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Audiophilia is the mirror of modern times

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Davide

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This post is the result of my personal reflection, taking inspiration from the thoughts of people much more illustrious and enlightened than me.

In recent years, a good part of the world has experienced the exponential expansion of the Internet and the devices to access it.

The amount of information we have access to today is indefinable, and without realizing it we have entered a vicious circle of "learning".

Even when we don't actually need it, we spend time scrolling and scrolling, scanning titles, comments, images, videos, looking for some interesting information.

However, our mind is not a hard disk with infinite capacity. It doesn't work like a computer that stores data. It tries to serve its function, so peculiar in the animal world, that is, to make us make choices and decisions.

Thus each piece of information that presents itself is processed and cataloged by the mind so that it knows what to do with it. Useful, useless. Good, bad. Right, wrong.

In fact, it is quite difficult to learn information without cataloging it. It's a bit like when you memorize something, rather than trying to understand the concept. It is difficult to do this, and we are limited in memory. But it is much easier when we make our own logic, because it allows us to regenerate information.

This binary process of cataloging has its effectiveness in a simple world, an animal world, where needs are the primary ones. But in an increasingly complex world, increasingly rich in information, this process becomes ineffective, and sometimes even dangerous.

If the avalanche of information that reaches us is difficult to catalog or does not entirely represent reality, as typically happens with scientific information, then absurdly polarized currents of thought arise, perfectly and dangerously at odds with each other.

If the information is also false, biased or the result of feelings of hatred, or something else... it's even worse.

The most striking example that the world has just experienced concerns the COVID pandemic. You can make an overview of polarizations: Virus fearsome or like a cold. Protective devices everywhere or useless. Safe or dangerous vaccines. Interest of the community or of an elite/lobby.

Pay attention to it. Look around you. Every single issue becomes a source of polarization. Even those that do not actually follow a binary system inevitably become binary.
Global warming: yes, no.
War: good, bad.
Economic policies: right, wrong.

The scientific approach, which always includes research, analysis, insights, doubts, margins of uncertainty, changes of course... is too much often an uncontemplated mechanism, which remains relegated to experts. The scientists.

Non-informed people always tend to take one side or the other.
They choose to believe one thing or another.
Choose to follow a guy just because his thoughts give credence to our ideas, or discredit those of others.
They don't realize that they need to contemplate the contrary thoughts of others to understand that they are wrong.

The disturbing thing is that all this is becoming proportional to the amount of information circulating.

This drift of critical thinking ability is the antithesis of mass disasters, sometimes.

It has already happened in the past, several times, albeit to a relatively more limited extent and in a more limited manner. Yet the mechanism is the same.

Now... no, I don't think that audiophilia will cause mass disasters (although never say never given how things are).
However, I believe it is also one of many cases that demonstrates, since its inception, how the world works exactly this way. Now and in the past.
Information not filtered with appropriate scientific criteria has given rise to the most disparate currents of thought, product lines, companies, shops.

Yet, even today, we are far from converging towards the objective reality of things. Indeed... the more scientific (and non-scientific) information increases, the more new interpretations spread.

It is a vicious circle, from which it is possible to escape only with widespread and exhaustive education of people.

Hard to believe possible in practice.

Luckily there is someone who believes in it, who tries and who tries to drag other people into all this.

This forum, in its small way, is a beacon lit in the darkness of the drift of human thought.
I came to it with a certain thought about audio, and today fortunately I have a different one, broader, more structured, more competent.

And this is thanks to many of you users who participate, sharing the noble intent of spreading culture.

Thank you all.

And above all thank you @amirm.
 
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Non-informed people always tend to take one side or the other.
Wait, did you just say the people here are non-informed?

There is a lot of money to be made online in dividing people and in extreme opinions. The basic nature of online advertising, site loyalty and minutes viewed per session lead search engines, video platforms, social media and even news sites to keep feeding people with just one side of the story. No site wants to risk having a user leave by showing them something they may not agree with.

If two different people type "Global warming is" into google, they will both likely see completely different suggestions for completing the line based on their prior search history. One may see "Global warming is a hoax" and the other may see "Global warming is going to destroy us all" fill in on the line. Yet, likely, both will think that everyone is seeing the same thing they are.

Same thing with youtube. If one person has watched videos on how cables make a difference they are going to see more videos to watch about how much cables can improve things. If another has watched multiple videos saying they are a snakeoil then their suggestions of what to watch next will match that. Youtube doesn't want to risk losing their interest by showing them a video contrary to their established point of view.

It is in the best financial interest of most sites to keep people informed of only one point of view. And it is a bonus if they can make them frightened or angry because they will come back over and over to read and add to the comments.
 
