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
