Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
*There are some far-out theories about cold fusion, relating to things like magnetic monopoles. Most experts dismiss these theories. I cannot judge them, but I would be very careful not to say the authors are idiots*. The human mind is compelled to make sense out of the quantum world even if what is being observed is beyond comprehension. The results of cold fusion experiments... the theme park of quantum mechanics... are almost always Rorschach tests which are incomprehensible; a series of spots, light and dark, hiding a meaning that the human mind demands yet is incapable of understanding, a truth both foreign and far beyond the experience of the observer. But the mind must make an attempt to find order in the face of the incomprehensible. In this pressing need, the observer is compelled to form a Rorschach construct which gives the required shape to his world, an illusion both pleasing and false. In this necessity is born the magnetic monopole as an illusion in the mind of man. But even if the magnetic monopole is fanciful, the flight of unrestrained imagination, and an affront to accepted doctrinaire, it answers the question that must be answered and gives form to the magic that pleases. It’s simply a phantasmal placeholder for the ultimate truth to come, and interim step down the long and winding road to the reality that lies beneath. On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 9:06 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Jarold McWilliams oldja...@hotmail.com wrote: I am not a republican, and I think global warming is a sham. I believe you are technically wrong about that. However, it is somewhat off topic. I think we can agree that cold fusion calorimetry is much easier to understand than climate science. The facts are less ambiguous. The opposition to cold fusion is more clearly motivated by politics and self-interest. By the way, I certainly did not mean that only Republicans disagree, or that all Republicans disagree. I know some staunch Republican chemists and physicists. I am saying that in general, disputes relating to science tend to break on party lines, with the Republicans against whatever the scientists or engineers propose. That was not true decades ago. Richard Nixon was one of the best Presidents for the environment in U.S. history. He started the EPA and made other agencies. I cannot imagine Republicans in the 1960s opposing something like CFL lightbulbs! I think this is a fad. As I said, the country went through a similar anti-intellectual phase in the 1950s, which ended abruptly with the Sputnik scare. According to your theories, couldn't global warming just be a ploy to get more money out of consumers? No. It does not transfer money from many people a specific small group of people. Nor it would not bankrupt any group. Accepting the theory and acting on it, or rejecting it, would not bankrupt the oil companies or some other powerful interest. It would not cause something like the MIT plasma fusion lab to close down. Climate scientists are not all going to fired if it turns out global warming is not real. We need them for many other reasons. So I do not think the two are comparable in terms of society or academic politics. The climate always changes. Even in a worst case scenario predicted by some scientists, it will not end in the apocalypse like some idiots believe. I would hesitate to call them idiots, if I were you. Unless you know a great deal about it you probably cannot judge with high confidence. That is not say you have no right to an opinion, but I recommend caution. There are some far-out theories about cold fusion, relating to things like magnetic monopoles. Most experts dismiss these theories. I cannot judge them, but I would be very careful not to say the authors are idiots. Over the last several thousand years, the climate and terrain in many countries has been drastically altered by human activity, usually for the worst. See J. Diamond's book Collapse. It is foolish to assume people cannot cause worldwide havoc and terrible conditions. The Earth probably is warming, but there has also been a cold period for the past couple of decades or centuries so it could just as easily be natural rather than manmade. Not just as easily. Possibly, but not according to most experts. The lesson of cold fusion is that experts are usually right and you should be very careful about second-guessing them. Besides, people only focus on the negatives of global warming when there are positives. I know enough about climate, farming, and natural science to say with confidence that there are no positives. It is all bad. Warmer periods in history have usually led to great growth in human society, as well as other forms of life. Big fancy windmills, along with solar panels, etc. are never going to deliver a large portion of our energy needs cheaply. That, I know about. That is manifestly wrong.
