I have issues with psychology theories, stances and my past relationships with people bearing a education in psy stuff. My first wife had a uni degree in psy stuff and she could be very tricky to deal with in some basic life matters because I am analytical but very empathetic and sometimes too accepting to a fault and she to a fault used her psy education to determine things about peoples' past and future. I have determined that some psy ideas are better than the alternatives and I use psy reasoning to make decisions and try to be a better person but it has it limits and is not a exact science like say, The Principles of Electron Flow or even Digital Fundamentals as I mentioned earlier and other very defined and exacting accurate subjects. I commend you on your very broad palette of psy ideas and techniques for explaining people but I thing you overdo the stuff to a fault and in the case of Stereophile authors etc you are too kind towards them.
Cool!
My two cents
. I want to impart more analytical stuff into you but you are apparently not a willing subject...
Perhaps. Admittedly I'm not sure what you mean by wanting to impart more analytical stuff. Especially as the topic has been people's motivations/honesty.
To give you a quick picture of where I'm coming from on this subject: Since the 80's I've been fascinated with weird beliefs and the skeptical cases against them. Everything from Big Foot, Alien Abductions, Ghosts, parapsychology, New Age beliefs, you name it. This brought me in to much contact with people who believe things most of us would think to be nuts or irrational. I also got deep in to the subjects of skepticism vs....uh...something I'm not allowed to name here...philosophy, the philosophy of science, debates with people promoting Intelligent Design, and many other things. I've done podcast debates with highly intelligent people who I think are believing in things I find utterly irrational. So I'm coming from tons of experience of interaction with these belief systems and individuals. And my personal take-away mirrors what I've read about the psychology: plenty of highly intelligent people sincerely believe wild things you'd think someone intelligent couldn't believe. I had some neighbours who were highly intelligent, highly moral people, perfectly functional and not crazy, but who believed in ghosts and believed they saw them all over the place.
There's also the experience of debating in general. Whether it happens to be, say, with another philosophy nut about Free Will, or even just debating issues about audio gear on forums like this. There are things that can just feel "so obvious" once you believe you've arrived there via reason and from there it makes someone who argues otherwise seem like they MUST be just disingenuous. I mean...you've pointed out the errors in their thinking plenty of times, so it MUST be some defect in psychology, like their dishonesty. They know better you've shown them plenty of times! In this very forum I've been characterized as lying and disingenuous when I know very well I'm defending ideas I really believe. And it's likely others have had the same experience. Because that's just how it often SEEMS to each side in a cantankerous dispute.
Further, many years ago I was involved for a little while reviewing gear, and knew lots of people in that industry. I don't do it any more, but I still know reviewers and regularly have insight in to behind the scenes. So I'm not ignorant or naive about this. I know stuff that makes me shake my head at the ethics involved, but the bad stuff does not seem to predominate, and mostly I see people doing their best to be above board, have some ethics, and generally write what they believe.
So I take all this to heart when it comes down to evaluating the probability of someone being honest or dishonest who is defending things I think are nonsense, in general, and with audio reviewing in particular.
What do you have to impart that is more analytical on this subject? What am I obviously missing here?
