The sound of a cellphone speaker hits the ear like slow-dripping battery acid. It seeps into your auditory canal and spirals down the cochlea, drop by pernicious drop, where it floods the brain and dissolves your train of thought.

As smartphones proliferate, oblivious half-wits are blaring their digital media in public. Its rude behavior, like spitting on the sidewalk or farting in an elevator. This aural menace must be stopped now, before its too late.

The metallic drone can be heard all over the world. It suddenly erupts in a quiet coffee shop or pierces the din of a favorite restaurant. Its coming down a hiking trail or from the next aisle over. More and more you hear it in the bookstore, orcurse you allin the library.

This audio pollution is the next global crisis. For those of us with acute hearing and little patience, the artificial vibration of that little speaker strikes the ear drum like a hammer and rattles every bone in our bodies. What the strobe light is to an epileptic, the smartphone is to a peace-loving curmudgeon.

Color and creed are irrelevantif you play your tinny smartphone in public, the rest of us hate your guts. We hate your clanging pop songs and your stupid sports clips. We cant stand your kids cartoons or the squealing voice on the other end of your FaceTime session. We pray that the genderfluid robot barking directions from your dashboard will short circuit.

Theres hope for reconciliation, though. This could all end with love and understandingif youd just frame your mug with a pair of earbuds.

These days, we acknowledge that texting while driving is deadly, enough so that its illegal in48 states. Likesecond-hand smokeandmercury thermometers, obnoxious cellphones are a public health issue. Before long, someones gonna get killedeither because one of us snaps on a smartphone cyborg, or because there are just too many of them, and those of us in the wetware remainder have to join hands and jump off a bridge.

If we dont want to involve the government, the obvious solution is to create voluntary earbud-only zones. The first step is to raise awareness. Begin by creating a 10-foot radius of rabid intolerance around yourself. If you hear something, say something.

I do it all the time, risking life and limb for the greater good. But one Luddite vigilante isnt enough. To regain the organic serenity of espresso grinders and wailing babies, we need an army of scolds to start nagging now: Please buy some earbuds.

Most people dont want to be jerks. They dont mean to blow cigar smoke in your face or drag wooden chair legs across the librarys tile floor. They just dont know any better. So when a fellow patron annoys you with yapping dog videos, just tell him politely: Buy some friggin earbuds! And if youre a parent with a tech-addicted brat, stuff em in that kids ears before one of us does.

The private sector has an important role to play in the resistance. Business owners who adopt an earbud-only policy will see their clientele surge, if not in quantity, then surely in quality. Caf owners should create a safe space for the literate and the contemplative.

In any sane establishment, the earbud-noncompliant would get the boot. If youre a flight attendant, explain to noisy passengers that if they dont shut that thing off, youre willing to hijack the plane and crash it into a mountainside for one sweet moment of peace. Then hand them a free pair of earbuds.

Failing a voluntary solution, we may have to resort to coercion. Hopefully, my prototype for a personalEMPgun (patent pending) will be ready for production by next year. The device looks like a Nintendo Zapper and fits neatly into a hip holster.

Imagine youre enjoying a good book on a public park bench. Suddenly you hear a squawky YouTube video playing nearby. No need to say a word. Just draw your hi-tech peacemaker and fire an electromagnetic pulse that fries every circuit in that dudes phone. Then enjoy the silence. Itll take out whining aerial drones, malodorous vape pens, and those ridiculous electric scooters, too.

If worse comes to worst, well have to legislate this thing.CFCsgnawed holes in the ozone layer, andDDTgave bald eagles flimsy eggshells, but no one wanted to give these chemicals up. So today we sendarmed Environmental Protection Agency agentsto keep things under control. Bureaucratic measures are never ideal, but desperate times call for authoritarian measures. It may be time to form a Luddite Enforcement Agency, where my EMP guns will be standard-issue.

This is ultimately a matter of personal liberty: the cyborgs freedom to make synthetic sounds versus humankinds deliverance from aural oppression. Its often said that the mutually hostile tribes of our planet will never come together unless theres an alien invasion. Well, the invasion is here, and its time to unite. Together, we can drive this scourge through the gates of hell and cork that hole with an earbud.

Joe Allen is a writer and fellow primate who wonders why we ever came down from the trees.A lifelong student of religion and science, he has kept his hands dirtyas a land surveyor, communal farm hand, kitchen servant, andfor over a decade, climbing steel as an arena rigger.His work appears in various outlets from left to right because he prefers liberty to security. Daily interjections:@EvoPsychosis.

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Enforce Earbud-Only Zones For The Jerks Infecting The Public With Noise - The Federalist