Why can't you user your cell phone on commercial flights (hint: it has nothing to do with technical limitation, you can use your mobile phones in flights in Europe) or why your seat has to be in their original and upright position a full 20 minutes before landing?

Willy Stern of The Weekly Standard has the REAL reasons:

Mike Munger, a political science professor at Duke University, says the FAA’s silly rules are, in fact, a form of what psychologists and zoologists refer to as “costly signals.” What’s the term mean? Costly signal theory explains actions that might seem crazy, but have a purpose. For instance, a gazelle espies a lion across the veldt and, instead of hiding, expends much energy by leaping high into the air, calling attention to herself. At the same time, she’s telling the lion, “Hey, I’m no simple catch so look elsewhere for your dinner.” Similarly, the FAA wastes a lot of energy and resources with its pages and pages of
inane rules, but is somehow trying to convey the message that planes are safe. Most of us would rather skip the message and finish our naps in full recline.

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