Tags:
cranks

Advertise here: Contact FM.

September 5, 2005
2:39 AM Subscribe

"It's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by a -- the worst kind of weapon you can imagine" ~ George W. Bush September 2, 2005
Another Presidential slip of tongue? Is this evidence that Katrina was steered toward New Orleans using scalar technology? This is not too far-fetched considering the U.S. Air Force's own doctrine of Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025 (.pdf). Senator Kay Hutchison seems convinced enough to have proposed S. 517: A bill to establish a Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes. Considering the U.S. government's history of secret human experimentation, I wonder just what other "purposes" this bill would have in store for us considering the vast uses of EM/scalar technology? Check out this video of Soviet Weather Engineering over North America
posted by augustweed (165 comments total)

You've got to be fucking kidding me.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:54 AM on September 5, 2005

Yet, they still can't reliably predict the weather beyond three days in advance....
posted by TwelveTwo at 2:55 AM on September 5, 2005

scalar energy

o - m - g

In other news (to cut this thread short), we didn't land on the moon, the WTC was demolished (Oklahoma as well, btw), the tsunami was engineered, and jets engines are filling the atmosphere with mind-controlling substances.

Did I forget anything? Just so we can get it over with.
posted by uncle harold at 3:05 AM on September 5, 2005

[this is weird]
posted by loquacious at 3:05 AM on September 5, 2005

Reptillians, you forgot Reptillians!
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:06 AM on September 5, 2005

If any section of the US administration could control the path of a hurricane, they would gain far more by demonstrating their power in a benign way and steering the destruction away from cities. The kudos which would accrue to The WeatherGod of Washington is incalculable.
posted by MinPin at 3:08 AM on September 5, 2005 [1 favorite]

This "WeatherGod of Washington" would have to have a special scepter and crown to make the whole thing sellable to the public.
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:10 AM on September 5, 2005

(The scepter would have pictures of clouds and a thunderbolt atop it.)
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:11 AM on September 5, 2005

The first time I heard that quote, I thought it was a really weird comparison. He must have weapons on the brain - we all know Mother nature can be quite a bitch compared to man-made stuff when she wants to be.
posted by dabitch at 3:21 AM on September 5, 2005

is this post going to be deleted?
posted by paradise at 3:24 AM on September 5, 2005

It's one thing blaming the President for all this, but now you're blaming the President for all this! That's completely different.
posted by NinjaPirate at 3:26 AM on September 5, 2005

1. Hurricanes are mammals.
2. Hurricanes fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the hurricane is to flip out and kill people.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 3:30 AM on September 5, 2005

I just flagged this as "fantastic post". And I wish that I could flag it as "BEST POST EVAR!"
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:44 AM on September 5, 2005

If the scalar energy weapons thing was true, why on earth would they bother using a hurricane when they've got (pause, ROLL OF DRUMS) orbital mind-control lasers?
posted by cstross at 3:44 AM on September 5, 2005

It could be worse. A woman could cut off your penis while you're sleeping and toss it out the window of a moving car.

~ Tyler Durden
posted by augustweed at 3:47 AM on September 5, 2005

Slithy_Tove - pure genius. Thanks for a sorely needed laugh.
posted by herichon at 3:51 AM on September 5, 2005

It's not fair to lay all the blame on Bush for this weather of mass destruction. Local officials could have used a Tesla death ray to blow the hurricane up before it ever reached New Orleans.
posted by taz at 3:53 AM on September 5, 2005

time itself is actually compressed energy

"Honey, would you get up off the couch and help me with this? You've been lying there the whole day."

"Do you have any idea the massive amounts of energy I've used by laying here?! I'm bushed!!"
posted by bugbread at 3:57 AM on September 5, 2005

Is this evidence that Katrina was steered toward New Orleans using scalar technology?

No, it isn't, you loon.
posted by jack_mo at 4:03 AM on September 5, 2005

Psychoenergetics is simply using the scalar interferometers to manipulate and engineer the human psyche.

Well, duh.
posted by mek at 4:17 AM on September 5, 2005

Tag this with "cranks", please.
This post is a gold mine, folks.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:19 AM on September 5, 2005

awesome.
posted by crunchywelch at 4:25 AM on September 5, 2005

I realize and acknowledge that forming the post around Katrina is going to inspire a lot of strong and negative reactions. I'm not going to argue for or against this. It's far too loaded, far too tinfoil-hat, and far too much wishful thinking in looking for someone or something to blame - not at all unlike arguing it's the act of an angry God.

But try to discard that framing for a moment. Is any of this really beyond any imagination? Where is your imagination? Where's your healthy distrust of an authority historically proven to make insane choices in the interests of national security?

People have wanted to be able to control weather, well, just about as long as there has been people. And it wouldn't be beyond imagination to view these "chemtrail" sightings as a secret project intended to locally or globally increase the Earth's albedo levels in an attempt to cool the Earth's recent and alarming warming trend down.

Rather than snarking like a bunch of useless buffoons, would anyone care to provide links to counterarguments, or to provide the counterarguments themselves? The whole lot of you are sounding like a bunch of Victorian-era sportsman scoffing at the idea that man could ever fly.

And isn't this possibly the same reaction people had to the Manhattan Project? MK ULTRA? COINTELPRO? Didn't people scoff about the F-117 before it was revealed to the public?

In other news (to cut this thread short), we didn't land on the moon, the WTC was demolished (Oklahoma as well, btw), the tsunami was engineered, and jets engines are filling the atmosphere with mind-controlling substances.

In other news, you want to "cut the thread short" because... why? You don't want to debate it? What the fuck kind of half-assed, repetitious straw man is this "we didn't land on the moon" horseshit? Where in this thread or in those direct links is anyone arguing that?

And if this scalar-energy-weather-war stuff is really so verifiably loony, does it really deserve this much focused anger and loathing? Or is this merely a denial mechanism?

I ask all of the above in all seriousness. I sit on the fence on this between total disbelief and imagined possibility via extrapolation. On one hand, it's all so very far fetched. On the other, the weatherwars.info site is written by a meteorologist. This is the first time I've heard of the site. It's well written, but excitable and not exactly what I would call reliable.

However, this video is just fucking freaky looking. Why the hell is there a linear vortex of condensation peeling off a cloud and moving rapidly against the easily observable prevalent wind currents? Why are there two conjoined vortexes? At right angles to each other? I've spent a fair amount of time watching the sky. I've been in tornadic supercells, huge tropical storms, and just about every kind of whether except a full blown hurricane, sleet and blizzards, and I've never seen anything even remotely as active and weird looking as that. Sure, I've seen huge dust devils and horizontally rolling vortexes and all kinds of weird structure. But they generally move with the prevailing wind and cloud structures. That thing in the video is very odd.

And these photos of contrails by airborne pilots are intense looking, with or without any ominous tinfoil hat rumblings.

Finally, if there's one important thing that history has taught me, particularly about the interface between science , technology, war, and politics it's that the truth is very often even stranger and weirder than we can imagine.
posted by loquacious at 4:57 AM on September 5, 2005

Considering the culture of secrecy in the Feddle Gummint since the 1940's, I'm sure there is stuff they have we can't imagine. After all, this is the same government that spent (documented) millions on remote viewing and researched using LSD for mind control.

Consider this: if, in 1944, you heard the government was working on a weapon that would turn cities to glass, turn people to cinders, kill others with invisible rays, make the land so poisoned that nobody could ever live there again, and quite possibly end up being the death of all humanity, what would your reaction have been?

Do I believe ALL this stuff? Nah. But do I believe there is technology being developed that would curl your hair and turn it white? You betcha. (Perhaps my gullibility is influenced by those clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas I was exposed to as a child in St. Louis in 1953.)

The most interesting thing about this post is the uniformly derisive comments. Rational thinkers should at least consider the possiblilties and implications before reflexively tarring augustweed with such a wide brush.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 4:58 AM on September 5, 2005

Is this evidence that Katrina was steered toward New Orleans using scalar technology?

I think it's this bit of stupidity that everyone is responding to.
I could pose lots of ridiculous questions in a serious format, but that doesn't mean that anyone else should take me seriously.