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
Global warming has become an extremely polarising issue. There are strong science based arguments on both sides but whichever side you believe is to some extent a 'faith based' judgement as you can find contradictory journal papers and analyses on almost every issue (other than the actual general warming trend over the last century). I think that there is little benefit to arguing about it in a forum such as this as most people will already have strong beliefs one way or the other and we are unlikely to change peoples beliefs with discussion - it will only come from people being interested enough to do their own research. On 31 March 2012 06:27, Jarold McWilliams oldja...@hotmail.com wrote: Fukishima disaster? How many people died in this disaster? 3 so far, 0 from radiation. How much was the damage to property? How many people died when a renewable energy dam broke? About 1,000 and probably about the same economic damage with the homes washed away. There were also fires at oil refineries that killed more people than the nuclear plants. Also, the nuclear plants were built in the 1960's. We have much safer nuclear plants we can build now, and the antinukes are actually promoting the use of unsafe nuclear reactors compared to newer ones. On Mar 30, 2012, at 10:43 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: I wrote: If you were to change the laws in the US, and you offered a $10 bounty for the heads of women and children, I am certain you would find hundreds of thousands of people who would gleefully go around chasing down, shooting and decapitating innocent people and bayoneting small children. . . . Believe me, we could end doing that in 10 years. If you doubt that you have learned nothing from the 20th century. Or the 19th century. You may think that sounds like a dystopian fantasy that could never happen in the U.S. In fact, 40 years before the Japanese army went on a rampage and killed 23 million Chinese people, the U.S. army and many ranchers still had a policy of killing off native Americans for a bounty, including women and children. They did not decapitate them; they scalped them. As Col. Chivington put it: Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice. See also the Atlanta race riots in 1906 and the book The Warmth of Other Suns. It is a huge mistake to think that we can never go backwards, and we can never revert to the barbaric standards of the past. The Germans, Russians and Japanese did in the 20th century. Okay, it is not likely that the U.S. a generation now will be in some lurid science fiction scenario, like the movie The Hunger Games or a world in which it is again okay to kill off Native Americans or black people. On the other hand, we have just seen the most important scientific discovery in history ruthlessly suppressed for 23 years because of petty academic politics and greed. Did anyone think that could happen here? What else might have been going on? Did anyone imagine how much money Wall Street was stealing and squandering before the 2008 crash? Read about the problems BP oil installations had, culminating in the Gulf accident. Look at the Fukushima disaster. Many terrible things have happened, and many more could happen, because of greed, stupidity, hate and barbarism. My point is not that we should fear what might happen, or give up hope. Never! The point is, don't be sanguine. Never assume you have nothing to worry about. Be prepared! I expect there will be an orchestrated barrage of opposition against cold fusion, far greater than anything we have witnessed in the last 23 years, backed by countless millions of dollars. So far we have been fighting off washed-up academic hacks such as Huizenga and nitwits such as The Amazing Randi. These people have little power and no money. They are stupid. Soon we will be fighting every conservative politician in Washington and many liberals as well, because they are equal-opportunity shills for big oil. They will denounce cold fusion in return for campaign contributions. They will keep doing that until they sense the public is on our side. I anticipate the biggest political battle in the history of technology. . . . Okay, maybe that will not come to pass. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised. But we should be prepared for the worst. We should think about how we will deal with it, and how we can win. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
polarizing yes as was saying an economic cronicle journalist on a frenc TV (BFM, N doze), there are some suject for which it is hard to make your opinion if you have both vision and no prejudice. the vision of Judith Corry, ex-IPCC contibutor, traitor, is that uncertaineties have been ignored to save an agenda. her vision is a gödel-like agosticism... we have no way to know the reality. me I will add that we cannot have a knowledge because the information have been manipulated so highly, not to have any trust in. at most today some basic facts seems accepted on both moderate side, MWP true, UHI some, solar some, soot some, greenhouse some, ocean oscillation some, sensibility moderate, warming temporary stall, extreme event none seen, human risk linked to poverty... but for LENR, this science sociology experiment, is another proof of manipulation of data, process, peer review, by a scientific community defending a comfortable. the theory of rational denial, the violence of fight against traitor, the inability to accept the clear facts, even if it is then to have a mild position. last thurstday I was discussin on a french science forum, with visibly physicist moderator, that is unable to answer with an open mind, about CERN conference, the peer reveiw papers... like Opera neutrino, you don't have to believe in something surprizing, just to express that it should be checked and is interesting. 2012/3/31 Robert Lynn robert.gulliver.l...@gmail.com Global warming has become an extremely polarising issue. There are strong science based arguments on both sides but whichever side you believe is to some extent a 'faith based' judgement as you can find contradictory journal papers and analyses on almost every issue (other than the actual general warming trend over the last century). I think that there is little benefit to arguing about it in a forum such as this as most people will already have strong beliefs one way or the other and we are unlikely to change peoples beliefs with discussion - it will only come from people being interested enough to do their own research. On 31 March 2012 06:27, Jarold McWilliams oldja...@hotmail.com wrote: Fukishima disaster? How many people died in this disaster? 3 so far, 0 from radiation.How much was the damage to property? How many people died when a renewable energy dam broke? About 1,000 and probably about the same economic damage with the homes washed away. There were also fires at oil refineries that killed more people than the nuclear plants. Also, the nuclear plants were built in the 1960's. We have much safer nuclear plants we can build now, and the antinukes are actually promoting the use of unsafe nuclear reactors compared to newer ones. On Mar 30, 2012, at 10:43 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: I wrote: If you were to change the laws in the US, and you offered a $10 bounty for the heads of women and children, I am certain you would find hundreds of thousands of people who would gleefully go around chasing down, shooting and decapitating innocent people and bayoneting small children. . . . Believe me, we could end doing that in 10 years. If you doubt that you have learned nothing from the 20th century. Or the 19th century. You may think that sounds like a dystopian fantasy that could never happen in the U.S. In fact, 40 years before the Japanese army went on a rampage and killed 23 million Chinese people, the U.S. army and many ranchers still had a policy of killing off native Americans for a bounty, including women and children. They did not decapitate them; they scalped them. As Col. Chivington put it: Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice. See also the Atlanta race riots in 1906 and the book The Warmth of Other Suns. It is a huge mistake to think that we can never go backwards, and we can never revert to the barbaric standards of the past. The Germans, Russians and Japanese did in the 20th century. Okay, it is not likely that the U.S. a generation now will be in some lurid science fiction scenario, like the movie The Hunger Games or a world in which it is again okay to kill off Native Americans or black people. On the other hand, we have just seen the most important scientific discovery in history ruthlessly suppressed for 23 years because of petty academic politics and greed. Did anyone think that could happen here? What else might have been going on? Did anyone imagine how much money Wall Street was stealing and squandering before the 2008 crash? Read about the problems BP oil installations had, culminating in the Gulf accident. Look at the Fukushima disaster. Many terrible things have happened, and many more could happen, because of greed, stupidity, hate and barbarism. My point is not that we should fear what might happen, or give up hope. Never! The point is, don't be sanguine. Never assume you have nothing to
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
Jarold McWilliams oldja...@hotmail.com wrote: I am not a republican, and I think global warming is a sham. I believe you are technically wrong about that. However, it is somewhat off topic. I think we can agree that cold fusion calorimetry is much easier to understand than climate science. The facts are less ambiguous. The opposition to cold fusion is more clearly motivated by politics and self-interest. By the way, I certainly did not mean that only Republicans disagree, or that all Republicans disagree. I know some staunch Republican chemists and physicists. I am saying that in general, disputes relating to science tend to break on party lines, with the Republicans against whatever the scientists or engineers propose. That was not true decades ago. Richard Nixon was one of the best Presidents for the environment in U.S. history. He started the EPA and made other agencies. I cannot imagine Republicans in the 1960s opposing something like CFL lightbulbs! I think this is a fad. As I said, the country went through a similar anti-intellectual phase in the 1950s, which ended abruptly with the Sputnik scare. According to your theories, couldn't global warming just be a ploy to get more money out of consumers? No. It does not transfer money from many people a specific small group of people. Nor it would not bankrupt any group. Accepting the theory and acting on it, or rejecting it, would not bankrupt the oil companies or some other powerful interest. It would not cause something like the MIT plasma fusion lab to close down. Climate scientists are not all going to fired if it turns out global warming is not real. We need them for many other reasons. So I do not think the two are comparable in terms of society or academic politics. The climate always changes. Even in a worst case scenario predicted by some scientists, it will not end in the apocalypse like some idiots believe. I would hesitate to call them idiots, if I were you. Unless you know a great deal about it you probably cannot judge with high confidence. That is not say you have no right to an opinion, but I recommend caution. There are some far-out theories about cold fusion, relating to things like magnetic monopoles. Most experts dismiss these theories. I cannot judge them, but I would be very careful not to say the authors are idiots. Over the last several thousand years, the climate and terrain in many countries has been drastically altered by human activity, usually for the worst. See J. Diamond's book Collapse. It is foolish to assume people cannot cause worldwide havoc and terrible conditions. The Earth probably is warming, but there has also been a cold period for the past couple of decades or centuries so it could just as easily be natural rather than manmade. Not just as easily. Possibly, but not according to most experts. The lesson of cold fusion is that experts are usually right and you should be very careful about second-guessing them. Besides, people only focus on the negatives of global warming when there are positives. I know enough about climate, farming, and natural science to say with confidence that there are no positives. It is all bad. Warmer periods in history have usually led to great growth in human society, as well as other forms of life. Big fancy windmills, along with solar panels, etc. are never going to deliver a large portion of our energy needs cheaply. That, I know about. That is manifestly wrong. EPRI and others have shown that wind turbines and concentrated solar can replace 20% of generating capacity in many parts of the country, and they already have in Denmark and other parts of Europe. So there is no question it can be done. The cost is high but not unthinkable. There is no doubt the potential wind capacity is there, in many states. That's simple physics. You can't argue with it. Only the cost is at issue. Intermittency and other problems have been largely solved for an overall system with up to 20% wind power. 20% is a very significant fraction of generator capacity. It would reduce coal fired electricity by nearly half. 20% of our electricity now comes from nuclear power. If you were to suggest we can do without nuclear power I think most experts and electric power consumers would strongly disagree. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