Interesting thoughts in this thread, and I appreciate the OP who started it. I'd suggest you look up the "privileged window effect" which is a fairly recent theory regarding information accumulation in our brains, both consciously and subconsciously. It specifically addresses information overload and, paradoxically, how that is leading to heightened integration of intuition into decisions (often at the expense of objective data).
 
This has been an active topic of academic research and task groups in the largest Internet companies for over 25 years. I've been involved in mobile and some extremely large companies have studied it at the VP level reporting to the CEO.

No one has found an answer. The best hope is teaching K12 on perceiving fact vs fiction on Internet platforms.

Digital anthropology/ethnography are search terms on the larger question.
 
Fascinating topic. My not very well thought-out take on it borrows/badly paraphrases Yuval Noah Harari. That is, humans need a unifying idea to “believe” in. Once your village gets big enough that you can’t know everyone, you can’t have a cohesive society without some more abstract belief to hold everything together.
I guess until the enlightenment, that was largely religion in one form or another. Since then, in the west at least, we’ve gradually moved to a more individualistic world view. But there’s still been “big ideas” to unite societies - capitalism, freedom, democracy, socialism, communism etc.

Then came the internet with its algorithms. And we’re heading back to small villages where you can “know” everyone again. Villages united by ideas rather than geography.

So, yes audiophilia is a terrific mirror. Someone’s “low powered valves” village or dare I say it, someone else’s “Audio Science” village serve very similar purposes. Who is “right” actually matters very little (in these examples - of course other “villages” can have deadly consequences), that’s not even the point. The point is that a basic human need to belong to a group is met.

(Apologies for the waffling)
 
Then came the internet with its algorithms.
The point is that a basic human need to belong to a group is met.

There are other groups. I have noticed an underground (so to speak) movement to reject the internet. There aren't many people in this group, but the very act of rejection provides a cohesiveness that is startling ... or alarming.

Time will tell.

Jim
 
Internet information over load causing polarization is an interesting topic but I don't see Audiophillia as a good example. Pretty much every crazy audiophile idea that polarises people pre-dates the internet. Maybe streaming vs physical media being the exception but I don't see that being argued particularly passionatley compared to tubes vs solid state, analog vs digital, interconnects sound vs no sound, feedback vs no feedback, horns vs cones, tone controls vs no tone controls, and many more all being pre-internet arguments.
 
Thanks for the reflection, interesting topic, in a historical period where the "delirium of omnipotence" seems to be the social disease of the moment.
Everyone thinks they know everything, and this is the first symptom of ignorance.
We should go back to listening, rather than speaking, having the necessary curiosity to undertake the journey of knowledge and having the necessary education and culture to avoid falling into the trap of chatter, a global sport that moves billions of bits every day.
But above all we need to start understanding and following those who can be considered masters, different from the omnipresent neighborhood hucksters and crafty people.

A quote: the good teacher is the one who is able to take you on his shoulders and make you to look far…..the others…..the sad sentence is yours…..
 
There are other groups. I have noticed an underground (so to speak) movement to reject the internet. There aren't many people in this group, but the very act of rejection provides a cohesiveness that is startling ... or alarming.

Time will tell.

Jim
The epitomy of irony, would be those people using the internet, to… reject it.

Peace.
 
I think we talk ourselves into projecting too much stuff into our audio experiences.

To me, it's easy.

1. It all started with love for music, I got into classical and jazz in my teens.

2. I started building shrines to amplify my music enjoyment.

3. I started questioning if my investment in ever more expensive music shrines really impacted my enjoyment in music.

4. I downgraded and realized it didn't. The music still sounds sublime.

This stuff isn't metaphysics.
 
If two different people type "Global warming is" into google, they will both likely see completely different suggestions for completing the line based on their prior search history. One may see "Global warming is a hoax" and the other may see "Global warming is going to destroy us all" fill in on the line. Yet, likely, both will think that everyone is seeing the same thing they are.

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What the hell! I surely DO NOT believe that global warming is a myth! Most of my searches are for audio, recipes, and carpentry. Does Google think that this demographic is more likely to think global warming is a myth!?!?
 
Glad to receive so much feedback. Thanks to all.

Wait, did you just say the people here are non-informed?
No, and I apologize if the translation hinted at that.
I was talking generally.
I meant that people who do not have a certain culture regarding an issue tend to treat information regarding it in a binary way, without the propensity to delve deeper, doubt, scratch the surface, desire to truly understand the reality of things, contemplate different points of view.

Our forum is a source of information, like many others, and among its participants there are people who are truly educated on the subject, as well as people who do not know how to treat (without fault or demerit) what is being discussed with scientific criteria, regardless of the background of the question.
As happens with any other topic in the world.