I think it's hard for some of us to remember that Bush and Co. are not the devil's spawn, but humans. Misguided perhaps, but human.
posted by recurve at 5:15 AM on September 5, 2005

Has scalar technology been used to make Metafilter jump the shark? You decide!
posted by LarryC at 5:21 AM on September 5, 2005

This is possibly the most fucking retarded front page post I have ever seen at Metafilter. Whoever posted this needs to have his head examined.
posted by aerify at 5:22 AM on September 5, 2005

I order you to answer my absurd questions legitimately!
posted by Ynoxas at 5:23 AM on September 5, 2005

I don't "believe in it" any more than I would believe in timecube theory. I believe that we landed on the moon. But I could also believe that it's entirely possible that it could have been hoaxed for propaganda reasons - given enough authoritative evidence.

I am also able to suspend my disbelief for a moment and extrapolate from history and suppose a mighty big "what if?".

So, convince me.
posted by loquacious at 5:28 AM on September 5, 2005

The truth is simply: they would if they could but they can't.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:28 AM on September 5, 2005

This thread is a litmus test.
posted by Espy Gillespie at 5:35 AM on September 5, 2005

i have a two word explanation for hurricane katrina ... shit happens

look, massive killer hurricanes have been with us a long time ... just what was so different about this one that one would feel compelled to blame it on some mysterious secret weapon?

that being said, i've often wondered if all the radio signals we've been saturating the earth with might have effects we have no idea about ... but, seeing as we didn't keep track before we started doing that and seeing as it's impossible to set up a planet or even part of a planet without this man made radiation, i guess we have no way of knowing, do we? ... perhaps such things create interference patterns that can produce odd phenomena ... perhaps one could even figure out how it works and harness it

here is one "chemtrail" related thought ... i don't have a link, but when planes stopped flying in the u s after 9/11 someone did a study of temperatures across the us and discovered that they went up slightly during this time frame, because the water vapor from the planes wasn't blocking the sunlight anymore ... there's one unexpected consequence right there of one of our technologies

i wonder if there are others ... i wonder if they could be harnessed
posted by pyramid termite at 5:47 AM on September 5, 2005

"Consider this: if, in 1944, you heard the government was working on a weapon that would turn cities to glass, turn people to cinders, kill others with invisible rays, make the land so poisoned that nobody could ever live there again, and quite possibly end up being the death of all humanity, what would your reaction have been?"

I would have believed it because scientists had been discussing the possibility of a nuclear bomb for at least twenty-five years. H. G. Wells had written about one.

The basic science of the atomic bomb was, for the most part, understood prior to the Manhattan project. You couldn't have picked a worse example for your argument. And I don't really think there are many, if any, that are better. I challenge you to find a single weapons technology that sprung, full-blown, from an unknown science.

"This thread is a litmus test."

Yeah, and obviously some people are idiots.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:50 AM on September 5, 2005

EB:

Science fiction also discusses weather control, telepathy, programmable matter, intersteller travel, faster than light travel, and all kinds of things. Many of which are based directly in or extrapolations of science fact. Many of which are utter fantasy - as far as we can conceive.

Frank Herbert's Dune discusses weather control and alludes to EMF technology involved in it. Then again, it also discusses force fields, anti gravity, giant fucking sandworms and mind-altering, prescience-bestowing hallucingenic drugs.

What I would really like at this point is for a real expert to weigh in, preferably some hard-science Tesla-licking mad scientist nutjob. Some of the things I've heard about Tesla's experiments are just unbelievable. But some of them are true.

Anecdotal: I once knew a very grounded and very skilled EMF/RF engineer, firmware designer and satellite engineer that made some pretty outlandish claims. Like destroying every CRT TV tube for miles around with a shoddy but very large Tesla coil he built as a teenager, and blacking out a huge portion of his childhood city for even farther.
posted by loquacious at 6:03 AM on September 5, 2005

Metafilter: snarking like a bunch of useless buffoons
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:07 AM on September 5, 2005

The only way to stop this would have been to wrap the entire Gulf Coast in tin foil.

Or maybe the real conspiracy about conspiracy theories is that they all come down to tin foil, it's all just a scam to increase profits for RJR Nabisco!

No blood for tin foil!
posted by Mick at 6:09 AM on September 5, 2005

4. Mind control on a mass scale has now become possible, and the machines to do it are already in place in certain nations. It has become possible to mentally enslave whole populations with the twist of a few dials.

This is the 21st century. Shouldn't we have gotten rid of dials, knobs, and oversized buttons by now? Maybe not. Scotty, warp 2 please.
posted by Ron at 6:12 AM on September 5, 2005

Look, in the next few weeks and months those of us who believe that George Bush will be forced to to confront his role as an irresposible leader and perhaps criminally incompetant chief administrator during one of the nation's most devastating natural disasters HAVE OUR WORK CUT OUT FOR US. We don't need to get into the double-wierdness Fortean Times zone to explain what happened.

On reading this post I was so upset I had to shapeshift back into human form just to type this response. Now it's back to being a lizard for me. There are some really tasty aphids on my tomato plants today....
posted by zaelic at 6:18 AM on September 5, 2005

my man loqua-cizzle:

keep fighting the good fight. the post itself might be absurd, and might not be, but fuck if it ain't attracting the most close-minded fux to drag knuckles across this rocky li'l outcrop.

the yang to the skeptic's yin is the notion that anything is possible. a mouse riding on top of a cat that is astride a dog? it exists. intelligent design? exists in the minds of some.

government activity that completely disregards the well-being of the public? WELL DOCUMENTED.
posted by Hat Maui at 6:22 AM on September 5, 2005

Now that's some better S&M.
posted by loquacious at 6:22 AM on September 5, 2005

and GW was on the grassy knoll . . . .
posted by caddis at 6:26 AM on September 5, 2005

(Sorry, that was in response to zaelic.)
posted by loquacious at 6:27 AM on September 5, 2005

I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats, I'll read it again and again.
posted by OmieWise at 6:34 AM on September 5, 2005

That weatherwars.info site has a lot of quality photographs of strange cloud formations.
posted by sonofsamiam at 6:36 AM on September 5, 2005

Nothing was better than Cats. Nothing. You're obviously insane.
posted by loquacious at 6:37 AM on September 5, 2005

HG Wells's vision of a nuclear bomb was extrapolation of known science. This is crankery. Invariably those who rely most upon the trope of past paradigm shifting discoveries by unheralded geniuses are people who neither know science nor know the history of science.

The irony of "open-mindedness" as it's being argued for here is that the advocate asserts that by being open to such a wide range of possibilities he is better able to understand reality, much like the man who turns and looks out into the world from Plato's cave—while, in fact, the "open-mindedness" means to be firmly staring at the cave wall which is one's own greatest comfort. The "open-minded" person is not open-minded so as to be more available to the truth, they are so because they want to have a freer hand in chosing a "truth" that suits their purposes.

Thus the conspiracy-theorist so often imposes the terrain of his mind and experience on the external world and calls it "truth", and thinks himself the wiser for it, and yet is all the more foolish.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:40 AM on September 5, 2005

I remember in the late eighties the Soviets were hosting the Goodwill Games. I read in an article that there was rain expected in Moscow (or wherever it was) and so the Soviets were doing something to the atmosphere so that it would not rain on the Goodwill Games. At the time, I thought, "Really? Are you kidding me? They can do that? What else can they do?" But there was no real story on it, and I have not really heard about anything like that since. If they were able to prevent rain over fifteen years ago, I would have to wonder what can be done now. I would also wonder why this technology is not used to prevent floods, droughts, etc.

Does anyone know about this Goodwill Games episode or anything about that technology?
posted by flarbuse at 6:40 AM on September 5, 2005

CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
posted by Hat Maui at 6:41 AM on September 5, 2005

"Rather than snarking like a bunch of useless buffoons, would anyone care to provide links to counterarguments, or to provide the counterarguments themselves?"

Counterarguments to what loquacious?? So the post has merit because it's flawed premis is not being refuted with some "evidence"? What a ridiculous position to take. It's like stating the sun doesn't really rise in the east and now we have to prove it does. As for your Tesla andectode, I believe Etherial sums that up well regarding the Manhattan Project.

The conspiracy theorists on Mefi are really just turning the big blue into a big joke. If Bush and company could actually control the weather...they would. We'd all wake up to 75˚ and sunny every election day.
posted by j.p. Hung at 6:45 AM on September 5, 2005

HG Wells's vision of a nuclear bomb was extrapolation of known science. This is crankery. Invariably those who rely most upon the trope of past paradigm shifting discoveries by unheralded geniuses are people who neither know science nor know the history of science.

