Believe me, I strongly considered the possibility that it was something that was beyond his control and wanted to not be an asshole if that was the case. But based on everything else about him, I don’t think it was an involuntary nervous condition. He could stop if he was aware of it because he did several times. I…

So those few inches are important to you but couldn't possibly be to the person behind you? Your post is example #784367 of recliners being turds.

By the by, my neck and back are screwed-up, but rather than make others suffer my my misspent youth, I don’t recline and act like a goddamned adult. You probably whimper and grumble over the “car accident” or “heredity” that hurt your little back. Being a decent person means that sometimes you deal with discomfort so…

To be clear, I do not think I’m defending a moral code when I knee you in the back, blast A/C on the top of your head, sneeze 2 inches from your ear without covering my face, etc. I’m being an amoral asshole. If If I’ve led you to believe I think this is moral behavior, I apologize. I don’t. Airplane Batman is…

Well, a few dozen commenters have just explained to you that it’s physically painful when you recline into them, so I’m thinking “knowingly harm others” is pretty fair.

You’d rather the airlines just draw those moral boundaries for us?

I dunno man, I guess “Delta says it’s cool” isn’t quite enough for me to knowingly harm others. But, different strokes I guess.

Or you just missed my point. Which was: “permitted and accepted by the airline” is not the same thing as morally permissible. There’s plenty of shit that won’t land you the seat next to the air marshal, but will still make you a dickwad.

Just flew Spirit (IAH/LAS) and the inability for anyone to recline right into my lap was much appreciated.

You’re goddamn right.

The kind of self-absorbed, obnoxious asshole who actually needs this advice would never take it to heart. Someone is always going to bring on some smelly sandwich that they just couldn’t eat at the gate, five different people will be obliviously shouting into their cell phone at every opportunity, and someone will…

Stop using my headrest as a handrail. I will quietly hate you if you recline into me, but if you’re behind me, don’t randomly grab my seat and shake it. I will cut you, old lady.

NO RECLINING

We need to just make seats not recline. Or take seats out and leave more space for them to recline without injuring tall people or preventing people from working on small laptops. I’m fine either way, really.

This video was made for the sole purpose of starting recline/no recline arguments in the comments.

It’s actually quite tasty.

I wish I had scrolled down. I hate watching these videos. I didn’t care for the narrator.

you rock, dude- thanks for the cliff-note version

You are rad!

This one’s big in visuals, but I know how much people hate video lists, so here you go: