Movie Software make HT a Waste of Resources?

Dear me, such heavy philosophical musings. Sounds like the review of a rock album in Rolling Stone. Hey, I once heard Thom Moon opine that Elvis Costello was a more profound philosopher than Alfred North Whitehead. Damn! All those years wasted in graduate school when I could just have gone to Tower and gotten it all on one CD.

Folks, the paradigm is a simple one: If you like it, and you can afford it, buy it and listen to/through it. That's all. If you don't like it, don't buy it. But neither need you feel compelled to tell the other guy that he's wrong to do so. What's hard about this?

Over on another thread, some guys are bragging about listening to rap on $100K+ systems. To me, that's like putting a diamond necklace on a Duroc pig but, hey, it isn't my money. If you find Levinson and the Wu Tang the right mix for you, go for it. If "Saving Private Ryan" fills your evening enjoyably, what the heck?

As a buddy of mine who teaches philosophy at Harvard is fond of saying, "Y'all pseudointellectuals is annoying to us that really is."

Will

Sorry this is not philosophy anymore than the apparent deliberate acts of ENRON and Arthur Anderson and it seems the entire auditing profession are/were, whichever the case may be, involved in. Apparently Wall Street is involved in philosophy, according to the implied definition, in questioning companies the likes of GE, IBM, Tyco among hoards of others this past week with another round of stock slides. Gosh, if someone had any money in the stock market or stands a risk of having their son die in battle over oil maybe they should get involved in this here philosophy thing.

When multinationals play unfair and squeeze out the options for a more discerning public we all loose. If what is reported in the links I refer to is not factural then maybe you can enlighten us all. I for one would like to believe what is going on in several aspects of our society from lost pensions while a handful make BILLIONS, excessive compensation for CEOs that make quarterly numbers by laying off 20,000 then get 3 times their total compensation package for poor job performance as they get laid off, etc. I do not think the facts are philosophy. If they are maybe we need another term for philosophy.

Let me get this straight: Desiring not to be as easily manipulated by marketers (e.g. "blasting 110 db sound from 9 speakers is the secret to enjoying a good movie" or at least "a quick marketing path for hearing aids") and the interests of multinationals pressured on us all makes someone a "psuedo" intellectal. Presumably then, someone is an "un"intellectual that doesn't question the larger forces at work in our society or those who do not care to debate it and would rather use names or cliche's to label or dismiss someone. Funny things: Boomerangs.

I suppose what I was suggesting, nanderson, was that this is perhaps not the ideal place to mount your intellectual hobbyhorse. That your preferences and purchasing decisions are driven by strong belief in a particular socioeconomic model is clear. Your implied argument: That those beliefs and consequent behaviors ought therefore to be normative for all is much less convincingly made.

And yes, nanderson, that IS philosophy. Leaving out the antecedents (always a dangerous choice in philosophy) start with Jeremy Bentham and read forward.

Keep smiling. As an old bleeding heart liberal and once-and-future social activist, I know well the hazards of grim-visaged ideology.

Will

I learned a long time ago the benefits of light hearted sayings like "keep smiling" as an implied, objective epilog for the presumed, thoughtful argument that precedes it. So I'll do a extra dose and say before I begin " Have a great weekend, enjoy the kids, may the sun shine upon you forever and ever"

Liberal has nothing to do with it. Being informed does. Funny how George Bush and the entire US Congress all of a sudden became LIBERAL when everyone at ENRON lost their shirt except GB's close buddies. What choices we have in audio is related to our unquestioning nature as Americans. We soak up whatever marketers can frame as "expanding our individualism". Yet the funny thing is we have far fewer choices after the mega-mergers then ever before (think for a minute of these topics "California Skyrocking Energy Prices and ENRON Making Billions", "Microsoft", "AOL", "Lack of Alternative Fuels"). How much diversity and balance is really in our lifes except work, work for the sake of things. Hi-end audio is being slashed and burned by the successful marketing of planned obsolete Home Theatre and never ending array of formats we did not ask for. If Home Theatre is such a prized possession equal to its increasing price tag and energy consumption why then does the market say it is nearly worthless 6 years after a processor that drives the whole system is made?

No matter how fast a dog chases his tail he will never catch it. Everytime he thinks he has it that darn tail changes direction again. Presumably, eventually the dog realizes this activity is fruitless and gets on to other things. Unfortunately as Americans by the time we get done casing the tails of visions of marketers we destroy community based companies and small but vital niches in our stream of choices that is part of the richness of life.

Almost anything can be framed as an ideal it just depends who has the artillery to shove it down someones throat versus those who have to try to educate themselves and the public about alternative more sustainable, diverse, enlightening, and healthy lifestyles for everyone not just Americans (we are never safe when we piss off the world no matter how much money is spend on bombs and reading of our e-mail by the CIA). Conservative is far too often a proxy for keep "Aggressive, self-interested fat old white guys in power". If there ever was an idea out of step it is the dogma of an "Oil Idealism" way of framing everything. If you create a global map of everywhere oil can be extracted in huge quantities, the military weak, and therefore where we stick our nose you will see our foreign policy and military directed. Let me ask "What is more dangerous: 1. ) questioning our purchase priorities and the affect they have on other related things (that ol' "grim visaged ideology") or 2.) Believing what is best for the Ideals of a handful of executives is the best for us.

What we have for choices in this country is as much about what we do as what we don't do.

Wishing you and yours a very happy new year and spring showers of happiness throughout life everlasting. And may you not get laid off before that second SUV is paid for because you may need it to take all those speakers, wires, stands, processors, and a host of black boxes home when they come up with Dolby 9.2.

I guess I should find a different thread to brag about my new 10.2, B&W Nautilaus 800's all around, system I just finished setting up in my 60x90 dedicated theater?

:-)