The irony of "open-mindedness" as it's being argued for here is that the advocate asserts that by being open to such a wide range of possibilities he is better able to understand reality, much like the man who turns and looks out into the world from Plato's cave—while, in fact, the "open-mindedness" means to be firmly staring at the cave wall which is one's own greatest comfort. The "open-minded" person is not open-minded so as to be more available to the truth, they are so because they want to have a freer hand in chosing a "truth" that suits their purposes.

Thus the conspiracy-theorist so often imposes the terrain of his mind and experience on the external world and calls it "truth", and thinks himself the wiser for it, and yet is all the more foolish.

anyone hear the sound of one hand fwapping?
posted by Hat Maui at 6:46 AM on September 5, 2005

sorry. jrun or something.
posted by Hat Maui at 6:47 AM on September 5, 2005

"Rather than snarking like a bunch of useless buffoons, would anyone care to provide links to counterarguments, or to provide the counterarguments themselves?"

Counterarguments to what loquacious?? So the post has merit because it's flawed premis is not being refuted with some "evidence"? What a ridiculous position to take. It's like stating the sun doesn't really rise in the east and now we have to prove it does. As for your Tesla andectode, I believe Etherial sums that up well regarding the Manhattan Project.

The conspiracy theorists on Mefi are really just turning the big blue into a big joke. We can't tell you where a hurricane is going to go with any certainty but now we are to believe it was created and steered there?
posted by j.p. Hung at 6:48 AM on September 5, 2005

"It's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by a -- the worst kind of weapon you can imagine" ~ George W. Bush September 2, 2005
...Is this evidence that Katrina was steered toward New Orleans using scalar technology?

I'd say it's evidence of the opposite. We don't say "It's as if" about things that have actually happened. We don't say "It's as if Hiroshima were destroyed by an atomic bomb," and we don't say "It's as if Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans." We don't say it because it's not "as if," it just is. We use "as if" to describe states that are resembled but not actually true. So if I say I feel as if my head has exploded, you can rest assured that it has not actually exploded.
posted by leapingsheep at 6:49 AM on September 5, 2005

MeFi's going further down the drain every day.

And it's probably being pulled there by reptilian aliens using George Bush as a tool of their evil scalar technology forces!!!
posted by languagehat at 6:54 AM on September 5, 2005

*uncle harold's head explodes*
posted by uncle harold at 6:55 AM on September 5, 2005

posted by darukaru at 6:57 AM on September 5, 2005

Hey man, "Katrina" is a russian sounding name. what more proof do you need that this was the FSB's work!

They fucked up with Ivan, but they got us with Katrina!!!!
posted by delmoi at 7:13 AM on September 5, 2005

The conspiracy theorists on Mefi are really just turning the big blue into a big joke. If Bush and company could actually control the weather...they would. We'd all wake up to 75˚ and sunny every election day.

In the Red states, anyway.
posted by delmoi at 7:15 AM on September 5, 2005

flarbuse, from what I recall, the Soviets used to prevent rain during their May Day parades, by using transport aircraft to spread cement dust over any clouds in the area.
posted by veedubya at 7:16 AM on September 5, 2005

Soviets were doing something to the atmosphere so that it would not rain on the Goodwill Games. At the time, I thought, "Really? Are you kidding me? They can do that? What else can they do?" If they were able to prevent rain over fifteen years ago, I would have to wonder what can be done now. I would also wonder why this technology is not used to prevent floods, droughts, etc.

british rain making experiments kill 35.

People know how to control the weather, a little bit. I've seen estimates though about what it would take to stop a hurricane. The price tag I've seen is 8-10 billion dollars, per hurricane, involving hundreds of jetliners full of stuff. After this, though I'd be willing to bet it will be looked into a bit more.
posted by delmoi at 7:18 AM on September 5, 2005

Nothing was better than Cats. Nothing.
I agree. Cats was worse than nothing.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:33 AM on September 5, 2005

I agree. Cats was worse than nothing.

Nobody really thinks that.
posted by nervousfritz at 7:35 AM on September 5, 2005

Metafilter: Wrapped in tin foil.
posted by LarryC at 7:41 AM on September 5, 2005

Hmmm...I saw something in San Diego in the mid 90's that looked like one of those massive contrail thingies--it was anyway something that didn't resemble even remotely anything I'd ever seen before. The local news, in response to a flood of phone calls reported that it was a rocket released from an Air Force base in northern California. But it had a pretty weird trajectory for a rocket. So they must have been engineering the weather.

I think it rained after that too. Really hard.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 7:47 AM on September 5, 2005

Nobody really thinks that.

Prove it.

posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:48 AM on September 5, 2005

Mind control on a mass scale has now become possible, and the machines to do it are already in place in certain nations. It has become possible to mentally enslave whole populations with the twist of a few dials.

I don't watch much TV anymore, though.
posted by alumshubby at 7:52 AM on September 5, 2005

Counterarguments to what loquacious?? So the post has merit because it's flawed premis is not being refuted with some "evidence"? What a ridiculous position to take. It's like stating the sun doesn't really rise in the east and now we have to prove it does.

That's not at all what I'm arguing. I have decidely avoided arguing outright that the post has merit. And if you really want to split philosophical hairs, what the fuck is "east" other than an abstracted name for spinward rotation as seen from a body in a solar orbit?

I have news for you. There's no up. There's no down. There certainly is no such thing as "east" or "west". There are no straight lines, flat surfaces, perfect Euclidean shapes or planes. The Universe is a fucking decidedly fuzzy and non-linear place. Not even time is linear. The closest thing I can think of that approaches a definable perfection would be a gravitational singularity, or Pi. But Pi itself is irrational and ultimately non-definable. In the abstracted conceptual world of math, symbology and formal systems these things may exist as concepts - but they do not translate beyond that to reality.

What I'm arguing is "Don't just tell me it's stupid idea simply because you can't imagine it and you think it's stupid - tell me why it's stupid." If at all possible, put aside the whole icky business of the way this post is framed around Hurricane Katrina.

For an example argument and it's refutation: "Star Trek" style teleportation. Single point of origin, transmission, and reception. No "matched pairs" of physical transceivers required for transport. It's plausible. It could even possibly be done. Accounting for all currently known quantum states, assuming adequate computing power, the energy scales required to do the job of transporting one human from orbit to the surface of a planet and re-assembling them properly with known particle technologies would require an energy scale of something on the order of the entire energy output of our sun over it's lifetime.

That to me is an excellent example of plausible open-mindedness and refutation of immediate possibility. All kinds of easily unbelievable things are possible.

As for your Tesla andectode, I believe Etherial sums that up well regarding the Manhattan Project.

No, it doesn't. I labeled it anecdotal because it is. I have every reason to personally believe this guy because I got to know him, and I knew that he was grounded, well versed in hard science, not at all prone to exaggeration and fantasy, and a superb and brilliant engineer. My argument in this example is that this is an outlandish tale that few would likely believe, but is most likely true - considering I saw clippings from a dated local newspaper confirming his tale.

The conspiracy theorists on Mefi are really just turning the big blue into a big joke. If Bush and company could actually control the weather...they would. We'd all wake up to 75? and sunny every election day.

You'd believe that the current administration - subjectively accused of intensive fear-mongering tactics to push through unconstitutional laws and acts of war and to motivate a voting base - would want everyone to be happy and satisfied on election day? You're braver than I thought.

We can't tell you where a hurricane is going to go with any certainty but now we are to believe it was created and steered there?

Who is "we"? Who is "they"? You want to talk about failed premises? How about your assumption that the US government always and forever has the immediate comfort and best interests of its citizens or the citizens of the world at large in mind.

Let's assume this technology exists. Hell, assume UFOs exist if it makes the argument easier, or any other sufficiently incomprehensible and panic-inducing technology.

With the United States known and documented record of secrecy and paranoia, do you really think that they would (hypothetically, of course) just let the cat out of the bag and admit publicly to the world they've just developed a new - metaphorical - atomic bomb? Which would probably inspire a new arms race, accusations of it being used any time a country was devastated by a hurricane, and cause a general panic among the people of the US and the world?

