The world can be a noisy place, but it could be worse. Everything can always be worse and many or even most things will be worse, and if you're lucky enough to live a long life you'll be able to sample many of these circumstances firsthand, a grand tour of worsening situations. The world has loud spots and quiet spots and even some eerily silent zones, like for example an Arby's restaurant situated within twenty miles of any other fast food place. We take our natural din levels for granted. People aren't in the habit of counting their blessings for a world free of ubiquitous geological screeching, for instance. Or just imagine if the world simply turning on its axis caused a maddeningly loud grinding sound. An unlubricated earth is one on which creatures would evolve over eons who would be uniquely equipped to take such distractions in stride, either by physical design or the evolved capacity for severe mental steeliness. We'd all be born clenching our teeth and we'd never relax until the moment of our deaths. Technologically superior alien visitors would disembark from their shimmering craft with their disgusting mouth holes agape, holding their silver-gloved fists over their ears as we grin behind our palms and snicker, nearly dropping our homemade welcome placards. What if the earth's molten core emitted a nonstop belching sound at earsplitting volumes, a ceaseless riot of thunderous liquid detonations that under the best circumstances was "only" perceived as a remote cataclysm of apocalyptic proportions, like maybe Australia blowing up. What if no place on earth was even remotely quiet.