Verum: Doing The Right Thing

Discussion in 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' started by Ryanr1987, Jul 17, 2020.

  1. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    The point is there has to be a standard of decorum. Otherwise there is chaos and everyone shouting at one another. This is why bans happen and threads get locked. So if you make excuses for the felon charged and try to make a big deal and challenge authority, you too will be out. Just accept this and move along.

    We all just a little emotional intelligence. I know I need to raise my EQ most of the time.
     
  2. TheIceman93

    TheIceman93 El pato-zorro

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    I don't want to muddy the waters but I would like to speak to @Garuspik directly because he is probably reading these threads.

    @Garuspik - Forgiveness is attainable for all who genuinely seek it. The first step is admitting your mistakes and accepting the consequences. The fallout from these revelations will almost certainly destroy your business and most of the endorsements and positive reviews you have received will be retracted. This is a necessary punishment for your actions. As a businessman who ships products across the globe, you should understand that most customers will not respond positively to statements wishing death upon them and their families. They will not respond positively to ugly statements that repeatedly target a specific ethnicity. Even if this type of humor is common in your country (and I doubt that it is), you must surely understand that it is unacceptable to speak this way to anyone, especially to customers who have supported your business in good faith. If you do not understand this, then I implore you to learn more about racial/cultural sensitivity and proper business decorum. I think these posts have made it perfectly clear that SBAF condemns your hostility and bigotry in the strongest of terms.

    While this issue appears to be very cut and dry, I understand that there could be other factors at play that we are unaware of. If you are struggling with a mental illness that causes aggressive tendencies and dark thoughts, I urge you to seek help from a mental health professional. If you are struggling with substance abuse that causes you to think and act in this way, I urge you to get help. If you really do harbor hatred for certain ethnicities and feel the need to threaten customers, I urge you to take classes in removing racial biases and anger management.

    While there will certainly be dark days ahead for your business ventures in the personal audio industry, I urge you to not give in to despair and feel that your life is irrevocably ruined. You are obviously a talented headphone designer and our community was genuinely impressed that you released a strong product and a reasonable price right out of the gate. You need to focus not on releasing new products but on addressing the mental issues and behavior that has caused you to be justifiably banned from all the major headphone forums.

    I hope that this falling out will motivate you to get the help that you need. While certain wounds can never be fully healed, you can commit to being a better, more compassionate person going forward. I sincerely hope that you do.
     
  3. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    Ha, good point. The historical materialism of BLM, "critical race theory", cancel culture and the like is evil itself, but a little creative destruction is needed now and then.

    Betrayal, being lied to - these things hurt. You took a risk and @Garuspik not only did not hold up his end, but shamed SBAF. This will sting for a while. Yet, risks must be taken if one wants to do the right thing and not hold to some kind or another of puritanical standard that itself is impossible and evil. You did the right thing originally IMO.
     
  4. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    @m17xr2b Cool down, you’re running hot and making things worse. Just let things lie.

    I appreciated your attempt to highlight cultural differences. However it was communicated without delicacy, and came across as dismissive.

    I hope your membership is reinstated at some future time.


    As for Garuspik I do not condone his behaviour, and it went well beyond using racist terms for the purposes of insult or ball-busting. I also do not agree with cancel-culture or de-platforming. They only exist due to the sociopathic self interest of business entities, and their susceptibility to manipulation. Free speech cannot be free speech while controlled by self-elected moral arbiters.

    But SBAF is not a platform. It’s a small community based around the virtual club house of a group of friends. Which supported and even championed Verum. We welcomed him in, but now we’ve seen his true colours. How could we continue to call him one of our own without staining ourselves in those same colours.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2020
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Nexus of creative destruction, change, going on right now: racism, politics, disease, inequity, overpopulation, pollution. Things were going so well for a decade - at least for America. The universe has its way of striking us down and reminding us that we are not gods but human beings.
     
  6. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    Historical materialism and critical race theory is evil itself? Where do people come up with this shit? If you were to rank the actual evils in this world, those things wouldn’t make the f'ing list.
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    From Captain Obvious: folks with wares to sell may want to consider the audience
    upload_2020-7-18_19-17-8.png
     
  8. Roget

    Roget Acquaintance

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    Verum is banned at Head-Fi now.
     
  9. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    *nice cool summer night*
    *have a nice dinner*
    *setup comfy folding chairs outside*
    *pour drinks and light a cigar*
    *open SBAF after some amount of time, see a new thread...*

    *what's going on in this thr..... picture here*

    I was going to type some stuff but at this rate... no.

    If this thread doesn't turn insane in a few days from now and I'm still in the mood to care, I'm going to post some pseudo-intellectual bs questions for many of the persons/parties here that may in a dumb roundabout way highlight why I see this whole thread as analogous to the "speck in his eye and a plank in yours".

