Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this where people are forced to be a captive audience, notwithstanding that I agree with theparticular sentiment expressed.
> you have the right to express it
Out in public sure. In an airplane you're in someone else's private space (ie the airline's) and everyone is not only confined with you in minimal comfort, they have no way to leave. Trying to 'own' the space in this context is a dick move. If I'm a traveling passenger I don't want to be subject to your political ideas/religious sentiments/music preferences/sporting affiliation or whatever else. Besides the irritation it may or may not inflict on other passengers, it's an unnecessary burden for the flight crew, who are going to have to field any complaints about it.
In short, please stow your rights in the overhead container or in your checked baggage and respect other peoples' right to be left alone.
> Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this where people are forced to be a captive audience, notwithstanding that I agree with theparticular sentiment expressed.
That is a very, very, very different statement than "I'm calling the FBI."
You're talking about should or shouldn't. The issue here is past that point: whether it's then right to involve people who are empowered to take away your physical liberty, and worse.
> That is a very, very, very different statement than "I'm calling the FBI."
Yes, but on an aircraft the captain is the dictator. They can do basically whatever they want within the confines of law and company policy - and honestly with enough seniority, which the captain on a transatlantic flight has a lot of - they can probably ignore company policy once or twice and get away with it and keep their job.
As far as I'm aware there is no law preventing the captain from deciding to go back because they don't like one of the passengers blasting their opinions to the entire aircraft. What the opinion is, its levels of subjectivity or objectivity, and whether or not it's popular is completely irrelevant.
I'm well aware of the law. I was a full-time flight instructor for years, and the relevant regulation is the first one I taught when introducing students to the regs.
But I'm not talking about whether the captain has final responsibility and authority for the operation of the aircraft.
I'm talking about whether it's sane to escalate directly from something that is very much not an explicit threat of violence, to involving people whose primary tools are suspension of physical liberty and acts of violence.
(Also, please note: that rule says two things. The captain has final authority, yes, but they are also responsible for the choices they make. It's not a free pass to do anything they want for any reason.)
It is a fucking device name. That is so easy to ignore and not be affected by.
Anyone being pissed off and willing to start a fight over a device name should be committed. Put that person in jail, not the person with the tacky device name. Otherwise you are just creating a world where you police the behavior of reasonable people because they might upset unreasonable people. Police the behavior of the unreasonable people.
Do you see how what you said is irrelevant whether it's the right way to think about it or not? The captain saw it, or had it brought to his attention, and decided to get rid of it. End of story. It doesn't matter whether or not it's easy to ignore, or whether anyone was truly affected by it, or anything else.
No, I do not see that. The captain is not a dictator on the plane. They can act according to reasonable and credible threats but their power is not infinite. They do not have the power to kick everyone off of the plane that's, say, wearing a yellow shirt.
If a fight breaks out then arrest the person that started a fight. But if your argument is "we can't let X happen because it might start a fight" then maybe consider stop serving alcohol before you get all uppity on some tacky device name
> They do not have the power to kick everyone off of the plane that's, say, wearing a yellow shirt.
They would likely lose their job if they did it depending on if ALPA wanted to fight for them or not, but they absolutely, 100% have the legal authority to do this. Maybe it should change, and I'm sorry it hurts your feelings, but that's just objectively how it is.
I'm always confused as to why there's such a trend on the internet of romanticizing pilot's judgement and whatever they arbitrarily decide to do when flying a plane. Like videos of some pilot refusing to fly the plane because something feels off. And everyone in the comment praises the pilot and says that whatever maintenance said must be wrong and the pilot's instinct is some sort of all-seeing, all-encompassing entity that can see beyond the puny engineers and mechanics tasked with putting a plane in operating condition.
A design flaw it only becomes due to people’s violent acts. If the goal is safety, we should spend more time helping people process their shit and less on raising shields. They only make people more angry. Everybody draws the line differently, but pushing your data on somebody else’s device without their consent is an intrusion, and as such I consider it to be an act of violence. We need to grow up and understand how to break cycles of violence, not push it further towards mutual destruction.
Why the “vs”?! All three acts are acts of violence. We can order them by our own judgment of intensity, but they’re still all violent. And as such also expressions of pain/hurt, which will lead to further expressions until it is finally seen and addressed. We all know this, but still act like we don’t.
