At 06:24 PM 1/20/2010, OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson wrote:
At present, I suspect the main reason I'm unwilling to believe it's a con job is that I can't comprehend what Steorn would expect to get from masterminding such an operation. I seem to be getting the impression that both Terry and Stephen are also having difficulty in trying to figure out what Steorn's motivations might be as well. What's the pay off.
Money. From selling disclosure and from selling equipment to investigate the phenomenon.
Running a deliberate con just doesn't make any sense to me. It also raises my hackles in the Occam's Razor department. If what they are doing is knowingly diversionary, a deliberate con job, isn't that eventual grounds for criminal action against them?
No, not if they have been careful. Look, you pay to go see a famous magician. He lies to you and diverts your attention, and you applaud. Is that grounds for criminal action? Marketers lie about their products all the time. Can you prosecute them for it?
Depends, doesn't it? Puffery is not generally illegal. Fraud is. Lying isn't fraud except under narrow circumstances.
I'm reminded of Deep Throat's advice: "Follow the money." And since we are trying to follow where the money might be coming from it seems to me that only the "true believers" who stand to be conned out of their money would be companies & corporations who end up purchasing licenses in the hopes of building their own energizer bunny. For the most part, the admiring and true-believing public are not in a position of being fleeced.
Really? What's the disclosure price? It's within range for small pockets. Some corporations might toss in what is to them pocket change, just in case. All they have to do is keep it looking interesting enough.
Call me naive, but I'm still under the impression that Steorn hopes that their "spinny thing" will eventually pan out.
Sure. What does "pan out" mean. If it means they can walk with cash in their pockets, legally, does that require that the thing actually work. This is the true over-unity device they may have invented. How to make money legally with a device that doesn't work except to get some people really confused.
I'm more inclined to speculate that Stoern continues to envision becoming filthy rich from taking a tiny slice of all the profits from the licenses they hope to sell.
I doubt it at this point. Maybe at one point, then as it dawned on them that it wasn't going to, instead of wasting their momentum, they figured out how to sell what they have really found.
