Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: Sir on August 23, 2008, 05:10:09 pm
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We've heard the "popular" issues of the 2008 election debates, but what about all the things the US does nothing about in *any* presidential term?
The technology already exists which could drastically increase the fuel efficiency of any vehicle. We're talking 10-20x better miles per gallon, maybe better. Some inventors manage to make super efficient corroborated engines or fuel injection systems. To prevent themselves from losing money, oil companies and big motor industries pay fat cash for the patent to prevent people from stopping them from dominating the market. Friends of mine have on a couple of occasions had a vehicle which "accidentally had a prototype part installed." One of them has the motor company trying to repossess his vehicle even though he is making regular payments. The other had the part forcefully changed without his permission and can't touch the dealership with any lawyer. So, when will we get a brave leader who cuts the bullshit and allows technology to bring mankind happiness instead of slavery? Forfeit those patents to save not only money, but the fuel supply!
The US has miles and miles of constantly moving wind and water, and nary a sight of us utilizing it to create energy. There are many dams which could be rebuilt to sustain hydroelectric power and landscape after landscape of windy terrain begging to be dotted with light, energy harvesting windmills. Even the sun itself casts its rays brighter in some places, begging for a solar harvest. All this power is cheap. Nearly free. Nature itself creates the energy that could easily lower our use of fossil fuels even more. Designing, build and maintaining these energy structures would create more jobs, as well. We keep talking about it every election, and it never happens.
We're all happy to get our tax returns, but a stimulus check only causes undue inflation in an already faltering US economy. Besides, a great deal of products even worth buying these days are foreign goods. A stimulus only means I can buy more Oxford (British) learning materials to use for my self-education, and can buy more Japanese cartoons to waste time with. I don't see the stimulus check being debated enough. The national debt continues to get more and more catastrophic.
I'll briefly detail on the "War on Terror." I just feel personally that these countries need to be weaned from the US support so they can learn to survive their own conflicts. Its not like they'll ever repay us for this favor we've done them, anyway, policing their borders and eating mortar rounds and IED's for them. Personal opinion. We had a mission, and its taking too long to accomplish, I feel. The war was legal... the UN did sanction it... and now I feel its supposed to be over and done for the US. There are more pressing world matters boiling up. Sixteen months? We could pull out even faster.
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If you watch Top Gear in the UK, one of the things that they talk about in the most recent series is how people aren't buing giant Mercs or BMWs anymore because the fuel consumption of these things is a doomed economy. I think if the technology was available automotive companies would be jumping on these ideas. The whole oil company conspiracy is fairly believable on the surface but there would be viral media publications on the issue if they were to just *take* these atmosphere-saving patents!
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On the oil industry buying out patents: They will continue paying whoever they need to to keep us dependent on them, and since everybody fuckin' loves cash, it will never stop (until of course it's too late, we run out of fuel, and the world explodes or whatever happens at that point). As long as their is oil, the people making money off of it will be reluctant to give it up. Same for alternative energy. Oil companies pay people off to make sure all that potential isn't used. Then you have the hippies complaining that setting up solar panel/wind power facilities would ruin the landscape and harm nature. I remember seeing somewhere that there were plans to build a windfarm off the coast somewhere, but the residents complained it would ruin the beauty of the area and I don't think they actually got built. These windmills were barely even VISIBLE from the coast, too! (Actually it might've been Colbert Report so it might be inaccurate!)
The stimulus shouldn't have been given period. The only reason they gave it to us is because people fuckin' love cash, and the people are kind of angry at the government right now so what do they do? Give them money! That'll keep them off our backs, make them stop complaining about the important things *phew* If we could internalize a bit more, stop relying on foreign goods, maybe it would have worked, but as it is, too much of our stuff comes from elsewhere. (also, I'm not sure how it works, but do all the companies that outsource their factories to China and stuff count as American products still, or are they Chinese products? If they are, government needs to like, force all these companies back to American soil!!)
War on Terror: Uh, I got nothin'. I somehow don't care about it at all anymore. Have no opinion.
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There was that guy who invented a car to run on water. He said that Oil companies offered him a billion dollars to bury it. He's dead now.
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There was that guy who invented a car to run on water. He said that Oil companies offered him a billion dollars to bury it. He's dead now.
source?
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There was that guy who invented a car to run on water. He said that Oil companies offered him a billion dollars to bury it. He's dead now.
Man, I would have taken the Billion Dollars if I was him. I honestly wouldn't care as long as they were serious.