And that is what I'm arguing. It's more implausible to me that if the US had something like this that it would openly use this technology for good than it is that the technology itself is to be outright considered impossible.
posted by loquacious at 7:53 AM on September 5, 2005

I think the Soviets were trying to seed the clouds well upwind of the area to cause them to essentially empty prior to getting to the game site. That is just my recollection.
posted by caddis at 7:55 AM on September 5, 2005

The basic science of the atomic bomb was, for the most part, understood prior to the Manhattan project. You couldn't have picked a worse example for your argument.

Maybe understood by physicists, but not by the population at large. (If you happen to be a Scalar Technology Physicist, please speak up.)

The possiblity and consequences of such a weapon were outside the experience of the average man of the time. (Wasn't it Teller that was concerned that the first bomb test would ignite the entire planet's atmosphere? But they did it anyway.)

And the reason the physicists could understand the concept was that scientific research was more likely to be shared rather than hidden by governments than it is today. (See Marxchivist FPP from yesterday about un-paralled government "classifications" of "secrets" if you need some background info.)

Also, nice try equating having an open mind to being a raving conspiracy theorist with pre-conceived agendas of "truth".

Same tar, same wide brush.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 7:56 AM on September 5, 2005

Also, nice try equating having an open mind to being a raving conspiracy theorist with pre-conceived agendas of "truth".

That's what the Flat Earth Society says too. So it must be true! Hey, loquacious, whaddaya think: the earth could be flat, right? All kinds of easily unbelievable things are possible.
posted by languagehat at 8:00 AM on September 5, 2005

Okay, the scalar technology crap is pure tinfoil-hat stuff, but the possibility of steering a hurricane may not be quite so farfetched. As a supercritical system with many physical feedback loops controlling the overall direction and strength, a hurricane shares many qualities with other chaotic systems. It has been observed that small perturbations in chaotic systems can lead to predictable outcomes. Applied to a hurricane, it is conceivable that the application of small energy inputs (still probably measured in kilotons of TNT) in the right places and times could allow the system as a whole to behave predictably.
But still, imagining that anyone with that capability, especially the US government, would steer Katrina into the US itself is, well, insane. If the US were experimenting with hurricane steering, they'd be steering them away from land and into parked target ships or something. Or, to put it into a conspiracy thoughtspace that the tinfoil hatters can grasp, GWB wouldn't want all those valuable oil processing plants in NOLA to be damaged, so he sure as heck wouldn't be testing hurricane steering by flattening NOLA.
posted by gregor-e at 8:08 AM on September 5, 2005

Hey, languagehat, whaddaya think: Strawman?

Or are you thinking of the Earth as "viewed" from an alternate dimension? If so, sure. But first, define "flat".
posted by loquacious at 8:08 AM on September 5, 2005

Hey, what the bleep do we know, anyhow?

But why would the dark conspiracy have to worry about letting the cat out of the bag when the energy weapon, life everlasting, etc. have already been commercially available since 2003 in the form of the Motionless Elecromagnetic Generator?

For once people are in possession of such devices there can be no further denial from anyone, including the government and/or "secret-government."

...The first units off the assembly line, which is being set up in a "friendly" unnamed nation, will usher the public at last into the new era of scalar electromagnetics.
posted by johngoren at 8:09 AM on September 5, 2005

I think Occam cut himself shaving this morning.
posted by peacay at 8:09 AM on September 5, 2005

gregor-e: We tested nukes on ourselves, didn't we? And even did fallout experiments and monitoring on the public. And what's better for an oilman than a whole lot of demand and high prices?

(Damn, I'm sure playing a whole lot of Devil's Advocate in this thread. Someone hand me a fiddle.)
posted by loquacious at 8:11 AM on September 5, 2005

Also, I just want to add that I heard from a Lyndon LaRouche supporter that the Asian tsunami was caused by a "refrigerator-sized object" deflected into the sea by U.S. lasers.
posted by johngoren at 8:12 AM on September 5, 2005

Wanted for questioning:

posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:13 AM on September 5, 2005

Isn't it obvious? Behold the power of Google! Kneel before Google!
posted by Joeforking at 8:16 AM on September 5, 2005

While I would not at all be surprised to discover the US government has been researching weather manipulation (they are known to have invested in remote viewing, for instance) it seems very implausible that they would use any such technology (assuming their research was fruitful) against NO.

For one, every justification that conspiracists have dreamt up would be more easily and cheaply effected with a fake nuclear attack on American soil. Can anyone come up with a plot that would necessitate hurricanes to facilitate a coup that wouldn't work just as well with nuclear weapons? It just seems sort of rube-goldbergish (i.e. ZIONIST! ;) ).

Not that the tragedy in NO won't be used as political justification for consolidating power. I think we are ruled by opportunists more than supervillains.

google "operation northwoods", though.
posted by sonofsamiam at 8:17 AM on September 5, 2005

They can't organise a piss-up in a brewery. It's their mixture of overweening ego, greed and incompetence that makes them dangerous, not their woo woo superweapons.
posted by carter at 8:17 AM on September 5, 2005

loquacious, there's a difference between SF authors writing about hyperspace or telepathy or small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, and scientists having had the basic theory for a good while.

If you asked a scientifically literate person in 1944 -- say someone who'd been a physics or chem major in college -- about a city-killing bomb of unimaginable power, they'd probably say "What, an atom bomb?"

I won't speak to "Victorian sportsmen," but the people in the shortly pre-flight period who were arguing against flight weren't saying FLIGHT IS IMPOSSIBLE or GOD FORBIDS IT, but boring things like "The power to weight ratio of steam engines is too low to allow flight," which is basically true, and "Internal combustion engines do not develop enough power for flight," which was true at the time but a bit lacking in foresight. They weren't talking about fundamental rewrites of large parts of physics, they were talking about needing better, lighter engines.

Why the hell is there a linear vortex of condensation peeling off a cloud and moving rapidly against the easily observable prevalent wind currents?

Looks to me like clouds at different layers of the atmosphere moving in different directions. I've seen stuff like that on more than a few squall lines that have blown over my wee house in Texas, though that's freakier than most. I've certainly seen clouds do freakier stuff here.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:18 AM on September 5, 2005

You don't suppose Bush was just trying to avoid saying "nuclear bomb," (or, rather, "nucular bomb") or something very similar, do you? Because that's sure what it sounded like to me.

Crackpot conspiracy theories are really not called for right now. Come to think of it, I can't think of a time when they are.
posted by cerebus19 at 8:25 AM on September 5, 2005

carter: Agreed, wholeheartedly.

ROU_Xenophobe: Point taken.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that argument about the cloud video. Without some depth perception it's hard for me to tell in the video if that vortex is peeling off of the cumulous cloud directly behind/above it or if it's entirely separate - but to me it looked like it was actually drawing some vapor off of the cloud.

In fact, on another viewing of the video it does indeed look to me like it's feeding off of the cumulous cloud. But that doesn't mean it's not a wholly natural phenomenon.
posted by loquacious at 8:29 AM on September 5, 2005

Don't try to argue about what's conceivable and when. All it will do is lead the physics-illiterate loonies to the conclusion that you are a close-minded individual, and therefore, their open-minded theory must be right.

The single point is that "scalar energy" has no connection to science whatsoever. There is no experiment that has reliably and in scientifically testable terms provided any proof of it's existence. Not even a hint, nothing even circumstantial.

It is a pure product of phantasy. And don't come demanding proof. If you are arguing for something that completely goes beyond everything we know about how the world works, the proof is to be shown by you. As for that, you didn't go beyond "I have an open mind" so far.

If that is to be a basis for an argument, I might as well claim Spiderman exists in reality and demand proof of you if you disagree.
posted by uncle harold at 8:38 AM on September 5, 2005

Some evil fiend dumped a bunch of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere, rising the temperature of the air above the gulf of mexico and powering this deadly Hurricane attack.
posted by Artw at 8:39 AM on September 5, 2005

Not to derail, but isn't this article in Nature implying that the Earth may indeed be flat?
posted by 31d1 at 8:47 AM on September 5, 2005

Your sixth link has a typo:

Weather as a Force Multiplier: ~~Owning~~ 0Wn0rZ!nG the Weather in 2025
posted by odinsdream at 8:51 AM on September 5, 2005

Clinching proof that scalar technology not only exists but is in widespread deployment!
posted by johngoren at 8:51 AM on September 5, 2005

Hey guys! Did you know that a Jewish missile hit the Pentagon on 9/11?
ITS TEH TRUEXXOR!
posted by klangklangston at 8:57 AM on September 5, 2005

sooo.... "scalar" meaning a quantity that is defined by its magnitude only. most of these terms are nonsensical.

although this whole thing could explain one thing: the gob'ment is controlling my mind and making me date a girl from iowa who was raised on a hog farm.

er, wait...

no... scalar! it's PERL VARIABLES. they're controlling EVERYTHING. and they AUTOVIVICATE. HOLY SHIATE!
posted by teletype1 at 9:03 AM on September 5, 2005

Nothing was better than Cats. Nothing. You're obviously insane.

