Airplanes and Cellphones

Talking on cellphones or using laptops on an airplane could disrupt cockpit operations, especially global positioning devices that are increasingly being used to help land planes safely.Please switch off all electronic devices for the duration of the flight.

I'm sure you've heard of this line at least once if ever you've boarded an international flight. Since I don't ferquent local flights because I believe only boats should be using propellers to move around in this day and age, I'll just assume they say that too occassionally.

Anyway, what the flight crew message is trying to say is plain and simple:

TURN THAT SHIT OFF IF YOU DONT WANT TO DIE.

Apparently, there are still people who dont understand the very simple precept of following instructions so as to not die. I bet that these are the very same owners of phones that go off inside churches, theaters, funerals and the like.

Now I'm not really for homicide but when stupid people are doing things that will knowledgeably kill them, I say we just let nature run its course. In nature it's not the smart gazelle or the strong gazelle or the gazelle who knows how to smooth talk his way out of things that gets eaten. It's the gazel that says "Do I owe that lion something? He's coming toward me awfully fast..." - the stupid gazelle. It's evolutions way of sorting the chaff out of the wheat.

But of course there are exceptions.

If a stupid person will kill himself but in the course of doing so wipe out 367 other passengers who have a decent common sense to turn their phones off - the same people who in the future couldpossibly increase the IQ per capita of this planet by copulation, that shouldnt happen. The death is not worth it. It'll be bad for everybody, except the stupid guy of course, who shouldn't care any more than we do.

One time, I saw a guy seated beside me did not actually stop using his phone after hearing the message. Instead, he hid it under his coat. It got me thinking. Which part of "SWITCH YOUR PHONE OFF FOR THE ENTIRE DURATION OF THE FLIGHT" could have suggested that he should hide its usage instead? Did he think that maybe if he put it under his coat the radiowaves will not hit the aircraft instrumentation?

I was thinking, if this plane crashes because of his insistence and I go meet up with him and the other plane crash victims in the gates of heaven, I'll make sure he gets all the talktime he needs - with Satan as his phonebuddy.

I bet it would be really embarassing to relate to your ancestors when you meet up with them and explain why you're with them instead of living the rest of your life on earth. You'd be saying "See, there was this asshole seated beside me during the flight who..." Not good for an afterlife topic. You'll be the Cloud Nine nobody in no time with that sort of death story.

WHY DO PEOPLE NEED TO TALK ON PLANES ANYWAY? Whatever you need to say, you could have say during the wait inside the terminal. Could it be that they're just too mentally incapacitated to know where the powerswitch of their phones are? But then again, if they cant even do just that, how do they manage how to breathe?

Lay of Idiodynamics: Stupidity is constant regardless of altitude and speed of the subject exhibiting the property.

Of course we've yet to hear an inicident of a plane crashing because of a phone but we also havent heard of a man dying because he choked after swallowing a remote control - we havent heard of it yet and it hasnt happened yet but that's no reason for us to push the limits and see if it can be done, right?