I largely agree with Jed's comments. However, I am an emotional optimist and an intellectual pessimist. The first page of my Aesop website may be of interest. It reads: NASA officials see a likely barrage of solar storms striking Earth’s geomagnetic field. Solar storms large enough to destroy energy grids around the world for months, or even years, have been predicted to occur up to 14 times within the next 3 years. After just a few days without grid or standby power, many nuclear plants might become meltdown candidates! 400 Chernobyls is the title of the lead article in DIRE WARNINGS on the Aesop Institute website. Author Matthew Stein claims an “Apocalyptic scenario is not only possible, but probable” - as a result of solar storms causing multiple meltdowns at nuclear plants worldwide. Evacuation costs near a US nuclear plant could easily exceed one trillion dollars and contaminated land would be uninhabitable for generations. Such storms may become commonplace for the foreseeable future. Space physicist Pete Riley, senior scientist at Predictive Science, has calculated there is a shockingly likely - 1 in 8, or 12.5% - chance of a catastrophic solar storm striking between now and 2020. Millions, or even hundreds of millions, of lives - might be saved by rapid, wise, action! A few Black Swans, highly improbable innovations with positive implications, appear able to protect critical power grids and provide long-term standby power capability at all nuclear facilities. Other encouraging Black Swans, to the surprise of many, will soon begin to create CHEAP GREEN power (see that title on the Aesop Institute site). If produced as fast as is humanly possible, cost-competitive renewable systems can accelerate very much needed changes - such as permanently lower fuel prices - even in the absence of solar storms - and sharply boost the economy, generating large numbers of jobs. The interest in lower gasoline and oil prices may help move cost-competitive renewable energy forward. Mark Mark Goldes Co-founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute 301A North Main Street Sebastopol, CA 95472 www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: Jed Rothwell [jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 2:04 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will. Jarold McWilliams oldja...@hotmail.commailto:oldja...@hotmail.com wrote: Are you saying that oil companies would rather try to hide cold fusion than adapt to it? Yes, I am certain they would. They are trying to hide global warming with the help of the Republican party, with considerable success. Did they pay off MIT and other mainstream scientists to cover up cold fusion? Not as far as I know. The MIT people are in the plasma fusion program. They attacked cold fusion to preserve their own funding. That's what they said, and I believe them. I doubt U.S. the oil companies have played any role in the opposition to cold fusion. As far as I know, no one in any major oil company believes that cold fusion might be real, so they have no incentive to oppose it. in Japan, the fossil fuel energy cartels and the nuclear power industry did get together to prevent funding for cold fusion, a few years ago. (Before the Fukishima disaster.) The Minister of Energy told some cold fusion researchers I know that the government will not support this research because it would disrupt the energy market. I have no doubt that when the oil companies, coal companies, wind turbine manufacturers and other conventional energy companies realize that cold fusion is real, they will pull out the stops and do everything they can to prevent it from being developed. They will spend millions on Washington lobbyists trying to crush the research. Some human behavior is mysterious. Other behavior can be predicted with confidence. This behavior is as certain as the fact that if you open a window in a tall building and drop a few thousand dollars in loose bills onto Wall Street, people passing by will take the money. The coal industry is presently at war with wind power, trying to make it illegal in the U.S., because it has taken 4% of their business, and it threatens to take half. Wind power and big coal would gladly strangle one another by any means. Their favorite method is to have Congress do it by passing laws. They will not hesitate to cooperate with one another to strangle cold fusion. This is business. It is about money. Money is more important to most people than the survival of the planet, or the survival of their own children and grandchildren. Fortunately, cold fusion will be worth trillions of dollars to powerful industrial corporations and investors. So even though Exxon and others will do all they can to prevent it, others will probably see to it that the
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
About strength of lobbies things might not be like most people imagine. it is true that oil company are strong lobbies. they kille nuke in US afeter three miles island. but oil is a local product for US, so a kind of protectionism. in france some imagine that nuke is a lobby. not in fact, execpt through a very french culture from grandes ecoles, (big engineer school that feed the top manager for state companies). nuclear energy is adapted to our vision of dreamed society (centralized, rigorous, controlled, high tech). but nuclear company are small animal compared to many other lobbies. but in fact today all the industry is a dwarf compared to the communication weaponry of big environmentalis NGO, that have billions budget, and even have the support of most individual journalist... similar to the religious lobbies in non secular countries. so the enemy of LENR, when they will believe in it (sure they ignore it today, other wise they will panic and it will be visible, enev if they panic at 0.1% probability of event) are : 1- the environmentalist NGO 2- oils companies (but they have time to adapt, since oil will be one of the few energy to survive a fiew decades) coal will have to adapt, 1- move furnace to LENR 2- move to Coal to Fuel with LENR energy renewable energy will die since they depend on subsidies that will die quickly, because ne reason to use them now. same for geothermal, hot fusion research. nuke will have to change their businessmodel to work as 1- dismantling existing power plant 2- incinerating nuclear waste, with fast neutron fission or with LENR 3- build big LENR plant. oil will adapt 1- stop non conventional expensive fuel prospection 2- reduce price of producers (saudial) 3- move to gaz to fuel from LENR, try coal to fuel 4- down size and restart non conventional fuel prospection, at high price, for the few that need oil (plastic), if any 2012/3/30 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com Jarold McWilliams oldja...