Another factor to consider is the influence of the english language publications Nature and Scientific American. They have less infleunce non-english speaking communities so their dim views on LENR carry less weight in non-english speaking nations like Italy.
Harry On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 7:46 PM, James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com> wrote: > That's one way to view it. An alternative that isn't necessarily exclusive: > > I recall holding a public debate at the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center in San > Diego during the 1980s -- before the collapse of the Soviet Union -- > regarding NASA's role in launch services vs the fledgling private launch > services. During the debate an engineer from General Dynamics who had > worked on the Atlas got up and declared that the reason the US government > couldn't get its launch services running as well as the communists was that > the communists executed corrupt bureaucrats, and that was what was needed if > the public sector was going to be in charge of launch services. > > In short: The commies were good at communism because they had no private > sector to tax, so they had to make communism work. The us public sector is > the worst of both worlds because it has a private sector to tax and so > doesn't have to execute it corrupt bureaucrats to stay alive. > > > On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> To what do you attribute Italy's relatively-functional immune system? >> >> >> A laid-back attitude. I mean it. They don't take themselves as seriously >> as we do. They know their institutions are far from perfect. >> >> The U.S. is burdened by too much self-respect. We take ourselves too >> seriously. We have too much high regard for out place in the world and our >> institutions. (Other than the Congress.) All this blather about being the >> best place on earth leads us to act like the world's policeman, and to >> imagine that our universities and scientists are the best of the best. When >> experts at the DoE or the major journals say that cold fusion does not >> exist, ordinary people give their opinions far too much credibility. Too >> much respect. >> >> Japanese people tend to be even worse in that regard. They have waa-a-a-y >> too much respect for experts. >> >> The fact is, many scientists are incompetent screw-ups. It is the human >> condition. Farmers, programmers, stock brokers, bank presidents, army >> generals . . . people everywhere make mistakes. Half the population is below >> average, as an army general was once horrified to discover. I think the >> Italians are more aware of that. It helps that they lost several wars in a >> row. It helps to be a smaller country, less full of yourself. See the novel >> "Catch 22" for details. >> >> - Jed >> >
