Posted by Lurker (204.22.24.85) on June 06, 2003 at 14:32:43:
In Reply to: Re: Anyone see this? posted by Darren on June 06, 2003 at 13:17:52:
: : Well, the problem with today's information based society is that there is so much information available that people do not have the time or energy to keep up with it all.
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: Your argument is extremey weak... information is so quick and easy to access that many people know about things minutes after they happen. Many people keep up on more information now than ever before because it's gotten so easy and fast. It's now possible to read all the top stories, minutes old, off Routers, AP, and others each morning in about ten minutes.
On the contrary, my argument is very strong. You correctly state that people now have access to more information now than they have ever had before, but you forget that such easy access to vast quantities of information has a huge cost associated with it. This is the cost of verifying the information. Suppose you have access to 100 designs for perpetual motion machines, and perhaps 4 or 5 of them work, the rest are frauds, wishfull thinking, etc. Without actually building and testing each device yourself, you cannot be certain that they will work. Even if you DO build a machine and test it, there is no quarantee that you will build it corectly. Thus, the fact that it doesn't work does not necessarily mean that the principle behind its operation is flawed.
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: I said that if "the secret" was already discovered by someone it would have leaked out already because communications and information sharing is so easy and fast (and in some cases totally anonymous.) If it already existed, having been found (as you speculated) by many people already, it would definitely be common knowledge by know.
Yes, the "secret" has no doubt been "leaked" many times, but that is not the point. The point is that the public does not recognize the secret when they see it. When they see it, they think it is a hoax because 99% of the time when they see such things, they ARE seeing a hoax.
: Nope, sorry, if a person proves (in a *proper*, reproducible, scientific way) that their wheel actually works then the news will instantly spread like wildfire. I mean think about it... even the false claims from the scam artists spread like crazy.... a real wheel would be heard round the world in a day or two at most.
Your biggest misconception, Darren, is the belief that if a free energy machine had already been discovered, everyone would know about it. That is a patently false assumption. If we were to assume that Bessler's wheel was not a hoax, then this assumption is obviously false.
: That's the real reason I haven't published my design here, I don't want to kill this cool site :-)
An obvious lie or joke. I'm a big believer in human nature, and the biggest part of human nature is greed. If perpetual motion really is possible, then the reason it is not available to us now is simply greed. Bessler is an example of this. He was not motivated by altruism, and was perfectly willing to take his secret to the grave. We have no reason to believe that the current inventors of perpetual motion machines are any different. This includes you.
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: : A certain percentage of the discoverers will not even try to tell the world in the first place because they already know it will not be worth the effort.
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: I doubt that anyone would put the effort required into finding the answer if they didn't think it was worth telling anyone. The percentage of people who strive to solve OU just for the fun of it, never expecting to release it, would be so small as to be insignificant to the equation (in my opinion.)
Think of it this way, Darren. Suppose you invent a machine that works. Then you go public, but no one believes you. Everyone thinks you are a scam artist, except for the gullible people who always fall for scam artists anyway, and the OTHER people who have already built working machines before you. You will have to overcome extreme social inertia before you will be able to recieve recognition for your discovery, and this will not be difficult.
Chances are that you will keep the working princip