I just wanted to explain why I even bothered entering this thread.
Part of it is that I am quite concerned about the level of discourse on forums like Audiogon. I really think we should be able to disagree with one another and not be castigated for this. And also that we should be able to back up whatever view point we are bringing to the discussion.
But first, please notice this: Michael Green keeps playing the "I’m the Nice Guy Here" and others are "negative nellies."
Anyone paying attention should not be falling for this.
Notice that his OP was in fact NEGATIVE. Look at the thread title. He wasn’t here to "start a fight" but his OP went on to cast aspersions at some shadowy group of people who he claims are not being empirical, who are "faking it." And then he seems to talk directly to this group asking "why fake it?"
Now this is obviously a post casting negative aspersions at people Green is accusing of "faking it." And also an apparent challenge for the people "faking it" to step up and answer his question.
And he didn’t want a "fight?" Sure. Like calling people fakes would lead to some people answering: "Yes, that’s right Michael, I fully accept your description that I’m a fake on...whatever issue you have in mind."
As I said before, this is akin to entering a party and saying "Look, I don’t want to start a fight...but some people here are just fakes. The the people who know what I’m talking about, lets talk about why those people are fakes. To the people who are fakes: why are you faking it?"
Anyone who did this and would think they are not being negative, or provocative and wouldn’t expect any pushback is either hopelessly naive, or disingenuous. I wanted to point this out because it happens a lot. Someone thinks it’s gentle or diplomatic to implicate some group of people in a criticism, but thinks it "diplomatic" not to directly address them, or give any concrete examples. That’s not diplomatic; it’s actually a way of being negative, having your cake and eating it too: it’s a way of voicing criticism, without having to back it up to anyone who could directly respond, and just enjoy anyone simply agreeing with you.
And people need to recognize this and not be surprised that, when they post in this style, opposing views enter their thread and they get pushback.
As it happens, I had recently been defending my own skepticism of some high end tweak claims (e.g. the fuses thread). As so often happens in such discussions, my position (and the position of some other skeptics in the thread) was continually strawmanned, were people castigated me for absolutist positions and claims I never made, and re-characterized my careful arguments into strawmen silly arguments I would never defend. This isn’t a good recipe for honest and even tempered discussion and it makes voicing any opposing opinion far more fraught than it needs to be.
And one of the main themes when criticizing my (and other skeptic’s) position was "If you haven’t tried X out for yourself, then you aren’t in a position to talk about it, or critique it."
And I argued why that is a fallacy.
Michael’s OP was annoyingly vague in the aspersions it was casting, but it *seemed* to be along those same lines: that someone who holds a view in opposition to another audiophile - for instance Michael’s view on tuning - isn’t in a position to have justified that view if he hasn’t done the same testing Michael has. Michael is being "empirical," the opposing view is just "faking it" insofar as they have not done the tests Michael and his cohorts routinely perform.
As I have seen skeptic’s views so routinely strawmanned...I sniffed some likelihood of strawman, and possibly some suspect assumptions in Michael’s post. I was left wondering exactly what he was talking about, and wondering whether the targets of his criticism actually deserved the criticism. And...if I myself was representative of the type of people he was criticizing. If so...I’d be happy to engage Michael on this topic, since he directly asked for engagement.
But, of course if I wanted to engage in what Michael actually was referring to, it was tough to even start given the vagueness of his critique. Which is why I posted seeking clarification from Michael - "is this what you mean? If so, here is some response to that line of thinking. But please clarify where I would be getting you wrong."
And all I got in return was a completely evasive, dismissive reply that amounted to "What I wrote was perfectly clear, you didn’t get it" and then insinuated that my very reply was an example of the type he was criticizing.
But with no actual argument backing this up or clarifying. Just another swipe at someone.
If anyone here can’t recognize what a jerk-move that is, I’m amazed.
Michael started a post, casting negative aspersion on some group of people "faking it," wanted others to discuss these "fakers" and challenged anyone "faking it" to explain themselves.
Then when someone actually steps up, asks "is this what you are talking about? If so, here’s how I would explain myself..." he just blows it off as if none of the arguments presented were worthy of his time.
He just wanted to complain, have people agree with him, but not take any responsibility for his critique or defend it. Oh...and make sure to turn the subject to promoting his room tuning ideas at any opportunity. Oh, and then admit his OP was in fact his "door" to his room tuning ideas (and not to mention: business).
And, naturally, he tries to leave the impression he’s the Good Guy and folks like me who wished to engage in honest discussion are the "negative nellies" and "bad vibers."
Michael continually alluded to his own "empiricism" and asked questions such as:
And that is certainly a question I think is an interesting one. I’m very big on empiricism and science as methods of inquiry. And we could have gone more in depth, so see for instance if Michael is indeed "walking the walk" when it comes to employing an empirical method - just how carefully empirical is he, for instance?
But these obvious questions that would follow from his own post will of course be avoided, because in the end he wasn’t really here for open dialogue in which others can explain a view that differs from his. No, if you don’t just fall in line with his claim some people are "fakers" empirically and congratulate him on calling those people out, and if you dare even defend yourself against his critique, well you don’t get any substantive reply; you are dismissed for "bad vibes" and he’s the good guy in this scenario.
Not impressive. To say the least. And it does not in fact contribute to elevating the level of discussion in this forum.
Over ’n out.
