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I think it would be fair to doubt your point, could you share which earbuds you were using and how you were using them? I think the disagreement here will also stem from the fact that IEMs + playing music is pretty great “active noise cancellation” in itself.
When I listen to a podcast on my IEMs I hear quite a lot of the outside world, when I do the same with ANC headphones on I hear much less.
The opposite of this realization is the plot of Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, now it makes me interested in a story about some kind of people realising that there is sunlight out there. I’m sure someone has made a story about this.