Internet information over load causing polarization is an interesting topic but I don't see Audiophillia as a good example. Pretty much every crazy audiophile idea that polarises people pre-dates the internet. Maybe streaming vs physical media being the exception but I don't see that being argued particularly passionatley compared to tubes vs solid state, analog vs digital, interconnects sound vs no sound, feedback vs no feedback, horns vs cones, tone controls vs no tone controls, and many more all being pre-internet arguments.

Audiophilia in my speech is not to be understood with the usual negative meaning relating to the grouping of scientifically unfounded concepts, but with the more generic one of the search for optimal sound.

This research process and all its consequent ramifications, scientific and not, which obviously began decades ago before the internet era, is one of the many representations of how human thought is not inclined to always use a scientific approach, but rather a subjective one.

Where the amount of information, in this case relating to audio, becomes larger and more complex, the process of polarization frequently occurs, whereby the fallacious subjective experience is trivially contrasted with the scientific one. And even where there is no personal experience, people frequently and even unconsciously decide whether or not to support a concept, a piece of equipment, a speaker, or a study, just because they have received information about it.

And so the same occurs for any other matter. But by increasing the information, the polarizations also increase, to the detriment of the scientific method.
In addition to being potentially dangerous all of this, it is often also a loss of opportunity.

TLDR but so much audiophilia bullshit here.

Sorry I don't understand the meaning of your comment, but it intrigues me...
 
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Not sure what we are seeing has anything to do with audiophilia or that we even see some special amount of polarisation.

There is nothing new in terms of binary choices. Churchill said Bevan's NHS would require "a Gestapo", the French had a vote to either leave Algeria or not, in the US you were either for civil rights or not, in Germany you either voted for the enabling act or not. The electoral systems in various countries is binary, as are most judicial systems, and about a million other things that predate the internet.

Amazing to think war is given as an example of something we should be "reasonable" about. Or the completely unfalsifiable middle ground is held up as scientific.
 
Not sure what we are seeing has anything to do with audiophilia or that we even see some special amount of polarisation.

There is nothing new in terms of binary choices. Churchill said Bevan's NHS would require "a Gestapo", the French had a vote to either leave Algeria or not, in the US you were either for civil rights or not, in Germany you either voted for the enabling act or not. The electoral systems in various countries is binary, as are most judicial systems, and about a million other things that predate the internet.

Amazing to think war is given as an example of something we should be "reasonable" about. Or the completely unfalsifiable middle ground is held up as scientific.
My reasoning raises a doubt about this growing tendency, or human propensity to polarize, because it is an unsuitable approach to addressing increasingly complex issues. The analogy with the audiophile world is precisely an analogy of this dynamic, but it does not mean that the audiophile world is entirely polarized. It shows only some polarization phenomena.
 
My reasoning raises a doubt about this growing tendency, or human propensity to polarize, because it is an unsuitable approach to addressing increasingly complex issues. The analogy with the audiophile world is precisely an analogy of this dynamic, it does not mean that the audiophile world is entirely polarized.

What growing tendency to polarise? Can you give some examples?
 
I think we talk ourselves into projecting too much stuff into our audio experiences.

To me, it's easy.

1. It all started with love for music, I got into classical and jazz in my teens.

2. I started building shrines to amplify my music enjoyment.

3. I started questioning if my investment in ever more expensive music shrines really impacted my enjoyment in music.

4. I downgraded and realized it didn't. The music still sounds sublime.

This stuff isn't metaphysics.
As I got older and my hearing got worse, I started listening more to the music and less to the system.
 
What growing tendency to polarise? Can you give some examples?
People behave like riders on Disney Autopia. Everyone has a steering wheel, and everyone thinks having the wrong political opinions will crash the world. For various definitions of “everyone”.
 
What growing tendency to polarise? Can you give some examples?

Various discussions on this forum trace this dynamic. Even where the topic is purely technical or entirely philosophical, polarizations occur.

Example (casual).

Blindly clinging in favor of one's own subjective perception or, vice versa, to a specific scientific research result is equally wrong in the scientific approach.

There is no absolute truth. There are only things that are not reasonably false. For which it is right to lean towards and who represent the guide in the practical world, where we must in fact live.

The increase is not in relative polarization but absolute, of course. In the sense that the more information increases, the more the phenomenon expands.
 
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Various discussions on this forum trace this dynamic. Even where the topic is purely technical or entirely philosophical, polarizations occur.

Example (casual).

Blindly clinging in favor of one's own subjective perception or, vice versa, to a specific scientific research result is equally wrong in the scientific approach.

There is no absolute truth. There are only things that are not reasonably false. For which it is right to lean towards and who represent the guide in the practical world, where we must in fact live.

The increase is not in relative polarization but absolute, of course. In the sense that the more information increases, the more the phenomenon expands.
I’ve been of the opinion that this is a personality trait. I am temperamentally incapable of being tribal. I have at least two contradictory opinions about everything. Including this post.
 
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