Part of it is that I am quite concerned about the level of discourse on forums like Audiogon. I really think we should be able to disagree with one another and not be castigated for this. And also that we should be able to back up whatever view point we are bringing to the discussion.
But first, please notice this: Michael Green keeps playing the "I’m the Nice Guy Here" and others are "negative nellies."
Anyone paying attention should not be falling for this.
Notice that his OP was in fact NEGATIVE. Look at the thread title. He wasn’t here to "start a fight" but his OP went on to cast aspersions at some shadowy group of people who he claims are not being empirical, who are "faking it." And then he seems to talk directly to this group asking "why fake it?"
Now this is obviously a post casting negative aspersions at people Green is accusing of "faking it." And also an apparent challenge for the people "faking it" to step up and answer his question.
And he didn’t want a "fight?" Sure. Like calling people fakes would lead to some people answering: "Yes, that’s right Michael, I fully accept your description that I’m a fake on...whatever issue you have in mind."
As I said before, this is akin to entering a party and saying "Look, I don’t want to start a fight...but some people here are just fakes. The the people who know what I’m talking about, lets talk about why those people are fakes. To the people who are fakes: why are you faking it?"
Anyone who did this and would think they are not being negative, or provocative and wouldn’t expect any pushback is either hopelessly naive, or disingenuous. I wanted to point this out because it happens a lot. Someone thinks it’s gentle or diplomatic to implicate some group of people in a criticism, but thinks it "diplomatic" not to directly address them, or give any concrete examples. That’s not diplomatic; it’s actually a way of being negative, having your cake and eating it too: it’s a way of voicing criticism, without having to back it up to anyone who could directly respond, and just enjoy anyone simply agreeing with you.
And people need to recognize this and not be surprised that, when they post in this style, opposing views enter their thread and they get pushback.
As it happens, I had recently been defending my own skepticism of some high end tweak claims (e.g. the fuses thread). As so often happens in such discussions, my position (and the position of some other skeptics in the thread) was continually strawmanned, were people castigated me for absolutist positions and claims I never made, and re-characterized my careful arguments into strawmen silly arguments I would never defend. This isn’t a good recipe for honest and even tempered discussion and it makes voicing any opposing opinion far more fraught than it needs to be.
And one of the main themes when criticizing my (and other skeptic’s) position was "If you haven’t tried X out for yourself, then you aren’t in a position to talk about it, or critique it."
And I argued why that is a fallacy.
Michael’s OP was annoyingly vague in the aspersions it was casting, but it *seemed* to be along those same lines: that someone who holds a view in opposition to another audiophile - for instance Michael’s view on tuning - isn’t in a position to have justified that view if he hasn’t done the same testing Michael has. Michael is being "empirical," the opposing view is just "faking it" insofar as they have not done the tests Michael and his cohorts routinely perform.
As I have seen skeptic’s views so routinely strawmanned...I sniffed some likelihood of strawman, and possibly some suspect assumptions in Michael’s post. I was left wondering exactly what he was talking about, and wondering whether the targets of his criticism actually deserved the criticism. And...if I myself was representative of the type of people he was criticizing. If so...I’d be happy to engage Michael on this topic, since he directly asked for engagement.
But, of course if I wanted to engage in what Michael actually was referring to, it was tough to even start given the vagueness of his critique. Which is why I posted seeking clarification from Michael - "is this what you mean? If so, here is some response to that line of thinking. But please clarify where I would be getting you wrong."
And all I got in return was a completely evasive, dismissive reply that amounted to "What I wrote was perfectly clear, you didn’t get it" and then insinuated that my very reply was an example of the type he was criticizing.
But with no actual argument backing this up or clarifying. Just another swipe at someone.
If anyone here can’t recognize what a jerk-move that is, I’m amazed.
Michael started a post, casting negative aspersion on some group of people "faking it," wanted others to discuss these "fakers" and challenged anyone "faking it" to explain themselves.
Then when someone actually steps up, asks "is this what you are talking about? If so, here’s how I would explain myself..." he just blows it off as if none of the arguments presented were worthy of his time.
He just wanted to complain, have people agree with him, but not take any responsibility for his critique or defend it. Oh...and make sure to turn the subject to promoting his room tuning ideas at any opportunity. Oh, and then admit his OP was in fact his "door" to his room tuning ideas (and not to mention: business).
And, naturally, he tries to leave the impression he’s the Good Guy and folks like me who wished to engage in honest discussion are the "negative nellies" and "bad vibers."
Michael continually alluded to his own "empiricism" and asked questions such as:
"why, in this hobby in particular, do people claim they know something without ever experimenting or being part of a team of empirical science folks. "
And that is certainly a question I think is an interesting one. I’m very big on empiricism and science as methods of inquiry. And we could have gone more in depth, so see for instance if Michael is indeed "walking the walk" when it comes to employing an empirical method - just how carefully empirical is he, for instance?
But these obvious questions that would follow from his own post will of course be avoided, because in the end he wasn’t really here for open dialogue in which others can explain a view that differs from his. No, if you don’t just fall in line with his claim some people are "fakers" empirically and congratulate him on calling those people out, and if you dare even defend yourself against his critique, well you don’t get any substantive reply; you are dismissed for "bad vibes" and he’s the good guy in this scenario.
Not impressive. To say the least. And it does not in fact contribute to elevating the level of discussion in this forum.
Over ’n out.