You’ve just got to laugh at the recent “Pear Cable” fiasco, wherein a purveyor of $7,400 audio cables (you read that right) initially said it would take on the James Randi Educational Foundation’s $1,000,000 challenge to prove that their cables actually were better than the regularly priced stuff, then backed out rather quickly, making lots of excuses and doing lots of name-calling to distract everyone from realizing they’ve just proven Randi’s point (that their claims about their cables are unprovable).

It saddens and amazes me that this stuff can still happen these days. Audiophiles would seem to be victimized more than other dedicated hobbyists, until you realize people are also selling $3,000 rims for Honda Civics, $3,000 mattresses, and don’t even get me started on the “alternative medicines” and “dietary supplements” industries, which have made mockeries of what could have been legitimate “unconventional but reliable” industries by snake oil salesmen.

The scummy “sellers of lies” out there really piss me off because they represent much of what ultimately stunts humanity’s growth as a species. These are the people who make their livings by swindling, cheating, and tricking people. They’re dishonest (yet always careful to stay “legal”), but only the most egregious of them ever get caught and punished, as they tend to operate just enough under the radar to steer clear of real trouble.

They’re the people who sell little pieces of metal to stick to your cell phone to “make the reception better.” They’re the people who sell little stickers to improve your car’s mileage when you stick them on its gas tank. They’re the people who host self-help seminars (some of these are so greedy, they make the people who “staff” the events pay for the “privilege” of doing so) that cost hundreds (or thousands) of dollars, but accomplish nothing. They’re the people who sell “products” or “services” via multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes (think makeup, “pre-paid legal” services, long distance phone service, fad diets, etc.). They’re the folks who put up long, rambling web pages trying to sell you instant, money-making internet marketing systems that “really work,” with a money-back guarantee, who vanish the moment your money leaves your wallet.

They all have the same things in common: when you call them quacks, con artists, rip-offs, or scams, they litigate. A real product sells itself. So do real services. If you’re actually doing something legitimate, you don’t have to silence your critics because you can just point to your products. Let them be tested by independent, or even biased (against you) testers. Let people find flaws in your offerings so you can do the right thing and fix them. Constant improvement and evolution from negative “customer feedback” is the mark of a legitimate business and product.

Suing someone for daring to call you out for scamming people just confirms that they’re right — you only have to litigate against critics when you realize your products won’t stand up under scrutiny. You only need to silence critics when they’re right, and when your business depends on suckering in new victims who won’t bite if they see even one negative comment about you (because you know they’re already teetering on the edge on their own in concluding you might be trying to rip them off).

It sucks that you can’t name companies or people directly by name anymore (for the most part), because they’ll just sue you to shut you up. The only thing left you can do take specific knowledge, render it generic (sterilizing it so you don’t name a single entity or identify a scam uniquely enough that any random person can guess who you’re talking about), and transform it into general lessons to teach your audience.

Many folks don’t read such “generic” instructions — you can hear “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” a hundred times, and even believe it, but when the Next Random Instant Money Maker comes knocking at your door, why, this time they’ve got a new way for you to make money, so how can you lose?

Bleh. That was a directionless rant, wasn’t it? I guess the point of this is to discourage you from buying overpriced audio cables. They’re not worth it, and the companies that peddle them won’t even subject their products to legitimate scientific review (likely because they know independent review will reveal them as frauds).

That and there’s a venting in here that our legal system sucks as well, in that you can’t even level legitimate complaints against companies or people who’ve wronged you without being slapped with a lawsuit, and it ends up being a matter of “whoever has the most money for lawyers wins,” instead of “whoever is actually right wins.”