RE: [Vo]:re the alternative history of LENR

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Remarkably well stated. Thank you. Warm Regards, Reliable MarkI-ZeroPoint Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:16:38 -0700 One can justify Govt’s responsibility to use PUBLIC, TAXPAYER funds for pure R&D, and I’d go as far as some applied R&D, but that’s about it. And the results of all that research should be FREELY available to any taxpayer (unless it’s so sensitive that it’s been declared a national security issue). If an entrepreneur is able to raise money and take the govt’s research and make a product or service, I’d even be in favor of the govt getting a small % royalty for a few years to at least help offset the cost to the taxpayer. Govt, because of the corruption which is inevitable with humans, and which is rampant in this country and the world, will never do the right thing when it comes to the sort of large subsidies and loan programs that we’ve seen of late… Below is a link to the report by the House Oversight Cmte on the DOE’s Loan Guarantee program, and how corruption has resulted in nothing but failures… why? Because despite numerous red-flags about the hi-risk of the companies, the govt loaned the money anyway because of political favors… http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/FINAL-DOE-Loan-Guarantees-Report.pdf And this is not a partisan issue… politicians on both sides of the aisle are corrupt and only interested in reelection and riding the govt gravy-train as long as the citizen taxpayers are stupid enough to reelect them. -Mark From: Eric Walker [mailto:eric.wal...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 12:17 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:re the alternative history of LENR On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 7:59 PM, Chemical Engineer <cheme...@gmail.com> wrote: This example, at its most simple message shows how corporations sometimes see new technologies in the opposite light even though the world might benefit. Agreed. Corporations sometimes see things in terms starkly different from what is understood to be in the common good. The tobacco companies in the US saw fit to advertise to adolescents a generation ago until the consequences of doing so (heavy penalties, lawsuits, etc.) outweighed the financial benefits. The logic of such advertising was impeccable -- if you get people hooked on cigarettes at a young enough age they will become lifelong consumers. But that logic was purely mercenary, blind to some basic things that the majority of people feel to be important and valuable; in this case, protecting the young from the predatory behavior of corporations. There are other examples of how the perceived interests of corporations differ significantly from the interests of society as a whole. These examples are helpful in understanding what underlies their behavior, in providing a cautionary tale of what one might be up against if remedial action of some kind is needed, and in offering insight into possible ways to encourage corporations to better align their behavior with the interests of the larger society. I don't think such examples are to be construed as reasons to avoid regulation or market interventions. The main challenge with interventions is that they often lead to unintended consequences. But being wary of unintended consequences is different from being concerned that companies will perceive things differently from ordinary people. My point here is that we should not be worried that corporations won't like the restrictions and inducements we decide to put in place, but we should be concerned about unintended economic consequences. Many of the big oil companies dabble in renewable energy because they do not feel threatened by it. kW/Mw scale LENR if/when it is proven may get ignored by big energy much like Kodak did with digital cameras. I suspect the energy companies will feel very threatened at some point. The lawyers will step out of the woodworks, and then if you want to develop or sell LENR devices you'll need to make a huge financial investment to satisfy certification requirements; even then, there will be onerous restrictions on selling to the mass market. It might take a generation or two to disentangle the technology from the webwork put up by vested interests. This will not have been a necessary outcome; it will have been the result of our particular willingness to coddle financial interests at this time in history.