Well, I know one person who's obviously never seen Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter.

I have news for you. There's no up. There's no down.

There's not? There's no such thing as nearer or farther from the center of the Earth?

There certainly is no such thing as "east" or "west".

Just one great fellowship of love about the whole wide earth. There's also no such thing as Jew or Greek or male or female, for the same reasons.

But Pi itself is irrational and ultimately non-definable.

Um? Pi is easily definable. Pi is a circle's circumference divided by its diameter. "Irrational" doesn't mean CRAZY INSANE WACKY, it means "not expressible as a fraction."

I once knew a very grounded and very skilled EMF/RF engineer, firmware designer and satellite engineer that made some pretty outlandish claims.

I guess you have to run in the right circles to pick up on this, but engineers are notoriously prone to crank-ism. Especially electrical engineers, for some reason. Lots of UFOlogists and bigfootphiles and ghosthunters and so on are engineers.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:03 AM on September 5, 2005

It's one thing blaming the President for all this, but now you're blaming the President for all this! That's completely different.

It's Karl Rove's fault!
posted by ericb at 9:03 AM on September 5, 2005

Looks to me like clouds at different layers of the atmosphere moving in different directions. I've seen stuff like that on more than a few squall lines that have blown over my wee house in Texas, though that's freakier than most. I've certainly seen clouds do freakier stuff here.

Not so uncommon. I believe its what helps tornados form.
posted by Ron at 9:05 AM on September 5, 2005

How to Buy a Free Energy Machine

What more needs to be said about this blather?
posted by caddis at 9:12 AM on September 5, 2005

Metafilter: Not crazy insane whacky, just not expressible as a fraction.
posted by uncle harold at 9:14 AM on September 5, 2005

teletype1 - well, regular expressions are pretty powerfull.
posted by Artw at 9:24 AM on September 5, 2005

Those who are asking skeptics to have an open mind about superscience weapons should realize that getting a fair hearing means that, in return, they have to bear the burden of proof.
posted by growli at 9:25 AM on September 5, 2005

According to The Physics Crackpot Index, this post scores 101. How's that for a scalar?
posted by odinsdream at 9:26 AM on September 5, 2005

Hey man, "Katrina" is a russian sounding name. what more proof do you need that this was the FSB's work!

Actually, "Katrina" is an old English name.

loquacious, some smart dude once said that sometimes, when you open your mind too far, your brain falls out.
Maybe its time to pick it up..
posted by c13 at 9:39 AM on September 5, 2005

Nobody really thinks that.
Kirth Gerson: Prove it.

In order to prove that Nobody thinks something, you have to get Everyone's opinion. As Anyone knows, it's nearly impossible to get Everyone to agree on anything. Therefore I don't think it's possible to prove it, and the burden may rest with you to show it false.
posted by nervousfritz at 9:55 AM on September 5, 2005

Actually, Katrina and all veriations of Catherine is all greek to me.

Follow the chain.
posted by zerokey at 9:56 AM on September 5, 2005

*variations
posted by zerokey at 9:57 AM on September 5, 2005

You don't suppose Bush was just trying to avoid saying "nuclear bomb," (or, rather, "nucular bomb") or something very similar, do you? Because that's sure what it sounded like to me.

"...obliterated by a weapon of mass destruction," maybe? And he actually stopped himself in time, gotta give him credit for that.
posted by greatgefilte at 10:26 AM on September 5, 2005

I humbly submit he was actually listening to Karl Rove via wiring on his back and had to have a brief pause to catch up with him because he had no idea what to say next. There, you see, no need for conspiracy.
posted by funambulist at 10:42 AM on September 5, 2005

In order to prove that Nobody thinks something, you have to get Everyone's opinion. As Anyone knows, it's nearly impossible to get Everyone to agree on anything. Therefore I don't think it's possible to prove it, and the burden may rest with you to show it false.

I think it. I am somebody. Therefore your statement is false. QED.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:47 AM on September 5, 2005

Kind of presumptuous of you to decide what the entire planet thinks about something, isn't it?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:49 AM on September 5, 2005

Can the government control the weather? Probably not to the extent that some believe, but probably more than the total skeptics would want to believe.
Do you think Bush would desire, and secretly fund research into ways to control the weather? You bet.

They probably can't create or destroy hurricanes, but they probably have the (Tesla) technology to give helpful nudges to storm clouds.

The amount of energy in a cat5 hurricane is more than the total energy usage (by humans) for the planet in about a year. But little bursts of energy probably could divert, or guide in, storms. Does anybody think the government wouldn't want that power? They've funded wackier projects.
posted by Balisong at 10:54 AM on September 5, 2005

To recap, I haven't argued for scalar energy, it's use in weather control, or otherwise. I haven't argued for anything that the main post posits as true.

I've only argued in favor of possibilities, and have tried to point out that the off-handed scorn evident in this thread is either misplaced or misdirected.

I've never said "the people in the shortly pre-flight period who were arguing against flight [were] saying FLIGHT IS IMPOSSIBLE or GOD FORBIDS IT"

There's so many strawmen being stuffed in this thread I feel like I just took a forced roll in the hay.

However, I have said: "I sit on the fence on this between total disbelief and imagined possibility via extrapolation."

I'm arguing in favor of keeping the door open, rather than slamming it firmly shut. That dosn't mean I'm arguing something exists outside the door. I'm not arguing that we should step through the door. I'm simply arguing in favor of keeping it open.

c13: I have a pretty healthy sense of skepticism. Admittedly not as well developed as others, but firm enough for government work. But it certainly hasn't fallen out, and if you'd actually read and comprehend the arguments I've posted in this thread you'd see that. See above.

ROU_Xenophobe wrote:
Um? Pi is easily definable. Pi is a circle's circumference divided by its diameter. "Irrational" doesn't mean CRAZY INSANE WACKY, it means "not expressible as a fraction."

Uh, yeah. I know how to find Pi in planar Euclidean geometry, and what an irrational number is, thanks. Now define "circle" - in functional, real world, non-Euclidean terms. And Pi is indeed expressible as a continued fraction, among other methods. Depending on which camp you're from, a continued fraction may or may not be a fraction. But an expression of Pi in a continued fraction is just as valid as a Euclidean plane geometry derivation, if only more unweildy.

Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.

R. Buckminster Fuller
posted by loquacious at 11:12 AM on September 5, 2005

Oh god, Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter was so much better than Cats.

To anybody who's seen the movie: Doesn't post-haircut Jesus look a lot like Jason Kottke?
posted by blasdelf at 11:17 AM on September 5, 2005

If you asked a scientifically literate person in 1944 -- say someone who'd been a physics or chem major in college -- about a city-killing bomb of unimaginable power, they'd probably say "What, an atom bomb?"

Read all about it:

Cleve Cartmill, a competent writer of middling abilities, published a story describing the workings of the atomic bomb in a 1944 issue of John Campbell’s magazine Astounding Science Fiction, fourteen months before the first successful atomic explosion at the Alamogordo testing grounds, thus causing a Federal security agency to investigate both Cartmill and Campbell to see if there had been a leak of top-secret military information.

posted by languagehat at 11:17 AM on September 5, 2005

I haven't argued for scalar energy ... I've only argued in favor of possibilities, and have tried to point out that the off-handed scorn evident in this thread is either misplaced or misdirected.

It's one thing to argue that the military is doing something that seems technologically difficult, or that would require a lot of research, or would be expensive, or that would be immoral.

It's something else to say that the military is doing something that means that physicists still have electromagnetism simply, basically, fundamentally wrong, as the scalar stuff seems to say.

