Our Cognitive Biases in Audiophilia and Social Media

[Analogous]

Unfortunate and true. Unfortunate - because it shouldn't be this way. One shouldn't need to be enslaved/impoverished/raised in scarcity to be grounded.

Parenting plays a role. Western parents don't let their money go to their kids head. In the west your parents' money earns you no entitlement. In India it does. "Tumhe pata hai mera baap kaun hai"? Haven't we Indians heard this a million++ times in our lives? There you go, that's what keeps our kids in the air - Our parents' money/power.

If Indian parents taught their kids to earn everything they want/need kids will grow up as grounded, mature, responsible adults.

Sorry @bloredude i would respectfully disagree with this generalisation.
There was this rich entitled dude in the US with orange dyed hair who much to his own surprise became president. was ...I will not say more as I don’t wish to offend his supporters

 

[firearm12]

There is one omnipresent reason I can see contributing towards our gradual decline. Absence of struggle for existence. When we go through various struggles in life, we remain grounded and hesitate to substitute Knowledge with Information. Same applies to Cognitive Biases, a grounded mind has fewer of them.

An analogy is the story of a donkey which used to graze grasslands. In summers when he could not find any green grass anywhere so he used to roam all day and night looking for patches of green grass. This kept his body and brain fit, and gave him sound sleep once he had his lunch and gave him lot of satisfaction. He also did not have time to focus on any other trivial issues. He learned what was right or wrong for his survival. But in monsoons when there is grass everywhere the donkey became lazy and complacent and took all the grass for granted. Now he could satisfy his hunger without any effort. Now he had lot of time to focus on trivial issues, his body and brain became idle and misfit and suddenly his satisfaction level after eating his lunch also decreased. Perfect time for companies to feed him what they want and program him according to their needs. We are living in such a monsoon.

 

[bloredude]

Sorry @bloredude i would respectfully disagree with this generalisation.
There was this rich entitled dude in the US with orange dyed hair who much to his own surprise became president. was ...I will not say more as I don’t wish to offend his supporters

No harm in disagreeing

I happen to have friends from the western countries. Not NRIs, not South Asians, actual people we imply when we use the term "westerner". And also they are not just colleagues or acquaintances, but with whom I share family like ties, enough for us to exchange photos of our family outings. Knowing how they raise their kids, I'd say that the "orange dyed hair" gentleman is an exception, not the rule.

 

[Otpidus]

Unfortunate and true. Unfortunate - because it shouldn't be this way. One shouldn't need to be enslaved/impoverished/raised in scarcity to be grounded.

Parenting plays a role. Western parents don't let their money go to their kids head. In the west your parents' money earns you no entitlement. In India it does. "Tumhe pata hai mera baap kaun hai"? Haven't we Indians heard this a million++ times in our lives? There you go, that's what keeps our kids in the air - Our parents' money/power.

If Indian parents taught their kids to earn everything they want/need kids will grow up as grounded, mature, responsible adults.

I agree that in our society it's always about "Family worth", whereas in Western world it's about "Self worth". That actually validate my point. When we choose to build "Self worth" from early age, we choose to leave the "Path of least resistance" and there begins our struggles of life which eventually shapes our thinking and keeps us grounded later in life. It's undeniable that when we are out of our "Path of least resistance", we learn and earn (not only limited to knowledge, money but also self awareness).

Once we are firmly set into that direction, we don't bother much about Social Media or any other "Approval Seeking Behavior". Such a person would participate in Social Media on a limited basis and largely to add value to self and others.

 

[arj]

It very easy to generalize western society into one but having lived in several of these, US, Latin america, and even countries in europe are all very very different

eg in france its not uncommon for kids to live on with parents for a pretty long part of their adults life and its very similar in spain/italy as well. they have the same issues as we do and same benefits but think family and not really self in the same way as we

And if one think there is no "entitlement" driven benefits of Race/religion/family name/"whos the father" etc you see here in other countries its a very limited view of the world.

I really believe overall the generation of today is happier, has less violence/deaths, better facilities and live far better lives.

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”​

― Socrates

The above is disputably said by socrates or perhaps someone else..but every generation thinks the next generation will let them down..but they have only uplifted

We have a better life than our parents and our kids will have a better one than us and we continue to get better

 

[bloredude]

Human behavior changes not only from country to country but also region to region, area to area, tribe to tribe, family to family, individual to individual. No one can cover the specifics of 7.5 billion humans in a few short paragraphs covering minute differences from case A to case B. Big generalizations should be avoided, but some generalization would be needed unless we are ready to write a mini book of sorts in each post.

Generational decline with time is a reality of the human society across the board. A more fair term is "change" rather than decline. When this "change" gives the impression of being a regression we term it decline. When this "change" gives the impression of being an improvement we term it progress.

Over the last centuries - we have ended slavery, equality has more support - it's all progress. Nudity has increased, power abuse has increased, corruption has increased - it's decline.

We can have different views of what is "better"! Less infant mortality, less violence has improved life - life is better. That's the general perception. But is it necessarily "better"? Hasn't less infant mortality, less casualty in social violence resulted in longer lives, increase in population?

I forgot the exact percentage (but it was alarmingly low) of how much land mass on planet Earth is untouched by humans. Is this better? I think it was a lot "better" when we didn't have to eat food grains full of toxic fertilizers, silt carried by rivers was enough to re-fertilize our land enough to grow food again. We didn't need N95 masks to jog in the park, trees we had in our "aangan" served as natural air purifiers, air conditioners.

