On 12/15/2009 03:47 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
Is there any evidence that they're not a scam?
Well . . . the fact that they publish what appears to be a full
schematic and it includes the battery is weak evidence that they believe
what they say. Scammers hide the details.
Then they would look like scammers. Everybody knows scammers are
secretive. Looking like a scammer is not good when you're trying to
lure investors.
Really talented con men show you everything, and convince you it means
something other than what it really means.
Assuming it does not work, a
motivated person could build one from the schematic and prove
conclusively that it does not work, by various methods discussed here.
But they're not trying to get funds from people who have the knowledge
and capability to prove the device isn't OU (which would, in fact, be
rather difficult and time consuming, and would require slight changes or
additions to the device, which Steorn could always claim invalidated the
comparison). Such people are going to give Steorn a wide berth to start
with.
They're trying to suck in people who don't understand why their claims
are totally outrageous, nor why their demos actually do nothing to
support their claims.
Whether it actually works or not I have no idea, since I have not been
following the story and I do not know what this demonstration
demonstrates, if anything.
Since they're using a rather high capacity battery (10,000 mAh, that's a
pretty hefty little D cell) to power a motor of unknown power drain,
this demo actually demonstrates nothing. Absolutely, entirely, exactly,
nothing.
It's exactly like the Newman motor, which had (or has) unmeasured power
in and unmeasured power out. In both cases, the scammer claims the
power out is larger than the power in but there is absolutely no
evidence to back this up. The people they're trying to suck in are
people who don't understand the importance of the "missing numbers".
If Steorn is trying to be honest about it, and they're just misguided,
why use such a hefty battery? A cheap alkaline cell (of much lower
capacity) would do the same job -- and if they demand that it be more
easily rechargeable than an alkaline cell, an 800 mAh AA nicad would be
just as effective and much cheaper than the NiMH battery they're using
... but then, it might not run their device long enough to impress the
rubes...
From the messages here and a cursory
examination of the mass media reports I gather it demonstrates nothing.
Yes. Absolutely nothing. This is not in doubt.
Unspecified input and unspecified output => meaningless result.
It does not take a great brain to figure that out, and I don't
understand how anyone could debate it. Only Steorn's "proof by
assertion" stands to support the notion that the demo demos anything.
My hunch is that these people are stupid, rather than dishonest.
When a man comes to town selling oil pressed from snakes which, he says,
cures syphilis, TB, and colitis, while reducing the national debt, do
you assume he's just stupid? Or do you suspect that maybe, just maybe,
he might have some notion that what he's doing isn't quite right?
I think you are being far too charitable here.
If this
is a scam it seems like a tough way to make a living.
By that implied reasoning, there should be no scammers. Yet, there
certainly are. Ergo, the reasoning is incorrect.
And if the gadget
actually works, and produces anomalous energy, they are still stupid,
because they could easily demonstrate that rather than muddying the
waters with inconclusive demonstrations.
I have seen many people make over unity claims that I consider invalid,
but I get the strong impression that most of them sincerely believe what
they are saying. The Correas are a good example.
Poor comparison -- the Correas are not selling shares.
Follow the money.
If Steorn is a scam, it is an inept one.
Sez who? They've got investors. Ergo it's good enough for them,
whether or not you think it's inept.
What's more, by the very crude bumbling naivete of their public
demonstrations, they have apparently more than half convinced you, Jed,
that they're honest!
I'd say that they're a pretty slick bunch.
I could make a fake demo that
looks more conclusive and persuasive.
It is impossible to know what to make of such people, but history shows
that people at every level of society are often stupid and inept to an
astounding extent, and this is the main cause of disasters. See, for
example, the army generals of World War I, the U.S. invasion of Iraq
described in the book "Fiasco," or the people on Wall Street who
destroyed several investment banks and caused the loss of trillions of
dollars in 2008.
You including Madoff in that gang?
Or maybe those "poor misguided" people of a few years earlier who pulled
down Enron?
Never assume someone must just be inconceivably stupid when a little bit
of dishonesty thrown into the mix would produce a less implausible
explanation.
My impression is that most people who destroy nations
and economies and who kill hundreds of thousands of people for no reason
are not malevolent. They are stupid. They also tend to have large egos
and small imaginations, and they usually go to their graves convinced
they are right, despite all evidence to the contrary.
- Jed