This isn't up there with atom bombs, flight, or energy beam weapons. This is like saying the US military has developed weapons that allow soldiers to destroy targets by focusing their chi.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:23 AM on September 5, 2005

languagehat: That sounds a lot like Philip K. Dick's "The Zap Gun". That might actually be where he got the story idea from.
posted by loquacious at 11:24 AM on September 5, 2005

Do you think Bush would desire, and secretly fund research into ways to control the weather? You bet.
Do you think every leader ever in the entirety of history, not to mention most regular human beings, would desire ways to control the weather? You bet.
posted by darukaru at 11:26 AM on September 5, 2005

ROU_Xenophobe:

This isn't up there with atom bombs, flight, or energy beam weapons. This is like saying the US military has developed weapons that allow soldiers to destroy targets by focusing their chi.

Yeah, I'm fine with that argument. What part of "I haven't argued [in favor or support of] scalar energy" didn't you grasp? Other than the fact that I'm arguing for a very general and vague defense of "possibilities" I don't know why you keep assuming I actually, actively support this scalar tinfoil weirdo energy hat stew.
posted by loquacious at 11:29 AM on September 5, 2005

We can safely bet they ARE working on a weather control project; the "Powers That Be" want to control damn near everything else that could possibly benefit them. So only real dispute is whether they've succeeded in controlling the weather YET. If scalar energy turns out to be crap something else would work.

"Commonsense sceptics" are losing credibility all the time. If stories about MK-ULTRA were just starting to leak out you'd be snarking about "tinfoil beanies" and "missed medication". People like you enable tyrants as much as those who stage photo ops and put on fancy uniforms, and the silly thing is you do it for FREE. And still you'll complain that the Enemy is grabbing too much power, simply refusing to admit how much you're flat-out GIVING them. This is not to say that you have to believe every "conspiracy theory" that floats down the street, only that you should try refraining from automatically calling all of them crazy. (It's great when I can point to a fictional example of "'conspiracy theory' vs. coverup".)

Buy you know, y'all have strong precedent on your side: "The Earth moves around the Sun? Hogwash. I'll bet Galileo's been forgetting to pick the fungus off his rye bread again. But then them science geeks usually ain't wrapped too tight anyhow. Uh-huh, I'll need confirmation of Wacko Galileo's 'Earth-moving' theory from a reputable authority like the Pope before I'll believe it."

(If I could type faster there wouldn't be so many comments before this saying essentially the same thing, but oh well.)
posted by davy at 11:40 AM on September 5, 2005

I don't know why you keep assuming I actually, actively support this scalar tinfoil weirdo energy hat stew.

That would be because when people point out that it's claptrap, you keep talking about "possibilities." Your conduct is consistent with someone who believes in it, and not terribly consistent with somebody who thinks it's garbage.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:52 AM on September 5, 2005

That would be because when people point out that it's claptrap, you keep talking about "possibilities." Your conduct is consistent with someone who believes in it, and not terribly consistent with somebody who thinks it's garbage.

Just what I was about to say.
posted by languagehat at 12:02 PM on September 5, 2005

Ok, this is clearly a crock. But since some of you are gullible enough to buy this crap without bothering to THINK about it, let me poke just one little whole in this.

One of the links in the OP claims that "just ike energy can be locked up in mass, E=mc^2, energy is also present in time! So, E=delta-t * c^2!!! omg!"

The units of energy are energy are mass times distance squared over time squared:

E = (mass) * (velocity)^2, or (mass * distance ^2) / (time ^2).

When we do the same thing with time:

E =? (time) * (velocity)^2, or (time * distance^2) / (time^2)

We end up with:

E =? (distance)^2 / (time)

distane^2 / time is NOT 'energy'. It's a meaningless term.
posted by spincycle at 12:03 PM on September 5, 2005

I'm just saying, for the umpteenth time, that there's no "h" in the word "wacky."
posted by stenseng at 12:03 PM on September 5, 2005

"This is like saying the US military has developed weapons that allow soldiers to destroy targets by focusing their chi."

MUAD'DIB IS A KILLING WORD!!!
posted by zoogleplex at 12:07 PM on September 5, 2005

I saw this post and thought:
Uh-oh, someone listened to "Coast to Coast" a lot longer than I did the other night before I remembered why I fecking don't listen to "Coast to Coast."
posted by NorthernLite at 12:23 PM on September 5, 2005

Oh, come on and kick me
Oh, come on and kick me
Come on and kick me
You’ve got your problems
I’ve got my ass wipe
You’ve got your big cheese
I’ve got my hash pipe
posted by dazed_one at 12:26 PM on September 5, 2005

"Is your name Conrad?"

" No."

" Is your name Harry?"

" No."

" Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?"

" The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that!" cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.
posted by Balisong at 12:33 PM on September 5, 2005

1. Hurricanes are mammals.
2. Hurricanes fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the hurricane is to flip out and kill people.
4. Therefore, God exists.
posted by IndpMed at 1:09 PM on September 5, 2005

Buy you know, y'all have strong precedent on your side: "The Earth moves around the Sun? Hogwash. I'll bet Galileo's been forgetting to pick the fungus off his rye bread again. But then them science geeks usually ain't wrapped too tight anyhow. Uh-huh, I'll need confirmation of Wacko Galileo's 'Earth-moving' theory from a reputable authority like the Pope before I'll believe it."

Ah! The Galileo argument! prosecuted for having an open mind! Took some time until this one showed up.

Galileo had a theory that was consistent with observable facts, reproducible experiments, and logic.

Advocates of scalar energy have yet to provide even one of those three parts.

For the last time, and pleasepleaseplease with a cherry on top: We are not dismissing scalar energy because we don't believe there are things not yet explained. Neither do we dismiss scalar energy because we don't think the government is capable of experiments "outside the box".

We do so because there is not even hint, not a shred of evidence or explanation for it.
posted by uncle harold at 1:10 PM on September 5, 2005

Kirth Gerson: I think it. I am somebody. Therefore your statement is false. QED.

Just so long as you are aware that Nobody agrees with you.
posted by nervousfritz at 1:14 PM on September 5, 2005

Here is some good background on the history of weather modification. The United States and almost seventy countries around the world are party to the ENMOD treaty, which prohibits the use of environmental technologies for military purposes. Also Zombie Christ.
posted by euphorb at 1:14 PM on September 5, 2005

augustweed - do you get your name from a concert/event where one may hear a song about Taco Bob Shirley?
posted by afroblanca at 4:14 PM on September 5, 2005

Well, to put the "who benefits" analysis on it. If we assume that the current U.S. administration is acting to maintain an oil economy as long as possible, actions that disrupt oil supplies would be against his best interests. Increased gas prices lead to increased consumer interest in alternative energy, fuel economy, and alternative transportation technologies.

In regards to scalar technology, a grand unified theory that combines the electro-weak and strong forces with gravity would be the holy grail of modern physics. Governments have thrown billions of dollars on three continents to understand how these forces fit together. The basic claims of scalar technology that it is possible with relatively trivial equipment to create "anti-gravity" by using electromagentism just so lacks a lot of face validity. The fact that these claims never seem to trickle into a theory that has been published in a peer reviewed journal heightens my skepticism. And there are dozens of such journals published effectively out of the reach of either a U.S. or Soviet conspiracy to silence them.

One can be open-minded, and still consider that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:35 PM on September 5, 2005

Other than the fact that I'm arguing for a very general and vague defense of "possibilities" I don't know why you keep assuming I actually, actively support this scalar tinfoil weirdo energy hat stew.
posted by loquacious at 2:29 PM EST on September 5 [!]

So let me get this straight, all you are saying that we dismissed all that scalar crap too fast? You mean we should have waited for a few minutes? Ok. But you see, some of us heard of this shit a long time ago and long ago dismissed it as such. I, for one, heard about it at least since 1998-9, and there has been exactly zero development in the story.
posted by c13 at 4:39 PM on September 5, 2005

Loquacious, in other contexts you seem like a reasonable person, but here you've just gone off the rails. Almost everything you're saying are examples of "a little knowledge being dangerous".

I mean, I don't even know where to begin with your claptrap about pi. You can respond to ROU with Uh, yeah. I know how to find Pi in planar Euclidean geometry, but no one competent to talk about this matter would ever claim that pi is "ultimately non-definable". No one.

