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#1 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: WA USA
Posts: 10,251
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Vermont Cell Phone Ban
A Vermont senator proposed a ban on cell phones for anyone under 21. He says they're more dangerous than guns
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/10/polit...rnd/index.html
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The bill text; https://legislature.vermont.gov/Docu...Introduced.pdf Based on the attitudes of people like this sponsor, it is only a matter of time before the age of majority or the voting age is raised to 21. Ranb |
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#2 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 8,298
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One may as well ban driving for people under 21.
My phone automatically refuses all calls and will not alert me to texts when I'm driving. I don't know whether this is due to speed, or to the Bluetooth connection to the car itself, but it seems to me that connecting it to speed would be a reasonable solution. Don't bother me at all by default, if I actually want to talk while driving, it has to be via bluetooth. And this sort of distraction is hardly restricted to teens - I've seen a particularly amazing man eating with one hand, while holding a cell phone to his ear with another, while speeding down the Mass Pike (which, if you've been around Boston...). But that's just my knee-jerk reaction. banning cell phones for anyone under 21 is a political stunt, meant to draw attention to an issue more than anything else. |
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#3 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 17,646
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Just an attempt at pro-gun sarcasm.
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#4 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,973
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You know politicians I don't think you've achieved the level of easy efficiency necessary to be wasting time passing "metaphor votes I know won't go anywhere."
Jesus Christ if we can keep passive aggressiveness out of anything can it be our legislative processes? |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#5 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 17,479
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#6 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: United States
Posts: 4,861
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I'm kind of amused by American standards.
You'd trust a 15 year old with a 2,000 lb heavy machine but get queasy when they buy condoms? Trust 17 year olds to serve your country overseas but won't let them drink fermented malt barley. I think this 21+ cell phone nonsense is out of line. |
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#7 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 17,479
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#8 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: WA USA
Posts: 10,251
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#9 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
Posts: 58,967
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#10 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 1,863
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"If it can grow, it can evolve" - Eugenie Scott, Ph.D Creationism disproved? Evolution IS a blind watchmaker |
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#11 |
I would save the receptionist.
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Florida
Posts: 27,719
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The day a state senator doesn't say something crazy, is the day I eat my computer.
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I have the honor to be Your Obdt. St L. Leader |
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#12 |
Lackey
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: South East, UK
Posts: 96,143
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I wish I knew how to quit you |
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#13 |
I would save the receptionist.
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Florida
Posts: 27,719
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Meanwhile, I spent half an hour yesterday trying to figure out why my phone was sending my calls directly to voicemail. Worse, there was no record of missed calls or voicemails for the calls I made to my own phone. Googled it and found discussion groups that said to toggle the "do not disturb" setting on and off. I didn't have a setting like that, but I had an airplane mode. I turned it on and then off - and my calls now actually ring. No idea where my phone got the notion to just not alert me to calls. |
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I have the honor to be Your Obdt. St L. Leader |
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#14 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,973
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Coming at this from another angle I do think, sooner or later, we'll see a Constitutional (or at the very least some sort of broad legal) challenge on any and all age restrictions that will attempt (to what degree it will be successful is of course largely the point) to define a definitive "You are an adult at this point" age and null/void all the others.
Yes the fact that 17/18 year old can join the military but not buy a beer or a cigar is a goddamn disgrace. |
__________________
Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#15 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 12,129
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The one time I've really wanted to ban cell phones has been while working in high schools. Just as with adults they're an addiction. Maybe the solution is to use them as a platform for lessons. But in the meantime they're a distraction. You can have strict policies but the temptation is always there.
A teacher got in trouble for jamming signals - it turned out to be illegal -but I totally got where he was coming from. |
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#16 |
Orthogonal Vector
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 50,180
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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#17 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 31,006
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I don't trust atoms. They make up everything. |
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#18 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: WA USA
Posts: 10,251
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#19 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,973
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__________________
Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#20 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: WA USA
Posts: 10,251
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It's an amendment. It can go away like the 18th did when the 21st was passed.
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#21 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 31,006
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__________________
I don't trust atoms. They make up everything. |
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#22 |
I would save the receptionist.