Everything we perceive today as better is not necessarily better. This may or may not be connected to generational decline. At least some of it would be natural progression of a society.

 

[firearm12]

Radical change in education policy throughout the world is the one thing that can help change the situation. In India the need is extreme now a days. His Holiness Dalai Lama mentioned this in one of his lectures. Till a child does not go to school, he is really innocent and treats everything in the world with humaneness and equality. Once he starts going to school and he starts growing older, the he learns that world is not one happy place, countries exist with borders, why they exist, when they fight, he learns about religions, he learns about poor and rich and differences across individuals, the good and the bad (mostly bad). He says we need to rethink and redesign the teaching methods to include compassion somewhere curriculum to teach children the value and joys of human life and incorporate compassion in human character.

 

[Analogous]

Radical change in education policy throughout the world is the one thing that can help change the situation. In India the need is extreme now a days. His Holiness Dalai Lama mentioned this in one of his lectures. Till a child does not go to school, he is really innocent and treats everything in the world with humaneness and equality. Once he starts going to school and he starts growing older, the he learns that world is not one happy place, countries exist with borders, why they exist, when they fight, he learns about religions, he learns about poor and rich and differences across individuals, the good and the bad (mostly bad). He says we need to rethink and redesign the teaching methods to include compassion somewhere curriculum to teach children the value and joys of human life and incorporate compassion in human character.

Easier said than done unfortunately.

All political parties want to rewrite curriculum the way they want once they attain power. This is specially noticeable in the narration of history, evolution and glorification of selected personalities. They recognise it’s easiest to teach and indoctrinate children and adolescents to become lifelong supporters.

Values related to right and wrong actions, human rights, compassion, non discrimination and inclusion are often ridiculed as weakness in many governments. I believe the current cycle will play itself out and a new cycle with these values will take centre stage. Just hope it does not take another terrible war and loss of lives for us to come to this.

some resources on training teachers and educators on compassion, social emotional learning etc: https://mgiep.unesco.org/

 

[firearm12]

This is specially noticeable in the narration of history, evolution and glorification of selected personalities.

There you said it. The way history is distorted is horrible actually but that's another topic. Be it govt or companies, no one wants individuals to decide for themselves. Infact both govt and companies work hand in hand for their own benefits. Remember china has banned google, india has banned tiktok, so govts can actually do a lot id they want to. But they will never. Its just greed of power and money thats defining the state of society. Social media is just a new tool to create bias in individuals. But then if we are not aware enough how are we going to think unbiased. Govt will never want people who can critically think for themselves.

 

[Analogous]

Music essayist Noah Lefevre of Polyphonic analyzes the iconic 1971 Pink Floyd song “Echoes”, naming it the band’s first masterpiece.

The song was based upon “Two Planets”, a beautiful poem by philosopher Muhammad Iqbal that looked to the skies for salvation. Roger Waters took the idea and rewrote it with allusions to the depths of the ocean, as that is where life on Earth originated. LeFevre notes that Waters saw this imagery as a great equalizer to remind all of their humanity towards one another, a sentiment he vocalized to Rolling Stone.

Echoes was an attempt to describe the potential that human beings have for recognizing each other’s humanity and responding to it with empathy rather than antipathy. The band used the music, specifically the notable “ping”, to call for togetherness.

Pink Floyd found the exact right amount of experimentation to put into their song the ambient section serves to immerse you in the lyrical themes of the song. It places you in the ocean but it also places you alone without the warm comfort of melody. It’s the coldness of a world soaked in antipathy. …just as we’re at our most desolate, Pink Floyd reintroduce a familiar sound. That ping is the first sound you hear in echoes. …The ping is the spark of human empathy of human experience. It’s the utopian promise of togetherness calling across time, calling from deep within the ocean.

 

[powerslave]

Social media does not reinforce anything; it's a tool or instrument; on it's own it has no intelligence . Akin to a gun it can be wielded to defend or attack. Of course recommendation engines do narrow down the options , however even there the choice is ours to make. We humans are very cunning/slippery creatures , we always look outward for casting a blame and inward for taking credit. Social media and it's signal to noise ratio is actually a reflection of humans participating in that forum/board/platform , it's lazy and easy to blame politicians when in a democratic society politicians are just volunteers who have been elected by the public . Generally speaking, if politicians are corrupt it means the pool they come from is no Gangotri either.


Specific to our hobby , all of us have biases mostly based on earliest experiences and thoughts that got seeded in early stages depending on how one got introduced to this hobby . Some hold a strong position on how new TTs and Amps aren't as good as 70s/80s vintage . Thoughts on whether to go box versus open-baffle . Analog vs Digital etc etc . I personally have come to a point where I think instead of fighting one's bias one needs to simply come to terms with it for there is no one "correct" way/destination here. Accepting and respecting differences is the key . Biases will remain for we are not robots.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I've quit social media completely 4 years back, and haven't logged into Facebook or Instagram ever again. I've been sleeping blissfully ever since

Half the time it was folks showing off, which was subdued bragging to me. And remaining was political brain washing. Both of which I was not game for

 

[Analogous]

A few interesting reads on social media and fake news

How fake news spreads like a real virus

If we understand how disinformation percolates, perhaps we can help curb its transmission.

engineering.stanford.edu

Fake News Spreads Faster and 100 Times Further Than the Truth, According to Science

Here's why "alternative facts" are getting more play than their real counterparts.

www.inc.com