No - someone dropping a picture to your phone when you have the ability enabled is not violence by any definition used by people with functioning frontal cortexes. Maybe it's good to remove the "Everybody" option, maybe it's not. Maybe it's good to make it auto-disable after 10 minutes, maybe it's not. Irrelevant.
But absolutely nothing will make a photo popping onto your phone a violent act.
Someone walks up to you and stuffs an ad for local prostitutes into your shirt pocket before you react.
Don't like it? Should've worn a T-shirt.
Your wife founds another one in your back pocket later that day, and has questions.
What, you practically asked for it. Should've zippered that pocket. An open pocket is practically an invitation for everyone to put their stuff into it.
Violence, violations and other similar words have the same root, meaning to pursue, to suppress, to overpower. Quibbling over exactly where the boundary lines are drawn misses the larger point about unwanted incursions upon your person, whether physical or psychic.
Referring to someone airdropping an image over a protocol you specifically opened up as "psychic violence" is even worse than referring to it as simply "violence."
Words mean things. I know it's popular to pretend they don't and anything can be anything as long as we say it long enough and loud enough, but that's simply not true.
I take it you’ve never been punched in the face before?
No matter how hard someone has been traumatized by unsolicited dick pics, I guarantee they’ll be traumatized in an entirely different way by the same amount of unsolicited punches to the face.
Speaking from experience on both fronts.
You can have more than one category for shitty criminal behavior you know.
> I don't know what the right answer is to people doing weird stuff in enclosed places with a captive audience is.
Punish the people who act.
Seriously, think about the fear here. That someone's trivial to ignore tacky political statement causes what problem? That it causes a fight to erupt? Arrest the person who actually starts the fight.
Do not police the actions of reasonable people just because they might upset unreasonable people. This is absolutely insane! You are just creating a world of Karens and crazy people by enabling them. The people that should get in trouble are the ones who start a fight.
FFS we're talking about a device's name. How often do you even see other device's names? Are you just staring at the WiFi and Bluetooth broadcasts all day? That's mental! You only see it when you switch to the plane's WiFi and then it is done. Over. You don't have to see it again. Anyone that is upset enough to start a fight over such a little thing should absolutely be arrested because they are clearly going to start a fight over some other absolutely bullshit and arbitrary thing. That's a person that is looking for a reason to be upset. That is a person looking for a reason to be angry. That is a person looking for a reason to start a fight. That is a person who is mentally insane.
Naming a device like this and bringing it onto a plane is actually what’s mental. People are tired of this reactionary content already and it needs to end. People need to remember what a CIVILIZED society is.
I think if the captain doesn’t like you, what they say goes & it’s a federal matter.
I think the reason for the captain not liking you is secondary and could get him fired but it’s still: mess around in federal airspace, deal with the feds. Follow all instructions of all flight crew or you’re a criminal, regardless (I think).
Not actually the FBI though is it? Captain probably wanted to sound serious (mission accomplished).
What an odd thing to fixate on . . . swap the pronouns around any way you prefer, and my statement remains correct. The captain is in charge of the aircraft and she is to be obeyed if you want to fly on her aircraft. She can refuse to accept any passenger for any reason. If it is a stupid reason, she may have a problem with her employer later, but nobody can overrule her in the moment.
Friendly reminder that not everyone's first language is English, and for a lot of people for whom it isn't, gender-neutral pronouns can be a pretty foreign concept and it's easy to forget about it. We just apply the natural gender that the word has in our language (such as a chair being feminine in both Portugese and French, so a lot of natives of those languages may mistakenly refer to a chair as "her" in English). I wouldn't go so far as assume the person you're replying to is sexist or whatever it is you're thinking just from the fact they referred to an imaginary captain as "he".
Yes. The captain has the authority, by law, to remove anyone (or everyone) for any reason. There is basically nothing the captain is legally barred from doing while the plane is en route.
> There is basically nothing the captain is legally barred from doing while the plane is en route.
This is pretty wide of the mark. They have a lot of authority, yes, as it's the flipside of the flight's safety being their responsibility. They still aren't allowed to assault a passenger, say, or commit tax fraud, or needlessly break the air laws.
Also, while the plane is en route? As in, the captain throwing someone out of the plane mid-flight?