@hotmail.com wrote: Are you saying that oil companies would rather try to hide cold fusion than adapt to it? Yes, I am certain they would. They are trying to hide global warming with the help of the Republican party, with considerable success. Did they pay off MIT and other mainstream scientists to cover up cold fusion? Not as far as I know. The MIT people are in the plasma fusion program. They attacked cold fusion to preserve their own funding. That's what they said, and I believe them. I doubt U.S. the oil companies have played any role in the opposition to cold fusion. As far as I know, no one in any major oil company believes that cold fusion might be real, so they have no incentive to oppose it. in Japan, the fossil fuel energy cartels and the nuclear power industry did get together to prevent funding for cold fusion, a few years ago. (Before the Fukishima disaster.) The Minister of Energy told some cold fusion researchers I know that the government will not support this research because it would disrupt the energy market. I have no doubt that when the oil companies, coal companies, wind turbine manufacturers and other conventional energy companies realize that cold fusion is real, they will pull out the stops and do everything they can to prevent it from being developed. They will spend millions on Washington lobbyists trying to crush the research. Some human behavior is mysterious. Other behavior can be predicted with confidence. This behavior is as certain as the fact that if you open a window in a tall building and drop a few thousand dollars in loose bills onto Wall Street, people passing by will take the money. The coal industry is presently at war with wind power, trying to make it illegal in the U.S., because it has taken 4% of their business, and it threatens to take half. Wind power and big coal would gladly strangle one another by any means. Their favorite method is to have Congress do it by passing laws. They will not hesitate to cooperate with one another to strangle cold fusion. This is business. It is about money. Money is more important to most people than the survival of the planet, or the survival of their own children and grandchildren. Fortunately, cold fusion will be worth trillions of dollars to powerful industrial corporations and investors. So even though Exxon and others will do all they can to prevent it, others will probably see to it that the research is funded, and that the government allows the technology to be deployed in the U.S. The US military is in favor of cold fusion and it has a great deal of political and economic power. Most cold fusion research in the US for the last 20 years has been funded by the military. During this time, plasma fusion researchers and some mainstream physicists have repeatedly taken steps to prevent this funding and fire the military decision-makers who allowed the research. Sometimes they have succeeded. They have done this in various incidents
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
Mark Goldes mgol...@chavaenergy.com wrote: I largely agree with Jed's comments. However, I am an emotional optimist and an intellectual pessimist. I am not optimistic or pessimistic. I have read a great deal of history. I have read and talked to many people who lived through the worst of 20th century history, including Russian, U.S. and Japanese combat veterans of WWII, and concentration camp survivors. If there is one thing the 20th century taught us it is that people everywhere are capable of any atrocity. Modern people can be as evil as they were in the days of Attila the Hun. If you were to change the laws in the US, and you offered a $10 bounty for the heads of women and children, I am certain you would find hundreds of thousands of people who would gleefully go around chasing down, shooting and decapitating innocent people and bayoneting small children. That is what the Japanese army did in China. The army had no difficulty persuading ordinary soldiers to do it. The thing is, those soldiers are no different from you or I. Back in Japan after the war they were ordinary, decent, law abiding people, loving fathers and grandfathers, pillars of the community. I am certain that in the near future someone will assemble top-notch group of K Street lobbyists and advertisers and tell them: Cold fusion is real and it will solve all the world's energy problems, but I will pay you people $50 million to make sure it never happens. (Or maybe $100 million; I have no idea what the going rate is.) I am certain that every one of them will be eager to participate. It would never occur to them not to do it. It would not bother them any more than it bothered the tobacco executives in the 1970s. They will say business is business and money is money. People in favor of cold fusion can hire their own lobbyists. I think there has been enormous moral progress in the last several centuries. I think the MLK and Obama are right that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. Since I am the proverbial man who has only a hammer, and sees all problems as a nail, I think this is progress has mainly been a side benefit of technological progress. For example, slavery has been eliminated from most of the world because it does not pay anymore. If you want to grow cotton or run a factory, it is cheaper to have machines and well-educated people working freely for you than it would be to have uneducated slaves. Many wealthy people do not give a damn whether poor people have health insurance or enough to eat. On the other hand they would not like to see starving people on the streets, and people dying of cancer with flies buzzing around them in the gutter. That is what you see in India, everywhere you turn. Americans would not like that if for no other reason because it lowers property values. It is unseemly. So most wealthy Americans will grudgingly allow a social safety net. The progress of technology is mostly caused by scientific progress. The human race is morally better and life is easier. 