What do you really know about Euclidean geometry and the history of incommensurability? I've worked through Euclids Elements, I've read Euclid's use of the word "irrational number" in Greek and know what the word actually means as he intended it, and I've seen Euclidean proofs of incommensurability. I grasp the concept of "irrational numbers" in a way that most people with only modern algebraic educations do not. I've approached it from the context of the Pythagoreans who rightly thought that it is really, really weird.

But "really, really weird" doesn't mean "not definable", nor does it mean "incomprehensible".

I'm educated in both the history and philosophy of science and western mathematics and my specific intellectual interest is in epistemology and the limits of knowledge, the experience of intuitiveness and counter-intuitiveness, etc. I don't see any rigor in anything you're saying, I just see a lot of hand-waving in defense of sophistry.

In other contexts I spend a lot of time trying to explain to people how little we know, how truly weird are many of the ideas upon which modern science depends, how the unthinkable today may be thinkable tomorrow. Of course some things we think are impossible today will be commonplace tomorrow. However, most of the things we think are impossible today will remain impossible tomorrow.

The trick in being a truly reasonable and educated person is neither being open indiscriminately to all things, nor is it to be shackled by convention. The trick is in having a refined discrimination between what conventions to accept and what improbabilities to explore. That discrimination never arises spontaneously; it is refined through education and experience and hard intellectual work.

No very thoughtful person denies that our grasp of reality, what we think we know, is more tenuous than we think, or even possible for us to imagine on a practical basis. Feynman, toward the end of his career, after all he had done in creating QCD and other work, decided to focus on a really hard problem...friction.

At the dawn of the Enlightenment, "outsider science" was possible because, really, there was nothing else. Outsider science is an oxymoron today because it is simply not possible, or at least exceedingly unlikely, that anyone can do important work without the training and the community of science.

Oft quoted is Hamlet's caution to Horatio on things not dreamt of in Horatio's philosophy. But this is of a piece with Hamlet, he is a young man torn from childhood by the death of his father into the larger universe of adulthood. That universe is very strange. To be humbled by the vastness of the unknown is the beginning of wisdom, not its end. Those who offer, past the cusp of adulthood, the unknowability of the universe as rationale for bare belief, are those who, like Hamlet, dither about in ineffectuality, ultimately terrified by the unknown and not, as they often claim, in love with it. Just as so many once asserted that past the edge of their known world was Prestor John, or that he may be, but never went to check.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:08 PM on September 5, 2005

"Atom bomb? That's Sci-Fi stuff. Next you'll be going on about death rays and moon rockets. The government's not that smart or they'da gotten warning about Pearl frigging Harbor!"

Anyway. I don't understand physics well enough to know what in the fuck this "scalar" shit is supposed to be, so of course I'm not advocating for it, but that's not my point.

On the other hand, I'm still waiting for my moving sidewalk, solar-powered aircar and house-cleaning robot.
posted by davy at 5:09 PM on September 5, 2005

everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that the pentagon, by its own admission, wants to control weather (which is hardly surprising even if you think it's impossible), and a weather modification bill is currently in the works.

maybe the fpp made things a little too tinfoil-hat in an attempt to be a dramatic and well-rounded fpp, but some of it still bears noting.

that said - pentagon "freedom squalls" are still pretty low on my list of things to worry about. i'm more likely to be killed by a raccoon.
posted by poweredbybeard at 5:13 PM on September 5, 2005

What freaks me out is that enough people have suggested this...

Why don't we just nuke Hurricanes?

...for it to be on the NOAA FAQ.

A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x1013 watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind. The heat release is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes. According to the 1993 World Almanac, the entire human race used energy at a rate of 1013 watts in 1990, a rate less than 20% of the power of a hurricane.

If we think about mechanical energy, the energy at humanity's disposal is closer to the storm's, but the task of focusing even half of the energy on a spot in the middle of a remote ocean would still be formidable. Brute force interference with hurricanes doesn't seem promising.

In addition, an explosive, even a nuclear explosive, produces a shock wave, or pulse of high pressure, that propagates away from the site of the explosion somewhat faster than the speed of sound. Such an event doesn't raise the barometric pressure after the shock has passed because barometric pressure in the atmosphere reflects the weight of the air above the ground. For normal atmospheric pressure, there are about ten metric tons (1000 kilograms per ton) of air bearing down on each square meter of surface. In the strongest hurricanes there are nine. To change a Category 5 hurricane into a Category 2 hurricane you would have to add about a half ton of air for each square meter inside the eye, or a total of a bit more than half a billion (500,000,000) tons for a 20 km radius eye. It's difficult to envision a practical way of moving that much air around.

posted by noizyboy at 5:24 PM on September 5, 2005

It seems that posessing serious weather control technology would be a tremendous liability for the government. It would instantly make it possible to blame the government for any weather-related disaster, and make plausible the argument that the government actually caused the disaster.

I vehemently oppose any effort on the government's part to gain the ability to make changes to the planet's natural weather system. It's just a fucking stupid idea. That being said, I'm not even mildly surprised that those currently in power are very interested in doing this.
posted by mullingitover at 5:31 PM on September 5, 2005

A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x1013 watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind....

To change a Category 5 hurricane into a Category 2 hurricane you would have to add about a half ton of air for each square meter inside the eye, or a total of a bit more than half a billion (500,000,000) tons for a 20 km radius eye. It's difficult to envision a practical way of moving that much air around.

Of course we can do it. We've got a 3.6MW RF source half the world away! And then we can dump whole bunch of nails on highways, so that all the cars will have punctured tires and all of that extra air comes out!
Next time you have a flat tire, don't be so quick to dismiss it as bad luck..
posted by c13 at 5:50 PM on September 5, 2005

Scaler technology?
posted by TedW at 6:07 PM on September 5, 2005

IndpMed stands on the shoulders of giants.
posted by Sparx at 6:12 PM on September 5, 2005

"...obliterated by a weapon of mass destruction," maybe? And he actually stopped himself in time, gotta give him credit for that.

geflite nailed it. he was about to say that it looked like a weapon of mass destruction had hit to coast, and then he remembered, "oh shit, i'm not supposed to say that word," and covered. c'mon, people.
posted by spiderwire at 6:36 PM on September 5, 2005

Ethereal Bligh : You're right. I'm not qualified to discuss Pi.

But that's exactly the sort of rigor I hope that my Devil's Advocate sophistry and hand waving will inspire - rather than the sophmoric and dismissive "That's stupid because you're stupid because you're a stupidhead". I may make outlandish and inflammatory calls for openmindedness, but what I desire and hoped for was that people who should know better would step beyond the circular and accusatory logic so pervasive at the beginning of this thread.

Which is exactly why I've been exhorting people who know to get on with the refutations rather than the strawmen and snarky one liners.
posted by loquacious at 6:44 PM on September 5, 2005

mind-altering, prescience-bestowing hallucingenic drugs

Where might I find some of these?

The United States and almost seventy countries around the world are party to the ENMOD treaty, which prohibits the use of environmental technologies for military purposes.

Then it's a safe bet that whether or not we have something that actually works yet, we're definitely working on it...
posted by eustacescrubb at 6:44 PM on September 5, 2005

This is like saying the US military has developed weapons that allow soldiers to destroy targets by focusing their chi.

have you had a chance to read the book "Men Who Stare At Goats" - highly recommended, a fast read, funny, and describes a unit in the military called the Earth First Batallion: one, two, three,
posted by nyoki at 6:45 PM on September 5, 2005

But this power, it can be used for good.

Whatever happened to Kate Bush, anyway?
posted by Cassford at 7:05 PM on September 5, 2005

The idea that a hurricane might be created and used against your own country is just ridiculous. That said, as Enron Hubbard's link shows, and as the recently revealed story about FDR's involvement in Pearl Harbour demonstrates, the US goverment has a long record of murky and nefarious "projects", and there are real conspiracies. Those who believe that the US government is not investigating weather control or many other even more far out ideas are dreaming.

I don't know much about so called scalar energy, but from what I do know about Tesla it does sound as if he was on to something. I would not be surprised if there are EMF/RF technologies that have not been revealed yet, or at least that will be discovered.