Ah yes because I am definitely saying that the captain of an airliner is free to commit tax fraud. That's definitely something someone with a functioning brain could believe I meant, and not a complete straw-man bad faith interpretation.
And yes, the captain's authority is greater while the plane is en route compared to on the ground. En route the captain can divert pretty much anywhere if they think it's the right thing to do. They can dump fuel over the ocean or even over houses if they believe the alternative is worse. When the plane is on the ground realistically all they're going to do for anything is deplane everyone, either at the gate or via an evacuation.
>A few thousand pagers went off, quite a few in the hands of kids.
Citation needed for "quite a few in the hands of kids".
What kind of kids get to hold very specific communication devices that Hezbollah leadership uses?
I smell bullshit.
>Terrorism by definition.
Says the person who's never read the definition.
You can call the op that targets military leadership whatever you want, but the mere fact of military leadership being targeted makes it not terrorism BY DEFINITION.
Doesn’t even necessarily have to be the captain - refusing to follow instructions/direction of any member of the flight crew is a serious problem.
And yeah, if it was ridiculous or violated some other law or something they’d eventually have to deal with the consequences of that, but while in the air, what they say goes.
You are actually giving away liberties when boarding a plane and I'm pretty sure this is even written somewhere in the contract between you and the airline that you agreed on.
No contract is allowed to take away what the law gives you. Either the law says "except on a plane/ship/etc." (which is plausible) or the contract is invalid.
Can you imagine how it would be if every contract you sign had a "I own you now, no backsies"?
That sounds like a technicality. You can absolute agree to not do something that would otherwise be lawful. You still have the same rights, but you have other restrictions on you. The two can exist concurrently.
Everything is a technicality if you squint hard enough.
I see you’re confused about the concepts. You’re mixing “things that are legal (sometimes)” (smoking, but not on the plane) and “rights that you have all the time” (freedom of speech, even on a plane). Your employer can’t take your kidney because your contract says you must give one if you’re late to work even if giving away a kidney is legal. But you can still agree to give it if you want to.
If you have the same rights given by law then you can’t have any restrictions on those rights that aren’t in the law. Your rights have the same restrictions they always had and a contract can’t add a couple more. So you have your freedom of speech that a contract can’t take away, the law already defines the restrictions. But a restriction to smoke in the bathroom, which was never your right to begin with, is fine because the law never gave you the right to smoke in a plane bathroom.
You have your rights or you don’t. Calling this a technicality is a lame cop out.
Now you could argue (but you didn’t) that “broadcasting” the word “bomb” on a plane doesn’t constitute free speech. You’re not allowed to yell this at a concert either, it depends if broadcasting (not reading the BT spec to see who initiates the communication) a BT name and shouting are equivalent. But I can’t imagine saying “free X, screw Y” is anything but free speech for anyone not on Y’s payroll. A contract can’t put a restrictions on expressing opinions without them already existing in the law. Do you think there’s a law that says “free to state your opinion except on planes”?
You are absolutely 100% wrong about this. It is entirely possible in the US to enter into contracts that limit your rights, including freedom of speech. People do this routinely, and it is enforceable.
The reason you can't give away your kidney in an employment contract is because there is a specific law banning that: the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, which bans transferring a human organ in exchange for valuable consideration.
On a commercial passenger plane it's frowned upon.
On planes in general, many people jump nude for their 100th skydive - the original and best video of this has been scrubbed from youtube, but a quick search shows others.
The last time I walked about nude in the main body of a commercial passenger aircraft (nominally a 30-40 seater) it was returning to Singapore from Vũng Tàu with only four people aboard, pilot and co pilot, myself and another surveyor.
Long story, short version - it doesn't always involve sex and isn't always restricted to toilets.
>>this is even written somewhere in the contract between you and the airline that you agreed on
What I wanted to say is that you'll never give up any civil liberties because of a contract alone. If the contract can take those away it's because a law never gave them to you in those circumstances in the first place, so you never had them to begin with.
I just wanted to make it clear that you cannot agree to give up something that the law gives you. If the law doesn't give you something, you have nothing to give up.
The law gives very few liberties. And the places where people think it give liberties, it is actually just banning laws from being made around liberties.