99% of the credit goes to scientists, engineers and educators; 1% to businessmen. Science has brought us good things such as vaccines and bad things such as thermonuclear weapons and poison gas. It is value-neutral. It can be used for unthinkable barbarism as easily as for enlightened progress. It is only because most people most of the time tend to be good rather than evil that things tend to get better. That outcome is not assured. Civilization can always collapse into a nightmare. See J. Diamond's book Collapse for examples. Civilization has often descended into barbarism in the past and it may again in the future. I know many Japanese people who lived through that in the 1940s. They never imagined they would see such a thing. You have to realize, Japan was a civilized, first-world country in 1932. It was a safe, secure, ordinary, law-abiding place, not much different than the U.S. or Europe. It was not a broken nation like Germany was. I have Japanese textbooks, newspaper, magazines and novels from that era. I lived with people who grew up there. I know what it was like. It changed into an unimaginable hellhole 10 years later, whose young men went around bayoneting small children. Believe me, *we could end doing that* in 10 years. If you doubt that you have learned nothing from the 20th century. There is good hope that mankind will muddle through. We often did in the past. There is good hope that cold fusion will succeed in eliminating things like global warming and starvation. But there is *absolutely no assurance* of that. Everyone in favor of cold fusion will have to fight for it, for many years to come. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
There is one thing good to remember that we are not living nowhere near laissez-faire capitalism. If any company would be exposed in any attempt to hinder the development of viable cold fusion technology, it would considered the worst economic crime in the history. And it would lead into huge monetary penalties and compensations. E.g. it would be considered as stock exchange rate manipulation, that is already one of the most severely punished crimes. This kind of suppression would also be impossible to keep inside a company, but information would very easily leak out from the company, because the one who is leaking the suppressed information, would be treated as international hero in the media. There is no possible compensation that would benefit any human for suppressing the information. Especially, because those who are doing the suppression would know that 150 years in Prison is something what to expect for the punishment (yes, I think that US penalties are perhaps too harsh!). We must remember that the economic value of the knowledge on cold fusion technology is billions of dollars, because oil prices are based on future exceptions on oil demand in the world where there are not expected major breakthroughs in energy technology. —Jouni
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: There is one thing good to remember that we are not living nowhere near laissez-faire capitalism. If any company would be exposed in any attempt to hinder the development of viable cold fusion technology, it would considered the worst economic crime in the history. And it would lead into huge monetary penalties and compensations. Never! Not in the U.S. Corporations do this sort of thing all the time. There are no laws against bad mouthing the competition, or tell the public or the Congress that your competition's product is inferior. As I said, the coal industry has a vigorous PR program to tell the public that wind turbines do not work, they are a waste of money, they kill birds, and they should be made illegal. The coal and oil industry spend millions telling people that global warming does not exist or that it is not caused by CO2. Every Republican member of Congress and candidate for president agrees with them. It is difficult for people in other countries to realize how strong the anti-science, anti-intellectual trend is in the U.S. We have never been an intellectual country. We have never had much respect for scholars or scientists, or eggheads as they used to be called. Lately, however, the antipathy has risen to heights not seen since the 1950s, just before the Sputnik scare. Eventually, this will die down, but a present any Republican who admitted that global warming might be real, or even that the world is older than 6,000 years old and Darwin might be right, will be booted out of office. 68% of Republican voters believe in creationism, along with 40% of the U.S. public. In his book, Obama said clearly that he believes in evolution, but I have never heard him say that in public, and I would advise him not to. Why alienate 40% of the voters? I am sure the oil companies will tell the public and Congress that cold fusion is nuclear, it is probably dangerous, it produces neutrons, it is unproven, it can never be scaled up, and so on. That is what the skeptics have been saying all along: even if it is true it will never work. I expect that every member of the Republican party will agree with them, just as they agree about global warming, and just as they all agreed that BP was victimized by the Obama administration when it paid a huge fine after the spill. Those people are predictably anti-science and in favor of established industry. The fight will probably fall along party lines in the U.S. E.g. it would be considered as stock exchange rate manipulation, that is already one of the most severely punished crimes. This is definitely not stock market manipulation. Especially if it done publicly with advertisements on TV and contributions to members of Congress (bribery) -- as I am sure it will be. Also you cannot make something a crime after the fact. In the U.S. that violates the Constitution. There is no law against lying about cold fusion, or any other physics or chemistry. People do it all the time, in every major newspaper! Also any such law would violate freedom of the press. In any case, no tobacco executive was ever convicted of a crime; no executive was convicted in the Dalkon Shield scandal which rendered thousands of women infertile or in pain; and no one from Wall Street went to jail after the 2008 crash. You can steal, rape and murder all you like in the U.S. as long as you are working for a corporation. As one judge said to the Dalkon executives, if a street gang had gone