And for all those snarky comments, it is much more constructive to offer informed comment than supercilious dismissal.
posted by blue shadows at 8:48 PM on September 5, 2005

Metafilter: Jumped the Fark.
posted by warbaby at 9:01 PM on September 5, 2005

Loquacious, the primary and overriding problem with Scalar Field Theory is that it makes predictions that are demonstrably false. This 'third electromagnetic field' is supposedly detectable by the effects of voids and bubbles in this field created by attractive and repulsive forces in magnetic field interactions. According to this theory, when magnetic fields act to cancel each other out, there will be detectable anomalies which the accepted model of electromagnetism cannot account for. Scalar fields correct for this effect and complete the theory. Unfortunately for Scalar Field Theory, conventional EM theory is entirely consistent with observations, as far as Scalar Field Theory is concerned. The effect of this field has never been observed.

Now, of course, this is the case unless you open your mind to the possibility that there is a massive conspiracy encompassing the highest levels of government in the US and other, if not all, developed nations, along with the entire physics community and a huge portion of modern industry. This unparalleled effort is invariably explained as a plot to control the masses with mind/weather control and devastating weaponry (Tesla's death ray) and/or suppress knowledge of a perpetual motion machine for some nefarious end.

In my experience, any mention of free energy is invariably a sign of a crackpot. If the device mentioned in the FPP did in fact exist, or was theoretically sound, it would never end up as a footnote in history, or as a theory on some obscure crank's website. The device would be everywhere. Supertankers would be cut up for scrap. Saudis would find themselves reduced to once again herding goats. Utilities bills would be a thing of the past. There would be no want or hunger. The world would be a very different place. Otherwise, there would have to be an unimaginably vast conspiracy, and one part of this conspiracy would be a massive edifice of phony scientific theory that is not only internally consistent and seemingly transparent in origin and evolution, but consistent with observable phenomena.

Either that, or you know, accept the conventional wisdom.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:06 PM on September 5, 2005

expletive deleted: I am much in agreement, however, this history has yet to be written. Hold your horses and let's see how this plays out. Or something.
posted by snsranch at 9:13 PM on September 5, 2005

By historical footnote, I am refering to Tesla's later work, and more outlandish theories, which seem to be the jumping point for this madness.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:34 PM on September 5, 2005

NASA must declassify all spacecraft watching the Sun so we can know the truth!
posted by SweetJesus at 9:47 PM on September 5, 2005

What Etherial Bligh said.
posted by spincycle at 9:48 PM on September 5, 2005

And the authorities blew up the levee to purposely flood the poor areas. Awesome.
posted by yupislyr at 9:48 PM on September 5, 2005

You know, I watched an older PBS documentary the other night about the "Fatal Flood" along the Mississippi delta in 1927. And the one tidbit of historical information that I can't get out of my mind is this: As the waters rose, and it became clear that the river was going to breach the levees somewhere, some folks would go across the river at night to try and purposely breach the levees on the other side, to save their own homes. One survivor described the tension:

"When that river gets to the top of the levee is lapping over, it is guarded. Arkansas people guard the levee against Mississippi people; Mississippi people guard the levee against the Arkansas people. Afraid somebody will blow the levee and turn the water loose on the other side. If I blow your side of the levee, you're going to get washed off of the face of the Earth and I'm going to stay dry, because the water didn't come my way. It went your way."

/not to derail or anything...
posted by LarryC at 10:03 PM on September 5, 2005

You know, Davy, I bet you think you're real cute and clever comparing yourself or whoever to Galileo, but examples like that are CRAP. Yes, the nature of science is that our understanding changes over time, sometimes in really major ways, like Copernicean astronomy. However, for every correct idea that a scientist thought up there are a million incorrect ones thought up by scientists of equal stature. This is normal -- it's called hypothesizing.

So how do you figure out which ideas are valuable and which are not? Because what you're doing is just what the Catholics were doing, supporting whatever theory fits in best with your philosophical worldview and backing it up with clever anecdotes. I'm really not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure this is not what scientists do.

I'm pretty sure that the scientific community starts off skeptical, not because they are reactionary, but because anybody can come up with a hypothesis and if you want the one that is the absolutely best explanation for a phenomenon, it takes a lot to prove that. The accepted theory went through this process once, so the burden of proof is on the newer theory to be better.

Also, there certainly are some situations where up, down, east, and west are not useful (like if you're in space) but for most of us they serve their purpose, and I know that if I go towards where I see the sun in the morning I'll be heading towards Detroit and if I go towards where I see the sun in the evening I'll be heading towards Ann Arbor, and that works for me. You let me know how that there is no direction helps you out next time you're trying to find your way around town.
posted by dagnyscott at 10:08 PM on September 5, 2005

If the argument is that this energy exists as the change in time (ΔT) wouldn't the transducer need to be able to exist at both points in time simultaneously to generate any potential?

I am intrigued however that these results were supposedly duplicated by J.L.Naudin though but it sounds a little too much like the whole 'cold fusion' episode.

Why has information seemingly dried up from all the sources mentioned, yet the sites left up? I was unable to find any new developments past 2003. This does not strike me as a Government cover-up or a lack of funding, more a lack of reproduceability, which is never a convincing argument that it works. This of course may not be the case.

Is this just a tuned circuit, much like a radio?

Sounds like pseudo-science to me. There's an awful lot of jargon and buzzwords.
posted by 999 at 10:23 PM on September 5, 2005

Anybody else love the quote though? Totally bizzare:

"And I'm not looking forward to this trip. I got a feel for it when I flew over before. It -- for those who have not -- trying to conceive what we're talking about, it's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by a -- the worst kind of weapon you can imagine. And now we're going to go try to comfort people in that part of the world."

Thank you. (Applause.)

END 10:39 A.M. CDT
posted by mikojava at 11:06 PM on September 5, 2005

1. Cause hurricane to hit large population center using scalar technology.
2. Delay emergency response.
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!
posted by kyleg at 12:18 AM on September 6, 2005

I think I prefer the SGC2C meme to the South Park meme as it is more obscure and unsullied by the hoi polloi.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:06 AM on September 6, 2005

Cassford, It's funny you ask...
posted by Hubajube at 4:37 AM on September 6, 2005

For a political culture that even now can't accept global warming and environmental (and eco-social) neglect as root causes of what has happened in NO, I suppose a chickenshit-wrapped-in-a-tinfoilhat idea like "somebody controlled the weather and did this to us" makes perfect sense.
posted by runningdogofcapitalism at 5:21 AM on September 6, 2005

dagnyscott: I'm pretty sure that the scientific community starts off skeptical, not because they are reactionary, but because anybody can come up with a hypothesis and if you want the one that is the absolutely best explanation for a phenomenon, it takes a lot to prove that. The accepted theory went through this process once, so the burden of proof is on the newer theory to be better.

It's not only that, but the basic theories of electromagnetism get tested every day in toasters, television sets, and radios. If electromagnetism didn't work roughly the way described by Maxwell, there would be a heck of a lot of people not able to watch their syndicated re-runs of Friends and Seinfeld.

There have been many different engineers messing around with electromagnetic fields ranging from tiny little capacitors to superconducting supercolliders. A major test of a good theory as opposed to a bad theory is that good theories tend to find pratical applications.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:34 AM on September 6, 2005

IndpMed stands on the shoulders of giants.
posted by Sparx at 6:12 PM PST on September 5

Respectfully so.
posted by IndpMed at 12:29 PM on September 6, 2005

[expletive deleted] has it. "scalar energy" is a total fucking nutjob term coined by someone with superficial knowledge and a preformed agenda. things these crackpot web pages typicall have in common:

1) references to zero-point energy, and its potential as an "energy source". (casimir effect explained here)

2) excessive length, poor organization

3) excessive reference to tesla's secret work

4) excessive reference to the us/soviet government's secret work

5) lots of quotations

6) excessive jargon; references to advanced mathematical concepts like spinors without any equations anywhere

and so on. there are others.

10 bucks for someone who can find any experimental evidence of an electromagnetic phenomenon that cannot be explained by an appropriate application of maxwell's equations.

10 more bucks for someone who can find a clear, reasoned description of scalar energy, based on sound scientific principles and physical observations.

there is a reason the scientific community uses open, peer-reviewed journals for the publication of results.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 2:25 PM on September 6, 2005

Damn it. "were" smuggled.
posted by SweetJesus at 5:23 PM on September 23, 2005

« Older The Inequality Taboo... | Yesterday Venice had its annua... Newer »

This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments

September 5, 2005 2:39 AM Subscribe

September 5, 2005
2:39 AM Subscribe