    I realize most people probably don't care what I have to say (nor have I given anyone a real reason to) and I also completely realize I will most likely generate hidden unseen animosity and dislike towards myself from certain members for doing so... but I've always deemed the raw harshness of reality >> individual feelings / playing ostrich.
    in b4 "u racist too" - I don't condone or approve of garu's racism but I don't condone dumb pseudo-arguments like this and I agree with the purrin comment linked from about a year ago about randomly calling people racist, especially when you do it b/c you have no legitimate refute for their logic.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Absolutely right, a plank in my eye, starting back a year or so ago? I can't recall exactly when or who.

    I do remember a while back when an SBAF member, a "demanding" Verum customer, issued a legitimate compliant on SBAF where Garu or someone representing his company wished him and his family to die of cancer. I hate getting involved in vendor and customer issues, but they inevitably happen. When they do, I feel it's important to get two sides of the story, especially once someone takes it public. As such, we allowed Garu an opportunity to explain himself.

    Turns out it was a rogue employee, an intern, not properly trained in western cultural manners and etiquette, who said such vile things to the demanding customer. Garu apologized and we moved on.

    Did anyone, even with half a brain, even buy this lame excuse? C'mon, of course not. But given how much I wanted Guru to succeed, especially with a such a great product that was semi-disruptive in terms of pricing, I intentionally turned a blind eye. That's the big plank in my eye. For this I apologize to the SBAF member who reported this incident. I'm owning this. No excuses. (The fact is, further incidents of Garu's bad behavior I may have heard through the grapevine I simply attributed as him being "rough around the edges". Besides they were outside of SBAF. So why did I care? That was my thinking.)

    However, it's recently been brought to my attention of some very egregious things that Garu has said about blacks and Jews, (and also how Asians can't jump which I do think is kind of funny, and the Anthrax threat - not funny at all). One or two isolated incidents in a particular context is one thing. However these behaviors were repeated, and in a fashion that any person of right mind would interpret as racist. And by person, I mean someone who fits the SBAF demographic (USA, UK, Canada, France, etc.)



    This isn't a philosophy or ethics class. Let's strip all the bullshit pontification away.

    This is one action begets another action begets another action. At each decision point, there is a choice. Garu has a choice. I have a choice. This time I'm choosing to play it safe and play it right. No more benefit of the doubt. (Oh, and I've been burned before from trusting people too much.)

    Even if I didn't care about bigotry or racism, it's bad for SBAF, it's bad for the members. In case you haven't noticed, SBAF had has the reputation on the Internet of being the number one cheerleader for Verum. If you want to cast your lot with Verum because of some philosophical musings about stuff stuck in people's eyes, I'm sure @zerodeefex would be happy to append a "Justice, not hypocrisy for Verum" moniker under your handle.

    As far as cancel culture, we are not cancelling anyone for donating to Catholic causes, Dalai-Lama's causes, the Trump campaign, or assisting Xi Jin Ping's kids with their western education funds. We are choosing to disassociate ourselves, our relatively tightly knit group, from Garu's hate speech. I'm not going to carry this monkey on my back. As far as I am concerned, Head-Fi or Audio Science Review can have him.

    Also, are people seriously that fricking retarded? As sensitive as Western culture can be to "causes", it's also one helluva lot easier to get back into people's good graces. Americans love people who have done shitty things in the past, but who have rehabilitated themselves. You f**k you up in Eastern culture, you are are fucked for life with zero chance of redemption, except possibly on one's deathbed (I can tell you the sad story of my dad's evil half-brother and my dad's mother). There is literally a playbook on how to rehabilitate oneself. It starts with owning it, and then taking action to make amends. HINT: this means owning it, no lame excuses, not even a hint of insincerity, and understanding that the situation cannot be fixed overnight.

    There are current members who here have said some pretty bad shit in the past, in private boards even. We give people second chances. Third chances. However, now is really not the time to discuss this.


    P.S.

    As far as SBAF members who are also Verum customers waiting for product: DO NOT DO ANYTHING THAT MAKES YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE. Verum has a website. They can issue statements there. You do not work for Verum. You are a customer giving them your hard earned money.

    ^ a number of folks have asked me (figured I should say something because people seem to think they know what's going on and would rather wank off on cultural differences or biblical verses).
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2020
  11. Tachikoma

    Tachikoma Almost "Made"

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  12. mokobigbro

    mokobigbro Acquaintance

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    SBAF is doing the right thing.

    Racism hurts. My family and I have been victims of racism.

    I won't support manufacturers who are racists no matter how good their products are.
     
  13. obsiCO

    obsiCO Thai Fish Experiment Gone Wrong

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    His chat log is bad enough but seeing him doubling-down like a narcissist and his pitiful attempt at Photoshop'ing (rant: you can even see hard edges on the emojis and that's not even the worst offense) on Reddit really seal the deal. I mean I have seen a 6-year-old do better at picking fights on the internet. Just pathetic. Well-deserved ban and then some.

    This is just so sad it kinda hurts. I have engaged with Garuspik so many times and he has been nothing but helpful all the way. I believed his stupid intern comment like an idiot – all because I actually really wanted him to succeed even though the damn thing didn't even work when it arrived. Damn. Makes me think what he has been viewing me as now during our exchanges.

