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That's the nice version of all of this. The less nice version is that it's all marketing and for-profit woo: Buy these gold cables with 20% nitrogen and your M

by msla 4y ago

That's the nice version of all of this. The less nice version is that it's all marketing and for-profit woo: Buy these gold cables with 20% nitrogen and your MIDIs will sound crisper! Buy these fiber optic cables made with Genuine Himalayan Sea Salt and your bits will be better-formed! Buy my optoelectric isolator or you might as well be hooking your speakers to your turntable with a rusty wire coat hanger! "Riddled with inscrutable lore" is a prime diagnostic feature of all this; it recurs in pseudoscience of all kinds, and the audiophile experience is pseudoscience-adjacent at least whenever it makes claims about reality. It's motte-and-bailey, to some extent: This sounds "Better", where "Better" is either completely subjective, or the result of objectively untrue and blatantly impossible claims they make about the gear they're selling. If everyone knows it's just pretend, sure. But false advertising and lying are morally wrong.

munificent 4y ago
I try pretty hard these days to seek the most charitable interpretation for human behavior. It's a useful counter-balance to all of the outrage click-bait, bad news survivorship bias, and other emergent forces in play in the modern world that make people look horrible. It makes me less anxious and pessimistic. In general, yes, I agree with you that false advertising and lying are wrong. I'm also a pretty rational, skeptical person who is "anti-woo". At the same time... in the past couple of years I've become much more open-minded about the positive psychological value of just choosing to believe some shit in the absence of evidence. It's good to know that you've chosen that belief for non-evidentiary reasons. Maybe put it in a different mental bucket. But I no longer believe that the "things I believe but can't justify" bucket should be empty. The world is huge and scary and uncertain and awful things can happen without any notice or any ability to control it. I could get a traumatic brain injury. My wife could realize she no longer loves me. My kid could get hit by a car. I have no evidence to justify a belief that those things won't happen. But I need some level of faith that things are gonna be OK (even if they might not) so that I can function. If someone is selling kelp and claiming it cures cancer, that's a deep evil because it prevents someone from seeking an actual effective cure to a real material problem. But if someone has some disposable money and wants to spend it buying the subjective illusory experience of better sound and the identity of a person who is really into audio, I won't judge a company who wants to satisfy that demand. We all just need some fucking comfort sometimes, you know? And if a $400 HDMI cable gives it to someone, I sure as hell won't judge them for it.

by msla 4y ago

munificent 4y ago

I try pretty hard these days to seek the most charitable interpretation for human behavior. It's a useful counter-balance to all of the outrage click-bait, bad news survivorship bias, and other emergent forces in play in the modern world that make people look horrible. It makes me less anxious and pessimistic. In general, yes, I agree with you that false advertising and lying are wrong. I'm also a pretty rational, skeptical person who is "anti-woo". At the same time... in the past couple of years I've become much more open-minded about the positive psychological value of just choosing to believe some shit in the absence of evidence. It's good to know that you've chosen that belief for non-evidentiary reasons. Maybe put it in a different mental bucket. But I no longer believe that the "things I believe but can't justify" bucket should be empty. The world is huge and scary and uncertain and awful things can happen without any notice or any ability to control it. I could get a traumatic brain injury. My wife could realize she no longer loves me. My kid could get hit by a car. I have no evidence to justify a belief that those things won't happen. But I need some level of faith that things are gonna be OK (even if they might not) so that I can function. If someone is selling kelp and claiming it cures cancer, that's a deep evil because it prevents someone from seeking an actual effective cure to a real material problem. But if someone has some disposable money and wants to spend it buying the subjective illusory experience of better sound and the identity of a person who is really into audio, I won't judge a company who wants to satisfy that demand. We all just need some fucking comfort sometimes, you know? And if a $400 HDMI cable gives it to someone, I sure as hell won't judge them for it.