I disagree that silence should be the default, I think that whatever the majority of people in the environment want should be the default, with the understanding that we should try to accommodate everyone. If I was the one developer out of 8 in my office that thrived on quiet, I wouldn't have punished the other 7 by mandating that silence should be the default[0].

If you're in a loud environment and need quiet, then communicate that to your boss. Ditto for <insert productivity issue here>. They've got a vested interest in you doing your best work, and will try to make it work the best they can for everyone. If they don't, then they're probably not worth wasting your skills on anyway (plenty of fish in the sea). But if you don't speak up, then you've no one to blame but yourself.

[0] Pertinent side note here, after about a year of working in the loud office, the owner mandated that we stop the distractions. No more TV, fewer breaks to mess around, etc. He thought it was affecting our work, and boy was he right (but not in the way he thought). The net result: Our productivity went down. Measurably. Strange world we live in, eh?