    I probably won't sell away my Verum 1 since it sounds good and all but I can't say I'm not petty enough to not look at the headphone differently. Any prospect of Verum 2 is dead to me.

    Sorry for the rant. 2020 has been one hell of a year.
     
  14. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    I didn’t want to get involved in this thread because the person in question dug his own grave and really it should have been [executed] and closed, no discussion needed.

    But... I’d like to push back against that theory because it’s not only bullshit but dangerous. The typical example is punching a nazi. Everyone hates nazis, they’re terrible people. So where’s the harm? Well we have people, and not just a few, who define anybody who isn’t on their side as a nazi. And if you’re not a nazi you’re a fascist or a commie or muslim or whatever (though this is primarily driven by the left at the moment). So political violence isn’t just accepted but encouraged by people who should know better but have been sucked into this social media purity spiral thinking it’s just fine if someone they disagree with is getting punched. Or shot. Or murdered. Hey, they asked for it, right? But violence begets violence and I’m honestly concerned about what will happen after the election no matter what side wins because of how polarized everything has become.
     
  15. robot zombie

    robot zombie Friend

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    I get where you're coming from, but I'd go further and say I don't think any of it has anything to do with this situation.

    This is more like... a regular at close-knit bar has developed a pattern of uncouth and disruptive behavior. It is starting to affect other patrons and give the bar a bad name. They have been confronted about it and ultimately been treated as innocent, when they never were. Adding still, they are a prominent member of the greater community. It's a bad situation that cannot remain so, for all parties involved.

    So the bar owner and a lot of the other regulars, all friends of this regular have had to draw a line and say "Listen, this sucks... we can't hang out anymore, man..." There's some anger, frustration, and disappointment, for a few reasons, but nobody's really going after anybody. I don't think anybody wants to see him take a fall.

    It's like, choices have been made and now other choices must be made kinda thing, as opposed to "seek out the bad thing wherever it is and obliterate it" or "ends justify the means" type stuff. There's no adversarial component and he is free to act as he chooses, but so long as he chooses that, can't hang out in our bar. Nothing stopping him from going to other bars... unless they choose similarly. The intolerance isn't for him as a person. But we're also not just talking about racism here, but betrayal... and not just petty lies, but stuff that could come back to hurt us. That in itself simply is not and will not be a healthy relationship that brings good things to anyone involved. Racism brings reason for disgust, but disgust is not the only problem being faced, and it's not the only reason he's been cut off. We're here because of how things have been going down, and the game that was played. Not only general morality, but a personal slight as well, due to the involvement of SBAF and members, who would've thought differently if they could've seen. There's nothing fair in it and that's got nothing to do with tolerance.

    So people are sad to distance from the person. It's the behavior that isn't tolerated. I mean, there has to be some hope that he might eventually change, be accepted, and do good things. It's not like people never wanted him around, and now think of him only as a racist and a liar. Those are just a few aspects against many others ranging from bad to good. So it's not like anybody wants to hurt him or see him suffer (well... nobody seems to want to try for that, at least.) But he has chosen the path of lying and denigrating, so we cannot help him anymore than he can us, and the only good thing that can be done is to keep distance.

    Sometimes in relationships with people in communities, toxic elements emerge from the dynamic that can be damaging to all parties. When it happens, it really can't be helped, but the suffering can help no one, so it has to either flip over or roll over. Far removed from a righteous crusade for moral utopia and closer to cutting off a manipulative family member that you've been close to but has ultimately very selfishly put you in a no-win scenario by lying and trying to hide things. From this thread I get the sense that it's already crushing enough without sledgehammers and boulders. Nobody is interested in more suffering.
     
  16. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    The vast majority of political violence is enacted by the state, not “cancel culture” figures on Twitter. Furthermore, far right extremists are the only ones to commit acts of domestic terror in the US since, well...I honestly can’t think of a leftist-led massacre in the US. Most political violence in the US is directed against figures on the left. Are you really clutching your pearls about Richard Spencer getting punched in the face when there are armed far right groups who held a rally where they chanted “Jews will not replace us”??

    The cancel culture fears are completely overblown and that narrative is predominantly pushed by people on the right who don’t want to be held accountable for their actions or words. It’s another buzzword to distract from the extreme political violence the government is perpetuating on innocent, peaceful protestors right now.
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2020
  17. Jinxy245

    Jinxy245 Vegan Puss

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    That's not entirely true since the A.L.F & the E.L.F. are considered terrorist groups. Otherwise I do agree with what you're saying (and no neither of those groups have been involved in massacres as far as I know).
     
  18. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    Thank you for the correction. I will amend and say the vast, vast majority of domestic terror in the US has been planned and carried out by far right extremists.
     
  19. allegro

    allegro Friend

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    Garuspik still has one forum where he can post and market: ASR. They are aware of his racist posts but since he did not spew any at ASR they have decided to give him one chance to behave himself.
     
  20. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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