In the event of "civilization ending meteorite", the reaction you want from the alert system - that is, the reaction you want to provoke in those hearing the alert, is - "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHY THE HELL IS MY PHONE MAKING THAT AWFUL NOISE!?" *reads phone intently, as this is not a thing that has occurred before*
In contrast, the reaction you do not want is, "Damn it, another amber alert... that's twice this month I've been woken up by these things." *taps side of phone to cause sound to stop and then returns to sleep*
Regardless of the moralizing, you just have to recognize reality: you're going to get a lot more of the latter from the current system. I don't know what the solution to that problem is, but it's a problem. Possibly a somewhat less intrusive form of pushed alert? I don't know.
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"The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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