do not want to hear anything bad about anything that they like or anything they find convenient. And these days, even the least little thing is enough to warrant unlimited vitriolic hatred, especially if it’s a person/group that one already dislikes.

As for the other, many people are rather ignorant. I used to be surprised that some people cannot do math in their head; nowadays, I am not surprised that most cannot count out correct change. I am no longer shocked by the how little people know; just jaded. I had the “loud noise damages hearing” thing figured out by age 4.

@chyna If you were right then people would stop listening to Conservatives period. They tell people how to live all the time. I think it’s more that they are jsut looking for an excuse to “justify” hating him.

If it’s just an awareness campaign, I’m all for it. Most of my patients have some degree of noise damage. I also hate noise pollution. But if it involves some sort of law and regulations, it’s going too far, since different device and earphone combinations have different output capacities, there is no way for the wearer to know how loud their device is. Our perception and tolerance for loudness is subjective. It’s unenforceable.

Americans don’t much like the idea of the nanny state. Often it is those who need a nanny the most who object the loudest. But their reasons for disliking the nanny state are not irrational. We have seen far too many instances where people accepted a nanny state only to learn later that it was not their best interests the nanny had in mind.

@ETpro It depends on whether it’s advisory or compulsory in nature. Being warned that a site may contain objectionable material and/or is not suitable for all audiences is annoying at worst, but not having access to porn at all is intolerable.

@jerv Thanks for making my point. :-)

@chyna Not listen at all? I am not very happy either about legislating what people can drink or how much, nor would I ever go for some sort of control on when or how many children a woman can have. But, putting information out in the public? I can’t understand the objection.

Bloomberg never wants to stop at “raising awareness”. That’s how he starts, of course, but eventually he’ll push for a law or city regulation of some kind to make things – for everyone in New York City – the way he wants them to be. I oppose that kind of paternalism – and I don’t need it.

@CWOTUS So you think he wants to make earbuds illegal?

I don’t have any idea what he will eventually want. He may “only” want to make devices / earbuds that can’t produce more than a certain decibel level of sound, or he may want to legislate a design that doesn’t fully seal against the ear canal, so that outside sound can always be heard.

The only thing that I can believe with any confidence when it comes to this mayor is that he will not stop at “advising” people about anything. He loves to control, and that will be his aim.

Well, he won’t be mayor for long so not too much to worry about.

Yeah, goodbye Mayor Mike. Hello, Senator Bloomberg. He has been bad enough as mayor. He might even make a worse senator than Schumer. Even worse than my own CT Senators.

I think Bloomberg is more pragmatic than Schumer, and less likely to tow the Democrat line.

(Toe the line)

Bloomberg does have the unfortunate habit of using his position as a bully pulpit.

@gailcalled I say Democrat line, because when @CWOTUS brings up Schumer, Iwould guess mostly what he does not like about him is he is a Democrat and tends to get on TV and talk the talk that tries to reinforce the Democrats position. That whole on message thing.