around doing this to thousands of women, they would be in prison for the rest of their lives, but we have to let you off. The company did have to pay into a trust fund for victims. This kind of suppression would also be impossible to keep inside a company . . . I am sure they will make it as public as they can. Companies do not hide their attacks on global warming. The coal companies kill 20,000 people a year from particulate pollution. They do not hide that fact. They practically brag about it at stockholders meetings. They call it keeping down costs by sticking to tried and true technology meaning they can't be bothered to install scrubbers that would add a fraction of a penny per kilowatt hour. We must remember that the economic value of the knowledge on cold fusion technology is billions of dollars . . . Trillions. And that is why it is likely to succeed despite opposition. It all depends on the public. If the public can be educated and made enthusiastic in favor of it, then the oil companies and other opponents will be swept aside. The main message we want to tell the public is that this breakthrough will save you $2000 a year per person. People don't care about the environment. They don't believe in science . . . really, most of them hate it. But they also hate oil companies and OPEC. When you tell them the oil companies want to rip you off for $2000 a year indefinitely, they will be angry. They will demand the Congress fund the research
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
I wrote: If you were to change the laws in the US, and you offered a $10 bounty for the heads of women and children, I am certain you would find hundreds of thousands of people who would gleefully go around chasing down, shooting and decapitating innocent people and bayoneting small children. . . . Believe me, *we could end doing that* in 10 years. If you doubt that you have learned nothing from the 20th century. Or the 19th century. You may think that sounds like a dystopian fantasy that could never happen in the U.S. In fact, 40 years before the Japanese army went on a rampage and killed 23 million Chinese people, the U.S. army and many ranchers still had a policy of killing off native Americans for a bounty, including women and children. They did not decapitate them; they scalped them. As Col. Chivington put it: Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice. See also the Atlanta race riots in 1906 and the book The Warmth of Other Suns. It is a huge mistake to think that we can never go backwards, and we can never revert to the barbaric standards of the past. The Germans, Russians and Japanese did in the 20th century. Okay, it is not likely that the U.S. a generation now will be in some lurid science fiction scenario, like the movie The Hunger Games or a world in which it is again okay to kill off Native Americans or black people. On the other hand, we have just seen the most important scientific discovery in history ruthlessly suppressed for 23 years because of petty academic politics and greed. Did anyone think that could happen here? What else might have been going on? Did anyone imagine how much money Wall Street was stealing and squandering before the 2008 crash? Read about the problems BP oil installations had, culminating in the Gulf accident. Look at the Fukushima disaster. Many terrible things have happened, and many more could happen, because of greed, stupidity, hate and barbarism. My point is not that we should fear what might happen, or give up hope. Never! The point is, don't be sanguine. Never assume you have nothing to worry about. Be prepared! I expect there will be an orchestrated barrage of opposition against cold fusion, far greater than anything we have witnessed in the last 23 years, backed by countless millions of dollars. So far we have been fighting off washed-up academic hacks such as Huizenga and nitwits such as The Amazing Randi. These people have little power and no money. They are stupid. Soon we will be fighting every conservative politician in Washington and many liberals as well, because they are equal-opportunity shills for big oil. They will denounce cold fusion in return for campaign contributions. They will keep doing that until they sense the public is on our side. I anticipate the biggest political battle in the history of technology. . . . Okay, maybe that will not come to pass. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised. But we should be prepared for the worst. We should think about how we will deal with it, and how we can win. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
I am not a republican, and I think global warming is a sham. According to your theories, couldn't global warming just be a ploy to get more money out of consumers? The climate always changes. Even in a worst case scenario predicted by some scientists, it will not end in the apocalypse like some idiots believe. The Earth probably is warming, but there has also been a cold period for the past couple of decades or centuries so it could just as easily be natural rather than manmade. Besides, people only focus on the negatives of global warming when there are positives. Warmer periods in history have usually led to great growth in human society, as well as other forms of life. Big fancy windmills, along with solar panels, etc. are never going to deliver a large portion of our energy needs cheaply. On Mar 30, 2012, at 7:44 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: There is one thing good to remember that we are not living nowhere near laissez-faire capitalism. If any company would be exposed in any attempt to hinder the development of viable cold fusion technology, it would considered the worst economic crime in the history. And it would lead into huge monetary penalties and compensations. Never! Not in the U.S. Corporations do this sort of thing all the time. There are no laws against bad mouthing the competition, or tell the public or the Congress that your competition's product is inferior. As I said, the coal industry has a vigorous PR program to tell the public that wind turbines do not work, they are a waste of money, they kill birds, and they should be made illegal. The coal and oil industry spend millions telling people that global warming does not exist or that it is not caused by CO2. Every Republican member of Congress and candidate for president agrees with them. It is difficult for people in other countries to realize how strong the anti-science, anti-intellectual trend is in the U.S. We have never been an intellectual country. We have never had much respect for scholars or scientists, or eggheads as they used to be called. Lately, however, the antipathy has risen to heights not seen since the 1950s, just before the Sputnik scare. Eventually, this will die down, but a present any Republican who admitted that global warming might be real, or even that the world is older than 6,000 years old and Darwin might be right, will be booted out of office. 