Freedom of speech is the peak of this. People think it means "I can say whatever I like wherever I like". But that's not what it is. The government cannot make laws curtailing speech (though, it does... enforcement and interpretation don't line up with the original intent). You can, however, sign an NDA which curtails your speech. A business can kick you out for saying something they don't like. An employer can fire you for saying "poodle" one too many times.
And that's what we are dealing with around airlines. They absolutely can kick you off the plane and ban you for almost any reason. For what you say, wear, or because they don't like how tall or short you are.
The law really only protects a few things. Your race, your gender, your religion. Everything else is fair game for a private institution to discriminate against. They can kick you off a plane because you are a journalist. They can kick you off because you won't quarter soldiers. They can kick you off because you don't submit to a search of all your property.
> The law gives very few liberties.
> Freedom of speech is the peak of this.
Freedom of speech isn't something the law gives you. It is something you innately have.
Don't confuse positive and negative rights[0]. Freedom of speech is something that can only be taken away. It is never something that can be given to you.
That is nonsense. "Freedoms" and "rights" are inherently social constructs. What does it even mean to say you "innately have" freedom of speech? That is a borderline religious claim, like saying you innately have a soul.
Of course. For example, the law guarantees that I don't have to perform labor for someone else if I don't want to. An employment contract obligates me to.
Similarly, it's entirely possible to enter into a contract limiting your freedom of speech.
The entire point of a contract is to promise to do, or not to do, something that you could have freely chosen to do or not to do under the law without any contract.
Right, those other people (well, their devices) are asking you (well, your device) what your (device's) name is. You're not telling them until they ask. They need to leave you alone!
Not only do the people have no way to leave, the owner of the place also has no practical way to make people leave, like they would for example in a restaurant. At least once the plane is in the air.
And the captain has to ensure the safety not only of the flying machine but also of the cabin. So I can absolutely understand the move here and the need to forbid everything that could incite violence in the cabin.
Anyone willing to start a fight over a tacky WiFi name should be committed. Seriously, what an insane thing to do. It's such an easy thing to not be bothered by. It sits in the background, invisible, and you're... just letting it live rent free in your head? There's so many more annoying things to flying than someone's dumb personal hotspot name.
Can we just recognize how crazy of a scenario this is?
The argument is that if I'm responsible for the safety of a very heterogenous group of people in the cabin of my airplane, I will assume that those people are already stressed and will probably act even less rational than they normally would. And that's all that matters in that moment.
> If they're that crazy you put them in a hospital because clearly they need help
I think the point here is the captain is responsible for an isolated pocket of humanity in a cabin. That captain is to take that cabin way up in the air, move it a lot, and get it back down safely.
And not all of the risks are about moving the cabin. Many of the risks are within the cabin and while some dickhead getting uppity at the pub will get collared by the police, it is a totally different problem while in the air.
So, while in the cabin, don't try to fuck around and find out. No one wants to find out anything. They just want to get to the other end of the trip.
We fundamentally agree about who is in the right and the wrong.
The issue is timing and consequences. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
Consider:
Person makes loud free speech statement - which though perfectly legal - is contentious. Person B gets upset and uses their freedom of speech to shout back.
At the pub:
Everyone else is uncomfortable and just want to get on with their day.
But they can leave. Usually they at least make space.
The pub can ask the talkers to leave - either one or both, as it is their private property. And if violence occurs Bouncer/Police drag away the violent person without much likelihood of harm to others.
On the plane:
Everyone else is uncomfortable and just want to get on with their day. But they cannot leave! They cannot make space! There may be elderly next to kids of varying ages. There is no bouncer, police is even worse for business and affects everyone on the plane just wanting to get to their destination. Tight constraints mean physical violence is likely to hurt someone unrelated to the conflict.
And so Captains clamp down on contentious statements ASAP to make sure it doesn't escalate that far. You are allowed to make contentious statements, and they are allowed to ask you to leave, because the plane is not public property.
Nobody wants to fly next to the loud nervous talker. Or the crying baby. But people understand these actions are not by choice and so there is tolerance.
Contentious/provocative statements though? That's a choice. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
It is better for everyone involved if the desire to spout views is simply delayed until the flight is over.
I honestly wish you perfect freedom to do whatever, whenever, wherever along with perfect lack of consequences of your actions for the rest of the universe....