Another thing, I've always wondered, if you configured your car to run on wind, water, etc, would they persue you and make you get rid of it, even if you didn't tell anyone about how to build it?
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source?
A bad Ben Elton novel, I think it was called Gridlocked. Like, that was the exact plot but I dunno if it happened in real life too
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source?
http://easygrowhouseplants.blogspot.com/2006/12/inventor-of-water-powered-car-murdered.html
There's a few interviews and stuff with him on there
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Man, after seeing those videos... Dammit man, why do we have to push these people down, and kill them?
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We're all happy to get our tax returns, but a stimulus check only causes undue inflation in an already faltering US economy. Besides, a great deal of products even worth buying these days are foreign goods. A stimulus only means I can buy more Oxford (British) learning materials to use for my self-education, and can buy more Japanese cartoons to waste time with.
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We're all happy to get our tax returns, but a stimulus check only causes undue inflation in an already faltering US economy. Besides, a great deal of products even worth buying these days are foreign goods. A stimulus only means I can buy more Oxford (British) learning materials to use for my self-education, and can buy more Japanese cartoons to waste time with.
quoteable quoteables
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quoteable quoteables
The anime market index(ANIMI) went through the roof as soon as the gamestop workforce received their check.
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Up here in Canada the Dams arn't getting the repairs they need due to our now outdated system and suffering from some pretty bad Urban Decay. Which leads to my next point that the Governments only have so much money, which has to go to everything. Once you divide it all up it ain't so much anymore., this goes with or without scraping off the top.
Solar Energy is damned expensive, and the pay-off will take a long while to come back. Wind Power is fickle at best, and you'd need ALOT to use it to the massive scales required of them. They would only be remotely reliable in very very windy areas. Dams cause mudslides and flooding, which isn't very good either. The ones we have now are okay at this moment but one more somewhere could end anothers use by drying it up in the near or far future. Fossil Fuels put gas in the air, but it's there easy to extract and the pay-off is quick with the consequence happening later, maybe when they die of age. In terms of buisness that is THE best choice for corporations/companies and government.
If they (corporates) are holding onto those patents it serves two purposes, 1) preventing their buisnesses from being ruined and 2) a fallback so once the fossil fuels finally run out they can pull these aces up their sleeves and get back in buisness quickly.
Now the actual proto-types that would further increase the efficiency in cars is a conspiracy, in that you waste more gas they get more money. But it's also a double edged sword because if they do go through with it they save more gas and still leech off money, but if they do then what is the actual cost of the minerals to use to make them and how much it takes to make them. You have to think in terms of MASSIVE scales, one by itself is not so bad if it costs that much to make but how about a million for starters?.
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the oil industry keeps me in work so i'm all for it!!
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http://easygrowhouseplants.blogspot.com/2006/12/inventor-of-water-powered-car-murdered.html
There's a few interviews and stuff with him on there
Dude:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Meyer
Wikipedia articles are prone to vandalism of course but it is probably more reliable than http://easygrowhouseplants.blogspot.com
EDIT: His water-powered car was determined by a court to be physically impossible as it was a perpetual motion machine, never had a working prototype, and illustrated straightforward electrolysis and not any novel science anyway. He was ordered to reimburse the investors he had defrauded.
Also he died of a brain aneurysm, not under mysterious circumstances.
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I'll briefly detail on the "War on Terror." I just feel personally that these countries need to be weaned from the US support so they can learn to survive their own conflicts. Its not like they'll ever repay us for this favor we've done them, anyway, policing their borders and eating mortar rounds and IED's for them. Personal opinion. We had a mission, and its taking too long to accomplish, I feel. The war was legal... the UN did sanction it... and now I feel its supposed to be over and done for the US. There are more pressing world matters boiling up. Sixteen months? We could pull out even faster.
hahaha yeah seriously, where's the thanks for the imperialist aggression in Iraq. We've been nothing but generous to them the past few decades.
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DietCoke, unless you've been to Iraq... of course, I'm only a dumb soldier who freaking lives here day by day.
As for GLYPH150's question... Yes, you invent anything of use which threatens the oil industry, you will be pursued and constantly badgered into giving it up. If you try to make it a reliable source, the oil company will use their dominant economic power to make investors lose interest in your product. Its no surprise only the quacks and failures got the money, because all the smart inventors took the highest bidder. The oil industry. Maybe some one crazy enough to invent for technological freedom at their own risk needs to start the next technological revolution.
