Very funny!!! Thanks guys for the chuckle.
Again, I think opinions on wire have less to do with technology and science than people's 1) emotional reaction to the exhorbitantly high prices of "exotic" wire, and 2) because of that emotional orientation - deserved or not - a heightened desire to apply scientific criteria to ameliorate that response (which must be directed, of course, to people who buy it). The problem with this is what some philosophers of science, namely, Kuhn and Popper, have noted as a bias that effects one's observation of results, or lack thereof. In this sense, objective criteria , due to the emotive response, become prioritized without reflection to subjectively percieved results, which even the rules of science says are determitive ("objective" criteria are also subjectively percieved, and hence, the term "objective" can be misleading, leading us to believe it has some independant validity, like a science-god out there somewhere, but that's another story...)
There are also other "scientific" assumptions that underly many scientific-based arguments that reveal still other biases, and that come out in wire vs. amp arguments because the matter configuration is different, not in a fundamental sense, but merely in appearance. Science, in its alliance with capitalism and the production of technology (science is not predominantly in the business of producing technology, but using it, as a tool, to find out truths about physical reality), has adopted amongst its acolytes an assumption that if the tool has more moving parts it must be more complex in function, i.e. complexity in matter arrangement equals complexity in function. In wire discussions, fueled by the emotive response, this comes out as technical arguments made based upon this assumption, but not disclosed because even the speaker is unaware of the underlying assumption within the presentation of his/her data (it derives from science's method of reduction of wholes into parts; allied with capitalism, better technolgy equals tools with more parts, more parts equals more complexity, more complexity dictates better subjectively percieved performance. You see the irrational cascade?).
Did Krusty do this? Maybe, I can't tell, that's what I was trying to find out (you see, Jetter, even science is a philosophy. That you don't think so may be a point of departure for self-reflection on another scientific assumption that is untrue...).
Science is a valuable tool of the mind directed towards matter and, because of that, makes great widgets (and, at its best, catalyzes awe). But it is not ultimately determitive of subjective results.
Are Krusty's technical arguments sufficient to negate the use of networks in toto? No.
Does he make a point that the technology in boxes does not justify people paying that much for them, even though he may not state this? Perhaps. But calling people stupid - the underlying emotive demeanor - and using scientific technicalities to bolster that argument is not the same issue as negating one technology from another based on scientific evidence.
Does Krusty's subjective evidence further bolster his technical argument? Yes, but as pointed out above - and of all people Krusty should understand this - his methodology appears flawed. Namely, as detlof cited, his sample is too small and not representative. This leaves only Krusty's undisclosed emotive demeanor as bias towards favoring strictly technical arguments based on complexity assumptions - or that likelihood given his silence on the inquiry of his assumptions of his method, his emotional demeanor and the insufficient sample to that methodology.
Does Krusty have a point about boxe wire? Perhaps. But it needs to be presented in a different way if it is to be successful.
Krusty, on the chuckle, you show commendable constraint. Perhaps a jumping off point to answer the last question...
