Is pseudo science really having zero tolerance on critical thinking? Magic! Now you don't see it!

Magic! Now you don't see it! 

Background for our discussion:

1. As stated in "why I start my blog",  I created my account (@sunjam) in Audio Science Forum (ASR) for my journey in the Audio Science World on 19 March 2024.

2. I saw a lot of fun and inspiring topics in ASR

3. Meanwhile, I noticed the wrong belief (i.e. the claim) that "Hi-Res is useless" (statement 1) were being promoted by a lot of ASR members (including "Major Contributors", "Donors", "Sponsor", "Industrial Insider") to the people who question the claim

4. Most of these supporters claim "statement 1" is "factual". They emphasized that there are a lot of objective tests / measurements supporting such claim. For example, this is the paper (from Journal of the Audio Engineering Socieity) they used for the claim. (This blog explain why the paper does not support statement 1)

5. Some of these supporters even state that people who believe in "Hi-Res can help to reproduce better music" (statement 2) is same as the people who believe in "Earth is flat"

6. I am a bit concerned that some of the people who questioned the claim may be mid-led to belief in such claim, as this is to me how Pseudo Science is formed and created.

8. I attempted to provide my view points to show that "statement 1" is incorrect

9. Given my background in Psycholoyg, Physics, and Computer Science, I believe that I am well-equpipped to help people to understand the issues and flaws in Pseudo Science claims. I tried my best to provide more scientific proofs to debunk the claim.

10. I even came up with a simple experiment to verify if we have any confirmation bias. (My experiment was posted in ASR but it was completely deleted now. Here is some trace of my original post there.)

11. I was, as usual, bullied by the these supporters. It looks to me there is a groupthink in ASR to decide what's right and what's wrong. This groupthink issue was also highlighted by a senior member of ASR 

10. I was hoping the moderator in ASR would be neutral but, unfortunately, the moderator is also biased to their side. I was stopped from further discussion in various topic as he considered I am having some kind of mental block.

11. In the end, I decided to help other people who have various questions regarding the validity of the claim "Hi-Res is useless" by creating this blogger (Debunk Pseudo Scientific Claims (no-pseudo-science.blogspot.com)) as I was not able to join the relevant discussion on ASR.

12. I did my best to ensure the information in my blogger is correct. I welcome any comment about my blog and I am more than happy to fix any issue as my bottom line is to give out correct information.

13. When I promote critical thinking, I got various level of bullying from different people, include another moderator in the Roon discussion forum.

14. As all my writings are supported by facts, none of them could provide any evidence to support their baseless accusation. 

15. In the end, the moderator on Roon decided to ban me from their site and hidden our discussion on their forum.

16. In ASR, as I was still be able to join other discussion topics, I asked a few valid questions on the topic Audiophile is a scam? (That's was my last comment on ASR, I am not sure how these questions could trigger the banning of my account)

17. Probably I caused them to feel unease up to a point that they decided to completely ban my account and delete all my old comments completely on ASR. They don't want anyone to see all my comments at all on ASR. 

18. Unfortunately (for them, I think), given the complexity of their system, looks like they can hidden all my old comments directly but they cannot easily delete "quoted" message. 

19. There are still traces of my comments in ASR. Not sure if people can put together a complete picture about what I wrote originally. 

20. It is an interesting journey so far. I experienced the bullying from groupthink first person. I really feel the power of the bullying, especially when there is (hidden?) alliance of these groups in various places, e.g. ASR and Roon forum.

21. Fortunately, I believe, I have good enough EQ (not EQ in Hi Fi world, but Emotional Quotient as defined in Psychology) to handle all these bullying.

22. Let's see how far I can still survive in my journey.

Zero Tolerance on Critical Thinking in the Pseudo Science World

Looks to me that they have zero tolerance on Critical Thinking in the Pseudo Science World. 

By eliminating any voice (included those already happened like my old comments) on Critical Thinking (as shown in the above example), the supporters of any pseudo science claim would feel more comfortable in continuing pushing their claim to other people.

But Why Zero Tolerance?

To my trained eyes, it is related to either cognitive dissonance...

Or 

They cannot just simply ban an account without deleting the relvant old comment? (I am not sure about this one as I am not familiar with their forum platform)...

Or

They have a hidden agenda in delivering such pseudo science claim (i.e. they knew it is incorrect but they still want to deliver it in order to help them to archive something)

For this, I would tend to believe that it was due to cognitive dissonance rather than they have a (malicious) hidden agenda (unless it is proved the otherwise).

Hit the Nail on the Head

I really want to say a big "Thank You" to the moderator of ASR for his action (i.e. deleted all my old comments completely from the forum) as he just helped us to confirm something (I'll explain later)

I would believe that if he really thinks I am having some kind of "mental block",  I think it would be good enough to ban my account for further activity in the forum (like what the moderator in the Roon Forum did with my account) but NOT deleting all my old comments.

Why would the ASR moderator HAVE TO completely delete all my old comments related to critical thinking? Hmm....

Why would letting other people to see my old comments cause them feel uncomfortable? Hmm....

My critical thinking mind suggested to me about the following conclusion:

His action confirm highly convincingly that my "hammer" (i.e. my comments) actually hit right on the head of the nail (i.e. their flaws of their pseudo science claim) 

Thank you.

What's Next

Given the first hand experience I have from their bullying, I feel that I have to survive and continue to push for the Critical Thinking. 

In my mind, only Critical Thinking can fight against the dark force of Pseudo Science.

And, I strongly belief that Critical Thinking will win finally. 

Cheers, welcome to the world of Critical Thinking and let's work together to fight aganist Pseudo Science!

Appendix

There should be 20 pages of discussion but it was reduced down to 15 pages now. 

Figuare 1: originally, there was 20 pages of dicussion (source from Microsoft Bing Cached Search: Upsampling 16/44.1 collection a good idea? | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum (bingj.com) )

Figure 2: As of today (2 May 2004), it was down to only 15 pages.

What's on the 5 deleted pages? Hmm... 

Wow... I didn't realize that I had actually provided so many supporting facts for the discussion that they have to delete. 

To be honest, I'd spent a lot of time, effort, and energy in the discussion.... I am pretty disappointed they just simply deleted all my efforts. Some of my friends suggest to me that I should just let them do whatever they want to do...

Well... I would not give up so easily. The bullying I experienced during the discussion indeed encourage me to create this blogger. The bullying provided a lot of energy for me to keep on mission. i.e. debunk pseudo science with critical thinking! 

=== latest update (2 May) ===

Looks like facebook is in their alliance.... my posts (from this blog) are also deleted...

The world is becoming more and more interesting now. Not sure how long you can still see my blog.  Enjoy while you can.

p.s.: Some of the links in my old blogs may become invalid due to their removal of my old comments. I will take the time to fix it. Stay tuned.