Catching Fire, Audio Science Forums, Pseudo Science Claim, Brainwash, and Awakening!

Catching Fire is the 2nd movie of the Hunger Game series. The movie is very interesting. The following are the themes of the movie (from wikipedia):

How these terms Catching Fire, Audio Science Forums, Pseudo Science Claim, Brainwash, and Awakening can be linked together?

Audio Science Forums and Pseudo Science Claim

I'd explained why I created my blog and it shows clearly how audio science forums are linked with pseudo science claims. 

Most of the writings in my blogs revealed the Pseudo Science Claim / behaviours happening in these "Audio Science" forums.

I found that most of the senior members (and the moderators) are probably having an Electrical Engineering background. Their level of understanding of Audio Science is probably (at most) up to a level that an average electrical engineer could master.  Monty's video is a good example.

Good mastery in Audio Science (and digital audio) requires the mastering of Physics, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Computer Science, and Psychology (for understanding human perception) at least. It is a multidisciplinary subject.

Only having a casual understanding of the sampling theory would end up creating/believing in "valid but not absolute" claims, e.g. perfect filter is not required?

They have limited understanding of peer review system found in the science world.

They have limited understanding of tolerance of measurement, and the difference between accuracy and precision. Most of them would just consider 1.000 = 1.001

They believe in a lot of their own versions of rules / theories in a religious way.

Unfortunately, probably due to historical reasons, these bunch of people who have limited knowledge of audio science formed a so called "Audio Science Community" and try to push their believes to the mass public.

These forums are, in my mind, Pseudo Science Factories.

These factories are full of contradictions, wired reasoning, and bullying and personal attacks

Audio Science Forums and Brainwash

I found these forums are very weird when I joined them in around late March 2024.

Based on my experience on other non-"audio science" forums (I joined various on-line discussion forums from early 2000), I would expect people there are knowledgable and willing to share and exchange correct information about audio science.

I was shocked to find out that my experience is like joining a cult. 

Instead of having a meaningful, healthy, constructive discussion on the various audio science subjects like what I want to do it here and here, the people there keep focusing on brainwashing people into believe that:

1. "You cannot hear the difference between Hi-Res music and CD music, your brain is fooling you" (even you really do hear the difference)

2. "Two different audibly transparent DACs sound the same with the same digital input" (even you do hear music sounds differently from different DACs)

3. "Hi-Res music and CD music sounds the same based on objective scientific experiment" (but they cannot provide any convincing objective scientific peer-reviewed research reports to show that)

4. "Hi-Res music with sampling bitrate higher than 44k Hz is useless as no body can hear higher than 22k Hz unless you are a super human" (even you know that Hi-Res music is for better reconstructions of analog signal in the audible freqeuncy range)

The brainwash list is longer than the one I shown above. I just mentioned a few as an indication about the brainwashing activities they are doing in these forums.

You may asked, "why they wanted to brainwash people?" Let me explain to you below...

Why brainwash people?

I think any sense people would know what they can hear and what they cannot hear; they don't need someone to tell them if they should hear it or not.

But why people in these "audio science" forums still so insist in "telling" people they should not hear something (e.g. the difference between Hi-Res music and CD music)?

In my opinion, I see the following possible reasons for these brainwashing activities:

1) the people cannot hear the difference themselves and they assume normal people would not be able to hear the difference. The people in the "audio science" want to make other people to aware of some marketing tricks <=== Is it a good reason just because you cannot hear the difference yourself and you assume other should be the same?

2) the people cannot hear the difference themselves and they truly believe in the "Monty's claim" (or other so called "objective evidence" that CD-format is perfect for audio signal reconstruction). The people in the "audio science" forums are doing their best to educate people about the "Monty's claim" <=== Is the "Monty's claim" valid? Is there really any "objective evidence" to support their claim?

3) the people cannot hear the difference themselves and they don't feel comfortable that someone else could hear it so they come up with a "valid reason" that other people who could hear it must be telling lie. With such "valid reason" (and belief), they would not feel uncomfortable for their inability in hearing the difference.

4) the people are selling relevant equipments / sources so they have monetary benefits in brainwashing people into believeing the their claims. e.g. a budget DAC makers can benefits from the claim that "Two different audibly transparent DACs sound the same with the same digital input" 

If you asked me what is the reason that have the highest chance, I would pick 3. Why? I'll explain below.

Cult community, Catching Fire and Awakening

These "audio science" forums (aka the Capitol cult community) are so sensentive in anyone who attempt to debunk their claims. I am not the first one who are attempting in doing so. 

There are many attempts by other people who wanted to make the general public to be aware of these misleading claims (aka Pseudo Science claims) but failed. 

In these forums, they have the Peacekeepers to enforce the conformance of these claims. Whenever they detect anyone who questions their believes, these Peacekeepers would bully these people who asked the questions (and most likely they bring with supporting facts too). These peacekeepers would label these people as "troll"

The president Mr Snow moderator is the last line of their defence. The moderator would simply ban the people who bring incompatible facts or make their writings vanish in thin air at his own personal will. 

The people in the cult community is so afraid of the conception of "awakening". Look at the following factual statements:

The people in the cult community is so unease when they see the above. 

Are the statements captured above BS to you? Or they are just common sense?

Why people in the cult community is so afraid that other people could find out the truth about their (invalid) claims? Why these peacekeepers react so strongly about the person who wrote the above factual statements as shown below?

From the moderator:

You can find the details of the discussion here. But as usually, some of the messages were made vanished (i.e. deleted)

Catching fire is something the cult members would like to stop at all cost. The cult community is probably their last area that they can still feel comfortable with their cult believes (probably due to reason 3 I stated above).

Should Sound / Audio Science Forums be acting like a safe harbor for these cult members?

It should not but in reality some cult members are using it like that (probably due to historical reasons).

Should it be fixed? Yes, I think we should fix it.

How to fix it? These safe harbors are formed because of the owner/moderators of these forums. I am not an owner/moderator of these forum. All I can do is externally like what I am doing now. 

When I see the following replies and the recent brave action of the Head-Fi management, I see there are still hope in Head-Fi.org:

From other member:

Let's see if I can be any help to the authentic Audio Science Community.

With great power comes great responsibility. Someone has to do it.