Greater Manchester Skeptics: Cables

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Digital Cables - Woo Style

Purchase a flat screen TV from almost any electrical retailer, and you can be almost guaranteed that you'll encounter a little woo. You'll be offered some form of expensive home-theater grade cables from a brand such as Profigold or Monster, which retail for frankly ridiculous prices. The reason for this is simple - a shop like Comet makes a larger margin from their cables, sometimes running to 80 or 90% profit compared to the 10 or 15% they get from the TV itself.

The jargon used by these companies can be overwhelming, battering potential customers into making a purchase with sheer complexity. Here's a couple of typical quote from Monster cable, arguably the most prominent of these companies:

What is Skepticism?

Skepticism is a method of discerning truth from fiction. Doubt is preferred to belief - when presented with an unusual claim, a skeptic will doubt that claim unless there is a decent amount of evidence to back it up.

Many people confuse Skepticism with Cynicism. This is not the case - cynicism is the tendency to ascribe the worst possible motives for the actions of other people, while skepticism is simply the refusal to accept claims without good evidence to back it up.

While a skeptic will try to remain rational, skeptics are of course fallible. A skeptic might also be cynical, close-minded or just plain wrong, but a good skeptic should always try to change their beliefs when shown how and why these beliefs are wrong.