Hi All, I'm coming here in hopes of a rational response.....but need to give background information to give context
Canada has an amber alert policy that has forced wireless carries to disable smart phone functionality that overrides any silent or do not disturb settings and send amber alerts through the phone. My only recourse is to turn off the phone, which isn't an option, I have nonagenarian parents, I'm in IT, I'm on call. I have my phone set to do not disturb and allow 'favourites' to ring through.
There was a tragic case Thursday evening of a father killing his child. The first amber alert went out at 11:37pm, The second at 12:45am the next day. It happened in the GTA (greater Toronto area) and I'm hearing conflicting reports that the alert may have been been even more wide spread that than....So let's say conservately that 4 million people we awakened twice Thursday night. As to be expected, there was alot of complaints about the late night alerts. Some very stupid, with calls to 911 to complain.
Cue Friday, and all the Facebook posts about how to save a child wake me up anytime, and one of our national magazines published an online article that basically said that anyone that objected to being awakend was a 'horrible person', 'not a good person'. Someone posted a link to that article (
https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/you-are-horrible-people ), with the tag line 'this shouldn't even need to be said'. I was tired and grumpy (4 hours disturbed sleep!), so I replied to the effect that I thought it inappropriate that a national magazine publish such an inflammatory piece and that I thought our government over-reached to disable smart phone functionality.
Man - unleash the haters. holy shit. I've disengaged, because well, it's pointless to try and have an intelligent arguement with an unarmed apponent.
I find the MMM community able to have a rational, thoughtful discussion - Do you think I should have the right to choose to not get amber alerts in the middle of the night? Really, what do these people think I'm going to do? Get dressed and go out looking? That I should 'get over myself', so what if I lost sleep, a CHILD was missing.
I am asking for constructive feedback/thoughtful cases as to why my individual right to use my electronic device as a choose should be overriden by the 'greater good' af spamming an amber alert. And remeber I'm only protesting my inability to silence that amber alert through 'silent' or 'do not disturb' functionality. I'm all for sending them when I'm awake and potentially able to contribute useful information.