(A brief digression here: I think Carl Kruger is a pretty cool guy, because he also joined 12 other NYC assemblymen in sucessfully petitioning American Express to rescind the merchant status of Holocaust denier and general all-round neo-nazi prick David Irving in 2009).
Anyway, as someone who frequently (and by "frequently", I really do mean "at least 4 times a week on average") gets knocked, bumped and elbowed by unobservant morons whose entire attention is devoted to gawping blankly at their mobile phone whilst walking along the fucking street, I was, at first, quite excited by the prospect of someone in authority actually recognising this unpleasant 21st century phenomenon for the dangerous inconvenience that it is, and attempting to do something about it.
However, I'm now reconsidering my position on this. Let me explain. If you've read the article, you'll have noticed that the Senator cited a rise in "accidents stemming from pedestrian distraction," including the death of a 21-year-old man crushed by a Mack truck while listening on headphones to music and a woman "engrossed in conversation on her cell phone walking straight into a park fountain."
To me, these kinds of "accidents" are merely examples of the natural selection process for the modern world. In the past, early man's threats came mostly from extreme climactic conditions and dangerous predators. Over time, as we've found ways of coping with our environment (wearing clothing, building shelter, not living amongst dangerous wildlife and so forth), these threats have been somewhat neutralised for most of our species (no, I don't need 300 emails pointing out the threats faced by African tribesmen and sub-arctic eskimos etc., or the dangers of current climate change. Don't be pedantic, you get my point). This is a simple process called "adaptation", and one of the basic phenomena of biology. It's also part of the natural selection process; as you'd expect, those species (or members of a species) who fail to adapt are generally removed from the gene pool as a result. Obviously within the modern world there are fresh challenges to our continued survival, which include, for example, Mack trucks and large concrete structures such as park fountains.
I think you're getting my point by now. Our advances in technology are fantastic and amazing, and the use of hand-held devices has changed the way we work, play and interact forever; but the price of such technology should not be the sacrifice of your own personal awareness. So how does this relate to Kruger's proposed legislation? Well, as I said at the start of this post, at first the idea of legislating against this seemed appealing to me; it appeared that the problem of unawareness had become widespread enough to be noticeable, and possibly even to warrant action being taken against it. On the other hand: fuck 'em. If your level of awareness is so low that you can't even stop staring at your phone for the 20 seconds or so it takes to cross a street, then maybe you deserve to end up being a red smear on the asphalt (incidentally, for an interesting article about awareness by an evolutionary psychiatrist, see here). Unfortunately, I doubt that a $100 fine will suddenly drag peoples' attention away from the glowing screen in the palm of their hand and make them take notice of the world around them, so I'm forced to conclude that nature is just trying to do what it always does; remove those who are unable to cope with their environment from the gene pool. Or to put it another way: I'm not saying we should make stupidity a capital crime, but can't we just take the warning labels off everything and let the problem solve itself?
I could go on about this particular topic all day, but just to emphasise the level of ignorance we're talking about here, I'll leave you with this absolutely true story. This happened to me on Oxford Street, London in the middle of a weekday. For those who don't know, this is what Oxford Street looks like on an averagely busy lunchtime:
Yes, I sometimes have to walk down this. Any questions about the title of this blog now?
You get the idea. Anyway, there I am walking along, picking my way through the crowd and trying my hardest not to wish for the immediate death of all humanity, when I spot a woman coming towards me, head down, Blackberry clamped in her paw, obviously mid-text. On Oxford Street. At lunchtime. Now, misanthrope I may be, but I try not to be a total prick (all the time), so I try and angle myself to my left to avoid her. As if tracked by radar, she starts to drift (still not looking where she's going) in the same direction. We're getting pretty close now, and there's not a lot of time left for evasive manoeuvers, but I try moving back to the right, and I swear - I couldn't make this up - she drifts back in that direction too. It's too late now, and BAM, she walks straight into my chest, actually hitting me with the crown of her head first because her head is so craned down at her phone.
Now comes the good bit. And by "good", obviously I mean "utterly fucking unbelievable", as she looks up at me, screws her face into an expression of contempt and sneers "Look where you're going!". I thought I knew what the word "nonplussed" meant up until this point, but suddenly I found myself with an entirely new definition of it. Seriously, such a perfectly illogical experience really can't be put into words that do it justice, so here's a big space instead.
I'd have made it bigger, but that'll do for illustrative purposes. Anyhow, I eventually managed to stammer the words "I'm not the one walking down Oxford Street STARING AT MY FUCKING PHONE" (I say stammer, but the last five words were pretty much roared directly into her face). She snarled something back at me ("fuck off" or the like), since I'd now obviously injured her ego by pointing out how much of an utter fucking moron she was, and we parted ways; me to reflect on the deep abyss that is the human capacity for ignorance and her to (hopefully) get hit by a Mack truck and thrown into a fountain.
Now comes the good bit. And by "good", obviously I mean "utterly fucking unbelievable", as she looks up at me, screws her face into an expression of contempt and sneers "Look where you're going!". I thought I knew what the word "nonplussed" meant up until this point, but suddenly I found myself with an entirely new definition of it. Seriously, such a perfectly illogical experience really can't be put into words that do it justice, so here's a big space instead.
I'd have made it bigger, but that'll do for illustrative purposes. Anyhow, I eventually managed to stammer the words "I'm not the one walking down Oxford Street STARING AT MY FUCKING PHONE" (I say stammer, but the last five words were pretty much roared directly into her face). She snarled something back at me ("fuck off" or the like), since I'd now obviously injured her ego by pointing out how much of an utter fucking moron she was, and we parted ways; me to reflect on the deep abyss that is the human capacity for ignorance and her to (hopefully) get hit by a Mack truck and thrown into a fountain.
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