Sardonicus' Rant #1: Pedestrians w/ Hands-free CellphonesWearing a hands-free phone earpiece while driving: quasi-responsible. Wearing a hands-free phone earpiece while walking around inside the mall: ultimate douche-baggery. What in the world do these people need the use of both hands for? So they can hand out communist pamphlets twice as fast? Do they find it more effective to pick both nostrils simultaneously? Perhaps it serves as a display of solidarity to their fellow sufferers of severe learning disabilities? Regardless, one should not be completely ignorant of the threat these devices pose to the delicate social fabric of America, one that is already under attack by products from America Online, reality television, and the culinary institution of the spork.
Of course, some of you may wonder: Hart, what is it about these small, grotesque gadgets that offends you so? Although wearing such abominations outside the circumstance of driving demonstrates appallingly poor judgment, are not these individuals only harming themselves and their own social prospects? And to those I say nay! NAY THEE! To simply ignore or forgive such atrocity is not the American way, especially when we see it on our own beautiful soil!
As wonderful a concept as attaching a phone to the side of your head may have been in its early stages of design, we now know that hands-free phones actually do NOT lower the risks of phone-related accidents while driving. The primary distraction is the conversation, not the inconvenience of having to hold something to your ear. The same is true when driving while holding a conversation with someone in the passenger seat. Though if a hands-free phone did indeed add to the safety of driving, the irony of the matter would be astounding. After all, those who wear such monstrosities are implicitly also those that are least deserving to live.
It is disappointing that our society has deteriorated to the point in which everyone needs to be, more-or-less, a cyborg to function. With our ipods, cellphones, laptops, blackberries, etc., can we even call ourselves human beings anymore? Do we make our own decisions, or are our actions determined by what our technologies order we do? Are we living in a sci-fi movie, and have the robots already won? Sadly, it appears they have. Autonomy is a thing of the past.
I could be wrong, but what are the chances of that?