68% of Republican voters believe in creationism, along with 40% of the U.S. public. In his book, Obama said clearly that he believes in evolution, but I have never heard him say that in public, and I would advise him not to. Why alienate 40% of the voters? I am sure the oil companies will tell the public and Congress that cold fusion is nuclear, it is probably dangerous, it produces neutrons, it is unproven, it can never be scaled up, and so on. That is what the skeptics have been saying all along: even if it is true it will never work. I expect that every member of the Republican party will agree with them, just as they agree about global warming, and just as they all agreed that BP was victimized by the Obama administration when it paid a huge fine after the spill. Those people are predictably anti-science and in favor of established industry. The fight will probably fall along party lines in the U.S. E.g. it would be considered as stock exchange rate manipulation, that is already one of the most severely punished crimes. This is definitely not stock market manipulation. Especially if it done publicly with advertisements on TV and contributions to members of Congress (bribery) -- as I am sure it will be. Also you cannot make something a crime after the fact. In the U.S. that violates the Constitution. There is no law against lying about cold fusion, or any other physics or chemistry. People do it all the time, in every major newspaper! Also any such law would violate freedom of the press. In any case, no tobacco executive was ever convicted of a crime; no executive was convicted in the Dalkon Shield scandal which rendered thousands of women infertile or in pain; and no one from Wall Street went to jail after the 2008 crash. You can steal, rape and murder all you like in the U.S. as long as you are working for a corporation. As one judge said to the Dalkon executives, if a street gang had gone around doing this to thousands of women, they would be in prison for the rest of their lives, but we have to let you off. The company did have to pay into a trust fund for victims. This kind of suppression would also be impossible to keep inside a company . . . I am sure they will make it as public as they can. Companies do not hide their attacks on global warming. The coal companies kill 20,000 people a year from particulate pollution. They do not hide that fact. They practically brag about
Re: [Vo]:Are oil companies suppressing cold fusion? Probably not, but I am sure they will.
Fukishima disaster? How many people died in this disaster? 3 so far, 0 from radiation.How much was the damage to property? How many people died when a renewable energy dam broke? About 1,000 and probably about the same economic damage with the homes washed away. There were also fires at oil refineries that killed more people than the nuclear plants. Also, the nuclear plants were built in the 1960's. We have much safer nuclear plants we can build now, and the antinukes are actually promoting the use of unsafe nuclear reactors compared to newer ones. On Mar 30, 2012, at 10:43 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: I wrote: If you were to change the laws in the US, and you offered a $10 bounty for the heads of women and children, I am certain you would find hundreds of thousands of people who would gleefully go around chasing down, shooting and decapitating innocent people and bayoneting small children. . . . Believe me, we could end doing that in 10 years. If you doubt that you have learned nothing from the 20th century. Or the 19th century. You may think that sounds like a dystopian fantasy that could never happen in the U.S. In fact, 40 years before the Japanese army went on a rampage and killed 23 million Chinese people, the U.S. army and many ranchers still had a policy of killing off native Americans for a bounty, including women and children. They did not decapitate them; they scalped them. As Col. Chivington put it: Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice. See also the Atlanta race riots in 1906 and the book The Warmth of Other Suns. It is a huge mistake to think that we can never go backwards, and we can never revert to the barbaric standards of the past. The Germans, Russians and Japanese did in the 20th century. Okay, it is not likely that the U.S. a generation now will be in some lurid science fiction scenario, like the movie The Hunger Games or a world in which it is again okay to kill off Native Americans or black people. On the other hand, we have just seen the most important scientific discovery in history ruthlessly suppressed for 23 years because of petty academic politics and greed. Did anyone think that could happen here? What else might have been going on? Did anyone imagine how much money Wall Street was stealing and squandering before the 2008 crash? Read about the problems BP oil installations had, culminating in the Gulf accident. Look at the Fukushima disaster. Many terrible things have happened, and many more could happen, because of greed, stupidity, hate and barbarism. My point is not that we should fear what might happen, or give up hope. Never! The point is, don't be sanguine. Never assume you have nothing to worry about. Be prepared! I expect there will be an orchestrated barrage of opposition against cold fusion, far greater than anything we have witnessed in the last 23 years, backed by countless millions of dollars. So far we have been fighting off washed-up academic hacks such as Huizenga and nitwits such as The Amazing Randi. These people have little power and no money. They are stupid. Soon we will be fighting every conservative politician in Washington and many liberals as well, because they are equal-opportunity shills for big oil. They will denounce cold fusion in return for campaign contributions. They will keep doing that until they sense the public is on our side. I anticipate the biggest political battle in the history of technology. . . . Okay, maybe that will not come to pass. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised. But we should be prepared for the worst. We should think about how we will deal with it, and how we can win. - Jed
