Why has Audio (and maybe all hobbies) become so hostile?

[North_Sky]

World GDP - $80,934,771,028,340

World Population - 7,800,000,000

Equal income = $10,376.25/yr, $864/mo, $123.52/week, $3.08/hr for a 40 hr work week.

Everyone not feeling equal, raise yo' miserable hand up.

...

Uh-huh.

How accurate is the average income/outcome Ray?

If all the 7.8 billion people would make the same salary how would we call this equal system? ...Scientific equality?

 

[Jimbob54]

How accurate is the average income/outcome Ray?

If all the 7.8 billion people would make the same salary how would we call this equal system? ...Scientific equality?

Some *might* call it communism.

*Duck and cover*
*Politics Klaxon*
I'll get my coat.

 

[Wes]

That is not my experience in participating in the preparation of qualifying exams. In fact, we often prepared common exams for many students with different major professors.

Indeed, since the audience is the committee save for the addition of one or two invited outsiders, it would be. OTOH, it is not only the thesis that is examined by the committee but the student's defense of the thesis which calls for knowledge and skills beyond what is on the pages and slides.

"..we think you are capable of conducting science without the supervision of a graduate committee." Not a bad criterion, I think.

I am sorry if your experience differs.

as to #1 my experience as both grad. student and faculty member is all from the west and mid-west (if we include Pennsylvania - as many New Yorkers do...)

I always tried to avoid attacking someone else's grad. students. I suspect it is related to historical changes, as I see or hear about "being hard" on people in many fields, including smokejumpers, fighter pilots, and surgical residencies.

 

[Wes]

How accurate is the average income/outcome Ray?

If all the 7.8 billion people would make the same salary how would we call this equal system? ...Scientific equality?

it has to be normalized for cost of living also

 

[F1308]

I was close to a loud explosion as a child that left me with permanent tinnitus that is getting worse as I get older

If I can be of any help, please be aware that there are many applications in Android store (guess also for Apple, but do not know for sure) that are meant to remove tinnitus.
Have a try...

 

[Thomas savage]

Lack of critical thinking, self indulgence and egotism that's encouraged by the lack of social cost and all that enables that state of being ' online ' .

Question answered , can we close this thread now lol

 

[Colonel Bogey]

I'm not sure how much this applies to audiophiles, since it is not a mainstream movement anymore for a long time now, but I had to think of this article when I read the headline:

https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

On a personal note, audiofoolery is full of people claiming unsubstantiated bullshit, and it's also full of people who can spend more money than you and thus are more "right". It's also a topic that is highly subjective, lacks industry standards, and thus creates a circle of confusion and it's highly emotional. Combined with the technical intricacies you couldn't pick a better topic to get heated about.

In recent years, this combines with a populace that is no longer able to accept differing opinions. "Live and let live" seems to be generally in decline. That said, there is so much bullshit in audio world that I'm kinda glad we don't accept stupid and unproven subjective opinions - because without standards, the only way to go is down.

On the other hand, if somebody enjoys his objectively bad audio system it's no skin off my back.

What I see everywhere is tribalism. Doesn't matter what topic it is. People choose sides, maybe they invest in them by buying a product, and then ideology takes over. It seems these days, you can't just enjoy a thing for what it is, you have to make it your identity.

It's all very strange to me. I don't think it will end well.

Well said! When I was a kid in the 70-ties, the HiFi world wasn't as divided into a evidence based "science" camp and a "audiophile" camp. People could still communicate and the worst bluffs were soon called. If someone had tried to sell 30k USD speaker cables back then, they would have been brutally exposed. Now we have a huge divide, people distrust real engineers, acousticians and musicians and invest massively into snake oil. Once there, "it's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled" as Mark Twain (may have) said, they only get angry.

But there is something oddly attractive with some audiophoolery, some of the equipment has a strange steampunk aesthetic I also adore. And then, when you visit a audiophool friend and realise that their cherished 2x12W class A tube amp and classy high-gloss veneer crazy impedance curve speakers sound a lot worse than a pair of dirt cheap active JBL monitors? I keep my mouth shut and smile... Communication just isnt possible.

 

[SIY]

Lack of critical thinking, self indulgence and egotism that's encouraged by the lack of social cost and all that enables that state of being ' online ' .

Question answered , can we close this thread now lol

Shut up, he explained.

 

[Lbstyling]

So if I am understanding your argument correctly, part of the behavior and extreme dissatisfaction we see in today's society is in part driven by what I call the "Kardashian Effect". People compare themselves to these internet stars, many of whom online "amazing" lives are simply fabricated, take that as their reference point for what the viewer's wants are, which leaves the viewer dissatisfied? This is in contrast to say, the pre-internet era, when the majority of societal interactions were with people in similar socioeconomic classes (neighbors/co-workers), so the reference would be something like they have a color tv, I have a black and white, I want a color tv, as opposed to I live in an apartment and don't own a car, but I should have a jet, vacations in the bahamas, and a mansion.

It is an interesting line of thought that makes a lot of sense. I am fortunate that I grew up in the pre world wide web world with a father that was very poor as a child that regularly reminded my sister and I, be thankful you have food to eat and a roof over your head, many people don't. My parents were also good at distinguishing wants and needs. You want a new toy, you need food.

