Talk:Free energy suppression conspiracy theory/Archive 1

message: "Some libertarians and anarchists support the theory based upon the idea that dependence upon expensive energy is perpetuated by governments in order to control the populace by means of hydraulic despotism."
--Explanation--
Whether or not certain far-right extremists who call themselves "libertarian" believe in the suppression of clean/renewable energy technology, the vast majority of those who follow the libertarian model would not see the issue in the same context as anarchists, and thus grouping them together in this specific instance is inappropriate. Libertarians, by definition, would see any suppression of certain energy technologies as merely evidence of interplaying market forces, whereas anarchists would consider the suppression of such technologies as the 'required end result' of human political/social/national processes that inherently require all nations and large institutions to be "evil" (or at the very least left in a moral quandary that requires ill-action).
E.g. whereas the libertarian would merely yawn and say "well obviously" and find very little morally repugnant about the institutional support of fossil/nuclear fuels via "suppression" of clean fuels (indeed, according to the libertarian model, such "suppression" would be a very natural consequence of supply and demand), an anarchist would point to the suppression referred to in this article as specific evidence to support his or her political point of view. As such, grouping them is contextually inappropriate.
A counter argument: A libertarian could be called a type of anarchist who is not morally outraged, and indeed may be encouraged, by what both understand to be the common state of affairs of the geo-political interface between market and government/multi-national-corporations. As such, there is nothing specifically "wrong" with grouping libertarians and anarchists together in their beliefs on clean-energy technology. 
However, the edited statement is misleading, as it suggests that there is a common moral complaint between the two belief-systems. That is just not the case. Implications of the term "hydraulic despotism," for example, lends to my argument. 
69.137.229.214 13:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed reference to libertarians 

message: I agree that this article is subject to some scientific and bias-related issues. To this end, I have, at present, edited the introduction and 'free energy utopia' sections. Further edits will follow when I have the time. I'd really appreciate some assistance in cleaning up this article.--ChrisJMoor 04:26, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup issues

message: I have perused large volumes of information from environmentalists and this is the first I have heard of the concept of "free energy". The article needs to indicate the low level of support that this theory has.  Alan Liefting 08:03, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support from environmentalists? 

message: Most of the article is pretty good, describing the various issues in a NPOV manner. That is, until it gets to the section called "Over-unity devices" (above). Can anyone defend this text? I think it should all be removed because it is unsourced gobboldegook. www.rexresearch.com is a compendium of pseudo-scientific claims worthy of Art Bell. I can't find even these exact instances there among the hundreds of articles. So unless anyone thinks this text is worthwhile or can be fixed, I'll remove it. (Or is it meant to show how silly these theories are? Even so, it'd be POV.) -Willmcw 09:39, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
:It probably needs to be removed.  I'm fairly sure it's provably impossible to harvest energy from electron spin.  Pakaran 15:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The text looks fine to me.  It accurately describes the conspiracy theory.   Don't forget that WP is not in the business of concealing myths or popular errors, it's in the business of describing them accurately.  If someone wants to debunk the claims of "free energy" inventors, first they need to avoid the straw-man fallacy by accurately describing the claims being debunked. --Wjbeaty 03:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Weird text

message: (Tele2 Norge AS. Dynamic IP pool near Oslo) added this:
"The experiments have been replicated by several researchers, with openly publicized experimental data and setup details. The most renowned researcher in this field is the now deceased Dr. Eugene Mallove."
I reverted this because the reference to jlnlabs.imars.com (a website in Sweden) appears to refer to fringe physicist Jean-Louis Naudin, who is notorious for promoting alleged over-unity devices (see perpetual motion machine).  The Eugene Mallove link goes to peswiki.com, Pure Energy Systems Wiki, which also promotes perpetual motion devices and free (as in no cost) energy.
Tele2 Norge, I see you read WP:CITE but please see WP:RS.  TIA ---CH 07:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Edits by the Tele2 Norge anon

message: "Over-unity (OU) is the process by which output energy exceeds input power required to produce it. OU advocates distinguish this from "perpetual motion" (and avoid a violation of the law of conservation of energy) by saying that the extra energy is extracted from some infinite, invisible reservoir, such as the "zero-point energy field". However, to date there is no credible theory or experiment showing that such a reservoir exists."
Mainly the last statement.  This resevoir is everywhere. Zero-point energy exists, and it might hypothetically be possible to utilize, but beyond that I can come up with limitless examples of energy sources that could hypothically be exploited for the purposes of OU.
Everytime people walk around, they heat up the ground they walk on, a sterling engine could in theory use the temperature differenced as a source of energy.
For that matter one could imagine a sterling engine that had its heat source at the equator, and its heat sink at the north pole.  This engine would run on an "infinite, invisible resevoir"
For that matter windmills and watermills are OU devices.  The difference is that the people claiming to have invented OU devices, say they have new sources that produce even more power.  Tesla's invention (if it actually worked) would have been such a device, and seems to be based on a resasonable idea of collecting atmospheric energy (ala lightning bolts).
I think most of the free energy people are crack-pots, (I remain open to the idea that there might be a few who have really come across something), but regardless either this statement is off, or my understanding of OU is off.
: Take away the "infinite, invisible" part, and you're going somewhere.  Something that extracts energy from an unknown or undiscovered source.  Otherwise it's just crackpottery. — Omegatron 14:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The anonymous poster above amply demonstrates a major difficulty with insufficiently educated people attempting to understand scientific concepts. They often seem to believe that "unseen" means "undetectable", when a great deal of modern science — the stuff that's proven itself by making 100 years of incredible technology possible — is based on unseeable things like electromagnetism, quantum physics, nuclear processes, and DNA. (By contrast, no "crackpot" idea not eventually backed up by scientific proof has ever remade our view of the world like any true scientific discovery has.) This confusing of popular meanings of words with their scientific meanings crops up everywhere and signficantly distorts debates on science. (Consider how lay people fail to understand what science means by "theory". To most, "theory" means "an unproven idea", but for a scentist it means "a explanation of the natural world that has substantial proof obtained through rigorous observation and experimentation" — not even close to the same thing.) People without a scientific education (or those who have forgotten theirs) should be very careful in making these kinds of arguments, lest they open themselves to withering criticism over their misunderstandings. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This is innacurate