Audiophilia is the mirror of modern times

[Davide]

I have at least two contradictory opinions about everything. Including this post.

I share your trend.
And I think it's a precious virtue.
Someone claimed that smart people are those with more uncertainty.

 

[rank]

The audiophile war will soon end for lack of fighters because time takes its toll.

 

[Petrushka]

I share your trend.
And I think it's a precious virtue.
Someone claimed that smart people are those with more uncertainty.

I find that a bit embarrassing to think about, but yes. I’m pretty smart. I once calculated that there are not more than a hundred million people smarter than me.

 

[KellenVancouver]

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.

I like your examples. However, real life, particularly with respect to public discourse, is far more gray than black-and-white. What the internet seems to have done is displaced reasoned discourse with psychological one-upmanship, which from a communications perspective is debilitating. The result is that the array of complex and nuanced perspectives that could enrich a conversation rapidly degenerate into simplistic and rigid binary positions fraught with unfounded assumptions and insults. Rather sad when it happens, and unfortunately it seems to happen with frequency in ASR forums as elsewhere.

 

[KellenVancouver]

I share your trend.
And I think it's a precious virtue.
Someone claimed that smart people are those with more uncertainty.

I don't know about smart, but certainly more sage personalities prefer to embrace ambiguity than run away from it.

 

[Robin L]

I share your trend.
And I think it's a precious virtue.
Someone claimed that smart people are those with more uncertainty.

Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Davide]

Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It seems to me an excellent summary of the topic.

The audiophile war will soon end for lack of fighters because time takes its toll.

The rediscovery of vinyl seems to disprove the hypothesis. But I also suspect that at some point certain unfounded paradigms of audiophilia will cease. The problem is probably others will arise. If you look at the debates on the various new technologies ...

 

[Basic Channel]

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.

That is just empty rhetoric, please give some concrete examples. I'm well aware Hume's problem of induction, and Karl Popper and falsifiability.

Your opinion cannot refuted as it stands because it unscientific to the point it cannot be discussed concretely, never mind falsified.

 

[Davide]

I once calculated that there are not more than a hundred million people smarter than me.

Someone will be happy to view the calculation...

 

[Basic Channel]

I like your examples. However, real life, particularly with respect to public discourse, is far more gray than black-and-white. What the internet seems to have done is displaced reasoned discourse with psychological one-upmanship, which from a communications perspective is debilitating. The result is that the array of complex and nuanced perspectives that could enrich a conversation rapidly degenerate into simplistic and rigid binary positions fraught with unfounded assumptions and insults. Rather sad when it happens, and unfortunately it seems to happen with frequency in ASR forums as elsewhere.

Indeed it is more gray, and it gets more gray as time goes on. Whether it is chemistry, football tactics, or pasta, as time passes things get more grey and less polarised.

Discourse in real life is far far more courteous than it was in the past. If you offended a man in a bar 50 years or so ago, you'd be far more likely to get punched. That's if you weren't black or Irish, then you maybe not get in the bar to start with.

It'd be great to have an example of something more polarised today than it was 50 years ago.

 

[Davide]

It'd be great to have an example of something more polarised today than it was 50 years ago.

I'm afraid to express myself badly.
My reflection essentially indicates that the natural human tendency to polarize (today, yesterday and tomorrow) (and even more than 2 poles) is inadequate to rattle off the most complex arguments.
The more the information increases, the more complex, uncertain and conflicting they become, the more the polarization of thought becomes inappropriate.
And audio is a relatively complex argument, not black-white.
However, more polarization in absolute terms, not relative.

 

[Ron Texas]

There is more polarization than there used to be, but I don't think it is because of more information being available. Rather, it's just the evolution of democracy and increasing population density worldwide.

 

[Petrushka]

Someone will be happy to view the calculation...

I do well on multiple choice tests. That’s one definition of smart. It’s objective, but hardly comprehensive.

 

[Petrushka]

There is more polarization than there used to be, but I don't think it is because of more information being available. Rather, it's just the evolution of democracy and increasing population density worldwide.

Polarization has always been an objective of politicians and religious leaders. And salesmen. People who are voting or buying crave certainty.

 

[Jim Taylor]

I once calculated that there are not more than a hundred million people smarter than me.

What a coincidence! I made the same calculations, and I came up with the same conclusion! Of course, I made those calculations long, long ago ... when the population of the world was much smaller ... like only 100 million people.

Jim

 

[Petrushka]

What a coincidence! I made the same calculations, and I came up with the same conclusion! Of course, I made those calculations long, long ago ... when the population of the world was much smaller ... like only 100 million people.

Jim

I have qualified humility. I have one skill, and that’s taking multiple choice tests. It hasn’t made me rich or famous, or even well liked, but it’s mine, and I’m sticking with it.

 

[JeffS7444]

Maybe too much peace, prosperity and stability, like one trip too many to the buffet, has started to lose it's appeal to society as a whole? If a person has never known anything but a "golden age", they'll take a lot for granted, maybe have a restless feeling that things should be grander than they are. Once upon a time, such people might have ventured into unknown parts of the planet in search of riches, exploration, or a new life. But today, perhaps in lieu of such outlets, we've got conflicts and crackpot beliefs going mainstream, sometimes with the assistance of troll factories.

 

[MattHooper]

I’ve been of the opinion that this is a personality trait. I am temperamentally incapable of being tribal.

I feel ya! When somebody’s viewpoint diverges from my own I become more interested in understanding them, and how they came to their viewpoint.

I’m with Abe on this:

 

[Ron Texas]

Polarization has always been an objective of politicians and religious leaders. And salesmen. People who are voting or buying crave certainty.

It's worse since it is a presedential election year in the US producing a steady diet of partisan news.

 

[Davide]

Maybe too much peace, prosperity and stability, like one trip too many to the buffet, has started to lose it's appeal to society as a whole? If a person has never known anything but a "golden age", they'll take a lot for granted, maybe have a restless feeling that things should be grander than they are. Once upon a time, such people might have ventured into unknown parts of the planet in search of riches, exploration, or a new life. But today, perhaps in lieu of such outlets, we've got conflicts and crackpot beliefs going mainstream, sometimes with the assistance of troll factories.

You have touched an interesting point. Well-being actually causes people to claim rights that in times of lesser well-being would not even have dreamed of. This can be seen as a good because it is a sign greater civilization, but also as a bad thing because everyone claims anything, even unreasonable for most. But people will always polarize about it.
But let's not go further for the peace of the thread.
Fortunately, this still does not seem to happen in the audio world ... but I would not be surprised to see one day, when multichannel is the standard, a movement that claims the right to have audio tracks to an even number of channels because odd is too... uneven?