Usually in a first amendment sense legal consequences specifically. More generally we would probably require freedom from physical harm by non state actors, freedom from employment consequences, etc. All of these are consequences which freedom entails freedom from. That's what any freedom means.
> More generally we would probably require freedom from physical harm by non state actors
In theory that is covered already by laws against physical violence in whatever form they take.
> freedom from employment consequences
This crosses the line into private actions and property. Unless you mean government employees maybe? I don't think you will find many private employers who'd support the idea they'd have to keep employees no matter what they say, privately or publicly as that could lead to significant harm of the business reputation.
You've already got libel, perjury, obscenity, harassment limitations on "free speech". Just accept that it is not perfectly free and the reasons why are generally(feel free to pounce on the exceptions) for societal cohesion.
> Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
Sure, but if you punch someone in the face for a political statement then you go to jail for assault. Full stop.
Your scenarios are nowhere near the one we're talking about. It's a WiFi device name. Do you know the SSIDs of your neighbors? When's the last time you checked?
It's not the equivalent of someone shouting or even talking loudly. You have to actively do things to see that device name. It is, without action on your part, invisible.
The scenario is closer to walking up to someone, asking what their shirt says, and then getting mad. This isn't someone getting in your face. You won't even know who owns the device!
You can simply connect to the plane's WiFi and then continue ignoring the names of all the other devices on the plane. You don't even have to connect to the plane's WiFi!
You're being absurd. Come on. It is so fucking easy to go about your life without ever knowing the device name of any person sitting on your plane. It's also incredibly easy to just let it go and move on with your life. Why are you letting such a dumb thing consume your mind and make you so angry? Why are you trying so hard to defend people who are actively looking to fight?
Define crazy. Because you sound crazy to me. The point of view depends on where you sit. Some other people maybe want to put you in prison, for your „craziness“. Care for what you wish.
> I will assume that those people are already stressed and will probably act even less rational than they normally would
They turned what most passengers considered at most tasteless into a real threat worthy of returning to base. How can this possibly help with the stress? If this was to reduce stress, it was disproportionate and backfired in a major way.
Why are airlines adding to every part of that stress but drawing the line at a device's BT name?
Everything about flying is getting worse. The process of buying the tickets full of shady practices and dark patters, the check-in, the boarding process, the cabin luggage getting smaller for the same type of ticket, the ever more cramped seats, the removal of the old amenities like free food or snacks. They are all getting more terrible and adding stress. From what I can tell from my own ticket purchases with the same airlines in the past, the prices kept up with inflation over the past decades but the services have fallen far behind.
> Why are airlines adding to every part of that stress but drawing the line at a device's BT name?
Serving alcohol: no problem!
Tacky device name: oh no! Someone might be offended and start a fight! We can't let that happen!!!!
This is so many levels of absurd and it's incredible how many people are defending crazy people. I never thought it would be contentious to claim that we should punish people for being tacky just because they might trigger people that are institutional amounts of crazy.
I mean if the real concern is that a fight might break out, well I sure know a bigger "social lubricant" than a tiny protest that most people are never ever going to see.
It really seems like people in the threads are doing the exact same thing.
The only argument they are making is that you shouldn't be allowed to make you're device's name <Something Politically Tacky> because... it might make unstable and irrational people upset.
Why the fuck are we protecting unstable and irrational people? Punish them? What is so difficult about this? Seriously
It certainly does. My original comment was a suggestion that you don't lean on your rights when boarding a plane and wanting to broadcast your personality (not your politics specifically), because it's not your space and treating others as your captive audience is inconsiderate.
You've posted 16 times in this subthread and seem unable to accept any other point of view than complete agreement.
Do people get kicked out for offensive t-shirts and tattoos? How about bad cologne, good cologne, bad BO, or just for being so ugly that it's offensive?
Actually this did happen recently. And it didn't go over so well either... for the airlines.
It's something that never should have happened in the first place. (I'm agreeing with you, but stupid shit does happen and we should stop enabling people to act so dumb)
Will the captain likewise call the FBI if some knuckledragging mouth breather with three ex-wives and a flag tattoo on his groin has an access point called 'Make Murucuh Great Again'?
That would make me uncomfortable on the flight, and it's also one-hundred percent a political statement. One that is actively hostile to millions of Americans, and many more people outside of it.