Its ironic that history repeats itself and we need another technological revolution, by the way, to make any progress.
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DietCoke, unless you've been to Iraq... of course, I'm only a dumb soldier who freaking lives here day by day.
Haven't been there, but it's not like that has any bearing on whether or not anything I say is true considering that I didn't make any personal judgments. Just going by the historical record brohommad, your commanders and tell you that you're helping the Iraqis 'till they're blue in the face but it don't change the fact that imperialist aggression is imperialist aggression. I'm close friends with couple of marines and ex-marines who've been through some serious shit over there and even they don't have any delusions about being some kind of benevolent liberators.
As for the auto and energy industries, sure the technology exists to make clean, super-efficient vehicles and whatnot. Where's the motivation though? These companies are making a killing with the status quo and with the iraqi oil market bombed wide open for foreign investment, they only stand to make even more. It's in their financial interest to buy these technologies out and release them on their own terms. That's capitalism and them's the brakes soldier.
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That's capitalism and them's the brakes soldier.
Fuck Capitalism. :mad: Whatever happened to hard, *honest* work?
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I say we all stop worrying about that bull and party, humanity is going to be destroyed regardless, so I say live it up instead of giving yourself a heart attack trying to figure out something, avoid dying or being bought off, and convincing everyone, it's just not worth it.
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I say we all stop worrying about that bull and party, humanity is going to be destroyed regardless, so I say live it up instead of giving yourself a heart attack trying to figure out something, avoid dying or being bought off, and convincing everyone, it's just not worth it.
humanity... its like a disease...
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I say we all stop worrying about that bull and party, humanity is going to be destroyed regardless, so I say live it up instead of giving yourself a heart attack trying to figure out something, avoid dying or being bought off, and convincing everyone, it's just not worth it.
yeah man why bother trying to save the earth when i can be driving a giant truck right now
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I say we all stop worrying about that bull and party, humanity is going to be destroyed regardless, so I say live it up instead of giving yourself a heart attack trying to figure out something, avoid dying or being bought off, and convincing everyone, it's just not worth it.
do you also feel like your soul is dark inside sometimes..?? i know i do..
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I get a feeling I'm going to be an Anti-Capitalist Free-Technologist for many decades to come. crumply's response earlier goes to show how uninformed the public is about the true nature of technology and invention thanks to the corruption of a patent hording industry.
Will the media even bothering following this story? No. That would be outlandish and hundreds of paid lawyers would attack it. Still, it would be fantastic and the painful truth. Business is buying out the world and preventing humanity's progress. I want something done about it, and I feel like I'm the only one right now.
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Bolvae made a pretty fundamental point when he noted that the gubmint doesn't really have the money to fund an all-out technology revolution; actually, the only people who would even bother are the oil monopolies. I'd imagine that when resources become scarce and it costs too much to find/process oil, the oil companies will switch immediately to other means to get energy, and be leading entrepreneurs in the field. Then your 'technological revolution' takes place. A new mindset overcomes the people, they elect officials to Congress and to the court system to protect developmental energy from any remaining oil war machines, and we progress.
I'll agree with you in that we've hit gridlock in terms of technological development, because of the big-oil-money lobbyists in Washington and corporate lawyers in the courts, so everything will sit at a standstill. Everything has to stagnate before we're impelled to do anything. I mean, look at the civil rights movement -- shoulda took place right as America was created, but the system was too powerful. A little patience went a long way, though. People became more and more pissed, and an upheaval of that system took place.
As long as we keep trying to push for developmental energy plans (gubmint-endorsed research would be a HELLUVA lot better than our dumbass plan to send more NASA dumbshits to the moon), we might be able to bring about said 'technological reformation' out sooner than you realize.
And think about the market for this stuff once it's out. I'd put some stock into that shit, wouldn't you?
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And think about the market for this stuff once it's out. I'd put some stock into that shit, wouldn't you?
I agreed with the whole post, which is a rare "Sir" moment. And now I realize that a lot more peoples' opinions make sense. Perhaps capitalizing off my foresight is an alright idea. Survival of the fittest being said rule, perhaps I could study alternative energy in college as well for a fall-back from language studies, capitalizing even more by being useful when oil grows more scarce and unpopular.
Also, I finally carry the opinion that W., who actually is an owner of quite a lot of oil, is profiting. The corporate conspiracy has always ran deeper than I thought. It was only a matter of time until I would finally be convinced.