Unmatched, different brand power tubes?

[Chuck H]

If you DO get all the lead wire to your home/shop replaced with "superior" conductor of some sort, it won't matter unless you install these:

http://www.synthgear.com/2009/audio-...e-wall-socket/

EDIT: The hardest part of this for me (since I dabble in knife making I know a little about austenitic metals) is that there is no advantage to cryogenic treatment of gold!!! But combine the words "gold" and "cryogenic" in the same pitch and the audiophiles can't keep away!!! A fool and his money? I'd be ashamed to take advantage of this trend as much as I'm ashamed to be broke in an ignorant world!?! This is really just sad to me. Since I know about the advantages of cryogenic treatment of metals and the limitations of standard power plant wiring, and I'm NOT taking advantage of the "ignorant rich", am I basically a loser because of my morality??? This product is very upsetting for me.

[NateS]

It's wrong to take advantage of those who aren't capable of making decisions for themselves. But when someone has worked so hard to delude themselves, against all efforts from their peers to educate them otherwise, and seeks to use their delusions to establish superiority over their peers on the basis of how much they spent, why then it's almost your civic duty to releive them of their money so long as you do so in a manner that doesn't actually misrepresent the truth or make false claims.

[Chuck H]

I respect, and may eventually agree with, this position. But cryogenically treated, gold plated AC outlets as superior in any way is a bald faced lie designed to extract money from the ignorant. I truely wish I could get my head around "the game" because I would surely be better off. Instead I'm just poor and sad.

[R.G.]

There is a theory that one basis for the astoundingly rapid evolution of human intelligence (in comparison to other animals) is that some change made it an advantage to outwit other humans for food, mates, shelter, etc. - somehow it got set up so that the smartest ones that could take advantage of not only the environment but other humans better had more offspring.

That would explain a lot of things, if accurate.

[NateS]

Just to be clear - I'm not suggesting we just try to take advantage of the public at large, or the less clever. And RG has probably done more than anyone else to educate this corner of the internet. But if someone refuses to be helped, and seeks to spend money for the purpose of differentiating themselves based on the money that they spend - that person I don't really have a lot of sympathy for.

[jpfamps]

Just to be clear - I'm not suggesting we just try to take advantage of the public at large, or the less clever. And RG has probably done more than anyone else to educate this corner of the internet. But if someone refuses to be helped, and seeks to spend money for the purpose of differentiating themselves based on the money that they spend - that person I don't really have a lot of sympathy for.

What always astounds me more is that people with such lack of critical thinking can become wealthy enough to be unconcerned about spending, for example £3156, on a 1m mains cable.

[Chuck H]

What always astounds me more is that people with such lack of critical thinking can become wealthy enough to be unconcerned about spending, for example £3156, on a 1m mains cable.

I chalk that up to a profound difference in priorities between the have's and have not's. Using a "have" that makes money manipulating or bamboosling others (most of them really) as an example... This person decided at some point that learning to do those things well paid off. And, lacking any feelings of personal association with other humans, it made sense to that person to use such tools for personal gain. Such a person almost surely knows more about the "laws of power" and the "art of the deal", etc. than I do. Certainly I know things that they don't. But in the grand scheme they can have ANYTHING I have, as well as a buttload of stuff no one needs or can benefit from, without the need for education on the matter. I've even noticed that such people, as a demonstration of pride, will spout psuedo facts as they've learned regarding such useless items as gold plated, cryogenically trated AC outlets. Then, if your not suitably impressed by their knowledge and achievment they will simply exclude you from their lives. I presume this is because you don't fit into the illusion of reality that they prefere and are attempting to buy for themselves. While blowing smoke up ones own arse seems ignorant, it doesn't matter because there are no consequenses if it's done right and well funded. So who's the dummy now? The guy with the money that's making their world what they want it to be, or the guy that's broke, sees the iniquity in the world and knows the that other person is full of shit but can't do a damn thing about it???

Just thinking out loud... I'm done now.

[R.G.]

It's worse than that.

I have recently had a long legal lesson in perverse personalities. There is a condition now recognized by the psychiatric folks as "borderline personality disorder". This has several manifestations, but the common thread is the absence of empathy for other people. It's often combined with an intelligence and sometimes a verbal quickness that makes these people very difficult to deal with. They're smart, fast, and **incapable** of empathizing.

This is an interesting combination. These people **cannot** see why them cleverly getting anything they want from others is in any way wrong. To them, it's just the way things ought to be. They are smart enough to learn the language and traditions of dealing "fairly" with others, but this is in no way really part of how they think. The extreme ones become psychopaths, serial killers, etc.; the less-extreme ones become thought of as selfish, hard nosed, conceited, uncaring, and so forth.

The really smart ones become politicians and corporate CEOs. Sadly, the risk/reward/job load involved in political office and high corporate office selects for people with just these characteristics. In a way, it is as silly of us to expect people in these jobs to be empathetic as it is for us to ask people with arm disabilities to be major league pitchers. It's not that they don't want to or can't learn the basics - they simply do not have the ability to empathize. It's not there, and can't be taught to them. And they get these positions because people with the empathy to hurt from the job situations will either quit the jobs or never take them to start with.

It's interesting to speculate that the estimated 1% to 3% of the population with similar - what do we call this? disorders or abilities? - remained in the gene pool because more of them would have killed off the species from internal fighting, and having none of them would have left the species without the technical advancement that war brings.

It's like there are Klingon spies among us, all the time.

But back to your point. I suspect that many "haves" are "haves" because of their personalities, and not the other way round. They probably got their stuff because they had the personality and intellect, and don't have the intellect and personality because they "have". They give "having" a bad name.

[NateS]

There's a similar (and sometimes confused with BPO) personality disorder that I'd wager is more likely involved - Narcisisstic Personality Disorder. Borderline's often have a chaotic destructiveness that in some ways can serve to limit their impact a bit - kind of like foldback. A true narcissist has all the self centered and even evil bent, but can be disciplined enough to bring it to bear in truly staggering ways.

[R.G.]

Yep. I understood that NPD was one of the sub-categories of BPD, but it's a foggy area even for the psychs, apparently. There are other "specialties" in BPD, according to one classification. My 'lessons' were taught by an NPD, IMHO, although I'm far from qualified to paste on the labels. Just what seems to fit from reading. One thing to watch is that NPDs and other BPDs can be very smart, their minds being uncluttered with that soggy empathy stuff inhibiting them.