1. Does the pilot need anything but his personal biases to claim that poses a risk to the plane?
2. Because any rational person understands that we need to coexist in a society with a spectrum of political opinion, and that a fucking access point name doesn't cross the boundary between safe and dangerous to society.
3. Because doing it for one and not the other is obviously biased and arbitrary and demonstrates that it's not an actual danger to the plane, it's just some asshole with a bad day choosing to exercise his authority over someone whose politics he dislikes. To severe consequences to both that person and everyone else on board the plane. That's not a society you want to strive for.
I think GP's point is that it's not a risk to the plane? Or in what way is it a risk to the plane? If passenger(s) are wearing a super pro or anti Biden or Trump shirt or Bluetooth/SSID name, is that a risk to the plane, as what if there are other people on the plane who feel strongly in the other direction? But if someone really is OK with pilots turning around flights because of such shirts, etc., then wouldn't the better solution for airlines be to ban clothing, stickers, military uniforms, etc., that have countries' flags, candidate names, political slogans, etc. on them? As if someone believes that turning around planes over it is reasonable, better to address that 'problem' even before taking off and costing large amounts of money and time for hundreds of others, instead of based on the whim(?) of a pilot hours into a flight.
1. In what way is it a risk to the plane? Or is the idea that we should not attempt to evaluate whether pilot's decisions are objective and reasonable? Is there some objective rule being used? (Or if an objective rule can't be stated, is it more like the pilot's feelings or mood about the passenger(s) at any particular moment?)
2. But if someone believes it's reasonable for pilots to turn planes around based on whether someone is wearing a pro or anti Biden/Trump shirt, etc. wouldn't the better solution for airlines to just proactively ban clothing, stickers, etc. with countries' flags, candidate names, political slogans, etc. rather than having pilots turn around planes midflight based on a whim(?), costing hundreds of people large amounts of time and money?
Part H:
Safety – Whenever refusal or removal of a Passenger may be necessary for the safety of such Passenger or other Passengers or members of the crew including, but not limited to:
5. Passengers who are barefoot, not properly clothed, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene or offensive;
Is the point here that clothing containing a pro or anti Biden or Trump, or have a countries' flag, or be a US military uniform, should "pose a risk to his plane", and so airlines should be proactively banning such things from being allowed onboard? Or how does it answer the grandparent and great-grandparent's comments questions about why such thing should "pose a risk to his plane"?
> If passenger(s) are wearing a super pro or anti Biden or Trump shirt or Bluetooth/SSID name, is that a risk to the plane
Exactly
> as what if there are other people on the plane who feel strongly in the other direction?
But it is absolutely batshit insane that we would punish the person with a tacky device name. You are punishing the wrong people. Punish the people who think it is okay to start a fight over something that is so easy to ignore.
This is such an insane thing we're doing. We're policing the behavior of functioning adults because it might upset dysfunctional adults? Why the hell are we creating a society that protects crazy people? It's absolutely insane
> One that is actively hostile to millions of Americans
No it isn't. You can read that implication into it, but it's not "actively hostile" in the way that an "F... X" statement is, for any X, and it's a sign of how slanted the discourse is that you would consider them equivalent.
> Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this where people are forced to be a captive audience, notwithstanding that I agree with theparticular sentiment expressed.
If you are in any way harassing people by shouting through the plane for example, I agree. But the SSID of a WiFi network isn't that. No one is forced to continually read the list of available hotspots over and over again. There is nothing special about the fact that it's on a plane here.
But that isn't what they did. And even if they did, sympathizing isn't being a terrorist yourself. Law enforcement has nothing to do there, unless you're in a totalitarian state.
Don't be disingenuous. In the very same sentence you quoted from, I mentioned that I happened to agree with the pro-Palestine sentiment. I then went on to explain that it's the broadcasting of personal sentiments to everyone else on the plane that's bothersome.
It's actually even simpler than that. The airplane isn't just a "private business, and you shouldn't mess with their space". They're protected and empowered by broadly ratified conventions (which includes virtually every country in the word), starting with the Tokyo Convention:
> The convention [...] recognises certain powers and immunities of the aircraft commander who on international flights may restrain any person(s) he has reasonable cause to believe is committing or is about to commit an offence liable to interfere with the safety of persons or property on board or who is jeopardising good order and discipline.