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Florida
Posts: 27,719
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That's the thing: airplane mode wasn't on. I fixed the problem by turning airplane mode on and then off. As to how I know I was receiving calls that weren't going through, I was calling my cell from my house phone to find it. Instead of ringing, it went right to voicemail. I found my phone on my own, tried it again with my cell in my lap and it didn't ring or register any activity. And once I did get it to reconnect to the network, it didn't find my calls or register anything about them or the voicemail messages I left for myself. |
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I have the honor to be Your Obdt. St L. Leader |
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#23 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 17,479
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#24 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Republic of Ireland
Posts: 21,213
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OK, then. I am aware, though I have not made use of it, that my provider allows certain actions independent of the handset. For example, I could set my connection to forward to VM and it matters not a whit what the phone says thereafter.
Could it be one of those obscure settings? |
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Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my hard drive? ...love and buttercakes... |
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#25 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 1,990
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stupid premise
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#26 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 6,906
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#27 |
Not a doctor.
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Texas
Posts: 22,078
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Quote:
My kids are out of high school and still haven't bought a single cell phone themselves. But use? Oh, they can use. |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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#28 |
Not a doctor.
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Texas
Posts: 22,078
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It likely wasn't finding a signal. Sometimes switching it in and out of airplane mode will initiate the phone actually searching for a signal. Happened to us yesterday when we were out in the country and only had "voice-only" service. Once we got closer to the highway I asked my wife to turn on and off Airplane mode and it switched over to LTE with four bars. The signal was there, the phone just wasn't looking for it.
But be careful, if you leave it in Airplane mode the ensuing "stop calling me Shirley" and "bad day to quit sniffing glue" jokes can lead to marital stress. |
__________________
Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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#29 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: United States
Posts: 17,479
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In the US, joining the military at 17 requires parental consent.
I don't believe it is true that the minimum age for overseas deployment is 18 in the US. It is included in the description for New Zealand:
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#30 |
Rough Around the Edges
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Deep Storage
Posts: 7,094
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Agree with you about the condoms, but I think the alcohol (and now tobacco) age is fine where it is. Some days, I think it should be 40. I wouldn't mind them bumping up the age for military enlistment to 21, either. (Which will never happen, of course, I'm just giving my unpopular view.)
The cell phone thing is obviously silly. I'd never support that, even if the idiot proposing it were serious. Cell phones are not directly deadly in the way that war, tobacco, and alcohol are. You have to draw a few connections to make them deadly. They're deadly to people's attention spans, I suppose. |
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#31 |
I would save the receptionist.
Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Florida
Posts: 27,719
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__________________
I have the honor to be Your Obdt. St L. Leader |
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#32 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 8,298
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As far as I know, my phone has no clue whether I'm I'm driving or just a passenger, until I tell it that I'm a passenger.
That's fine. It's annoying, potentially, for people on public transit, but it's far better than people chatting and then crashing their cars. And I say that as a guy that used the subway starting when I was 9. |
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#33 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 17,646
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#34 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 17,646
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Although this is an interesting discussion I am convinced the Vermont senator was trying to take a swipe at gun-control laws by employing cell phone use as an analogy. Apparently he did it so poorly that people have bought into him truly intending a cell phone control law.
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#35 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 1,863
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You would have to disable the phone almost completely. There are several voip apps out there and countless chat apps. So any kind of signal would have to be disabled. Byebye Google Maps, Uber, Waze etc etc.
It is a pretty draconian measure to take affecting a lot of innocent users so unless people are literally dying left and right due to cell phone usage in cars you might want to dial it down. This link says 14% of traffic fatalities in 2017 were due to cell phone usage. It also says that double that was due to drunk driving. |
__________________
"If it can grow, it can evolve" - Eugenie Scott, Ph.D Creationism disproved? Evolution IS a blind watchmaker |
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#36 |
Orthogonal Vector
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 50,180
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__________________
Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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#37 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Sweden
Posts: 6,769
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I think it depends heavily on whether or not there's any empirical justification for age limits, although the existence of seemingly contradictory age limits are by themselves a sign that the limits are arbitrary.
Notionally there's no reason for why someone who is deemed mature enough to apply to join the military, by virtue of their age, should be presumed to be mature enough to drink alcoholic beverages. It doesn't negate the (supposed) greater than tolerable harm that alcohol has on the brains of young adults. A more reasonable example of how arbitrary these kind of age limits are would be something like, how 17/18 year olds are trained to kill people, and advance in trenches filled blood and guts up to their ankles, but are not allowed to see the most "graphic" and explicit movies. |
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We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. Only in superstition is there hope. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr And no, Cuba is not a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, and it's definitely less so than Sweden. - dann |
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#38 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
Posts: 58,967
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__________________
You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#39 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,973
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__________________
Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#40 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
Posts: 58,967
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__________________
You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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