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

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.