> he has reasonable cause to believe is committing or is about to commit an offence
Punish the person who starts a fight over some tacky device name that is trivial to ignore. That is the person that is committing (or about to commit) an offense.
You're being unreasonable. Think about what you're saying. It's the equivalent of "You can't wear that shirt, someone might get offended and punch you in the face." We don't act like this in society. You arrest the person who throws the punch, not the person wearing the shirt. Just the same way you don't arrest a woman for wearing something slutty, you arrest the person who sexually assaulted them. This is the definition of victim blaming. It doesn't matter if the victim is increasing their odds of being victim (unless they are actively seeking out and attempting to become a victim).
Be reasonable. Punish the person who is actually committing the offense. Don't punish someone because of some imaginary offense.
Your passport is inherently political. Uniformed service members boarding first is inherently political. The choice of language the crew is able to communicate to passengers in is inherently political.
If I can ignore seeing your neglected toenails tangled haphazardly around the sandiest pair of adidas flip-flops you possess, you can kindly ignore the SSID "Electronic Frontier Foundation", Karen.
> In an airplane you're in someone else's private space (ie the airline's) and everyone is not only confined with you in minimal comfort, they have no way to leave.
Its not private space. Its public because they sell tickets. Its like going to any other event, and I don’t think there’s a constitutional exception to free speech on airplanes where you can’t express your opinions.
I'm not sure if you are saying one can or can't express opinions on airliners.. but I do want to point out that the "contract of carriage" of most airlines is more restrictive than you might find for a ticketed event like a concert. You might want to read the one for United, just for fun (especially if you fly). https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html Rule 21, item H 16 even indicates that you can't smell bad. YMMV, but it is pretty far from a "public" space as I define one.
If you buy tickets to a concert or a movie, the fact that they're on sale to the public does not make it a public space. You're a guest in a private space and can be thrown out if the operators feel you're being an ass. On a ship or plane, you can't safely be thrown out mid-journey.
> Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to bring your politics into a an enclosed pace like this
Ah yes, the classic "your politics," but of course the person having this opinion's politics are perfectly fine, because they're the "normal" person with the "normal" politics, not like that crazy person who thinks some randos shouldn't be the subject of genocide. How dare they!
I believe the idea is that no one should be declaring their political beliefs loudly in such an environment regardless of how “normal” they are. I’m not sure broadcasting a WiFi endpoint meets my threshold for “loudly”, but otherwise I tend to agree.
> I’m not sure broadcasting a WiFi endpoint meets my threshold for “loudly”
And that's why so many of us are treating this as insane. A SSID is not "loud". You can go your whole flight without ever knowing about any other passenger's device names. You have to take action to find out. That action might be the 5 seconds it takes to connect to the plane's WiFi, but serial, if you get triggered over a piece of text that's easy to ignore, you're absolutely mental.
"Loud" is in your face. "Loud" is hard to ignore. "Loud" is you'll know even if you take no action.
I agree, and I think most people do, that it's not a great idea to annoy other people, but it's magnitudes worse to start a fight over someone being incredibly low amounts of annoying. I'd long defend the lunatic who yells at the person who keeps bumping their seat than the person who yells at someone for the same of their SSID. Both are crazy, but come on, the latter isn't even defensible in the slightest. It's so easy to ignore and it's not like it's actively bothering you unless you let it
Maybe, but you know as well as I do that if the SSID were "God Bless America," "Support our Troops," "Fuck George Bush," "I'm glad Hitler is dead," "The South will rise again," or any number of things that there would be no incident.
I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not, but what exactly is your vision of HN "without politics"? It's very hard to avoid because so many technical things have overlap with politics, and lots of technical decisions have political implications. HN currently loves talking about all things AI, and that's probably one of the biggest political topics out there.
> you have the right to express it
Out in public sure. In an airplane you're in someone else's private space (ie the airline's) and everyone is not only confined with you in minimal comfort, they have no way to leave. Trying to 'own' the space in this context is a dick move. If I'm a traveling passenger I don't want to be subject to your political ideas/religious sentiments/music preferences/sporting affiliation or whatever else. Besides the irritation it may or may not inflict on other passengers, it's an unnecessary burden for the flight crew, who are going to have to field any complaints about it.
In short, please stow your rights in the overhead container or in your checked baggage and respect other peoples' right to be left alone.