I wasn't thinking of the Kardashian as an example, but as you say 'in part', I would have to agree!

Its a mismatch between the speed we evolve Vs the speed that we are changing social norms.

Much of the problems are obvious and in wide discussion, (sleep patterns and screens etc), but humans being what we are, tend to look at the changes over just our life or maybe 2 generations. But you have to look at what the day to day life was for millennia to really appreciate what we have done.

Basically, before around the 19th century (depending on where you are in the world) you can go back hundreds of thousands of years and essentially say that little changed in terms of the tasks that the majority of people did on a daily basis. Farming or hunting, heavy physical labour hour after hour for substance living for almost everyone. Interestingly, there are 2x as many female ancestors as male.....I will let you figure that one out.

Anyway, we just haven't adapted sufficiently for the changes we have made to the way we do things yet.

You can understand a lot of seemingly odd social behaviour if you just think what would the use for said behaviour be if you changed the environment to a small village where everyone knows each other, and stranger are a serious threat to you or your tribe.

For instance, From a survival perspective alone, coming across someone who is from another part of the world carried very high risks of death to your tribe simply from the exposure to the different pathogens they would carry that they would have immunity from, but you would not. Several isolated small tribes that have been visited by westerners to observe human behaviour and culture in the last 100 years have been all but wiped out simply because the researcher carried pathogens.

 

[tuga]

Why has Audio (and maybe all hobbies) become so hostile?

Hostility is everywhere. It used to be the steering wheel, now it's the internet.

 

[Lbstyling]

But there is something oddly attractive with some audiophoolery, some of the equipment has a strange steampunk aesthetic I also adore. And then, when you visit a audiophool friend and realise that their cherished 2x12W class A amp and classy high-gloss veneer crazy impedance curve speakers sound a lot worse than a pair of dirt cheap active JBL monitors? I keep my mouth shut and smile... Communication just isnt possible.

This is a real problem!

When someone wants to know what they could do to improve their system, but you would have to tell them some truths they are just not going to want to hear! I hate this, and have learned that very few ppl will take it well whatever you do, so generally don't even start, as I value the friendship more.

 

[CDMC]

If I can be of any help, please be aware that there are many applications in Android store (guess also for Apple, but do not know for sure) that are meant to remove tinnitus.
Have a try...

Thanks, will look at.

 

[Killingbeans]

Hostility is everywhere. It used to be the steering wheel, now it's the internet.

What roads are you driving on? Where I live (and drive) the steering wheel hasn't seen any loss of hostility whatsoever. To me it seems like the internet has found its own motherload of a supply

 

[Kal Rubinson]

as to #1 my experience as both grad. student and faculty member is all from the west and mid-west (if we include Pennsylvania - as many New Yorkers do...)

And the bulk of my experience is from New York, an area which is known for its easy-going and gracious ways in business and academic institutions.

I always tried to avoid attacking someone else's grad. students. I suspect it is related to historical changes, as I see or hear about "being hard" on people in many fields, including smokejumpers, fighter pilots, and surgical residencies.

I am sure what you have described does exist in many places but it is not universal.

 

[SIY]

And the bulk of my experience is from New York, an area which is known for its easy-going and gracious ways in business and academic institutions.

My experience is from the quiet mountains of Utah and the urban decay of Penn. Written prelims after Year 2 to see if you can move on, pre-oral after dissertation topic is chosen, then oral defense (which in my case was just in front of my committee).

 

[North_Sky]

it has to be normalized for cost of living also

Good point; each geographical region and culture.

 

[ttimer]

This is a real problem!

When someone wants to know what they could do to improve their system, but you would have to tell them some truths they are just not going to want to hear! I hate this, and have learned that very few ppl will take it well whatever you do, so generally don't even start, as I value the friendship more.

I have seen it go both ways. There are some people in the hobby who follow a perfectionist approach and will explain to everyone how useless their system and setup is because the room is wrong, they should get a new one immediately, they haven't adeqautely compensated for SBIR, without 12-band parametric EQ nothing can sound good anyway, passive speakers need to be trown away because obsolete and so on....
Accepting that different people have different goals, priorities and tastes seems really hard.

 

[egellings]

Hostility in audio may be getting worse than I remember it being because of the internet. At a live meeting of audiophiles or audio krazies, I notice more civility than I do on un-curated websites. Maybe because on the sites, the rude contributor can sign on anonymously and thus insulate himself from being held accountable for what he says. In a live setting, that's not possible to do. A-holes tend to behave when they realize that their true identity can be known and they thus can be held accountable for what they say. Insulate their identity and all hell breaks loose. Since so much talk in audio is belief-based opinion, heated exchanges are likely to occur upon first disagreement. It's like religion and politics, which to me are 'bout the same.

 

[Wes]

Anti-VAXers get upset when you "attack" their religion

 

[mhardy6647]

The "defense" is merely a presentation to a wider audience, and a warm up for job seminars. If a student flunks that, then their committee has made a stupendous error earlier on.

It does happen.
Mostly, though, I concur -- it's a right of passage.
I played Pink Floyd's Fearless to psych myself up for mine... way, way back in 1986

Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd...

It's actually one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs.