The Big Misconception About Electricity

For every genius that history ultimately proves right there are probably 10 million cranks that deserve to be forgotten.  Every year there are various claims that General Relativity is inaccurate.  So far, none have stood critical review.  Still, at some point GR will be supplanted by a more complete explanation of observational data.  Being able to separate the wheat from the chaff is what enables progress.

@mahgister ,

At some point all adults must take responsibility for their decisions including their arrogance. From the above, Einstein appears to have little "respect" for the concepts of the book, but does not consider the author a bad person. I have some friends with pretty wacky ideas too. My one friend I go to for real estate advice, I don't go to for medical advice.

I don't agree with @djones51 at all on his statement to remove the thread (or at least the posts about electric universe). I would rather it be left up. What is that saying. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Censorship, even if well meaning, comes with unintended consequences as the censorer becomes the censored (take note woke people).

There is a corollary to this, as we have seen with Covid, and with climate change, certain held views, when they significantly influence behavior, can have far ranging impacts and results in significant amounts of death and economic harm. And I still will not, even in the face of that, call for censorship. With Covid, there is every indication that censorship played a part in delaying, or perhaps even developing treatments. That does not mean I believe in Ivermectin or Hydroxycholoroquine, it only means what I said it means.  Similarly in BC, Canada, devastating rains and flooding are destroying billions of infrastructure, leaving many homeless, and square miles of farm and residential land under water. It is being blamed on Climate Change. While the level of rains, at this time of year, are unusual, the level of flooding (or at least water) is within the realm of historical flooding. The real cause for all the damages is not Climate Change, but decades of government incompetence both in not addressing entirely predictable flooding levels and well known inadequate protection mechanisms, as well poor forest management. However, ask 90% of people and they will say the cause is what they were told it was, Climate Change. Similarly we have massive protests to block the development, use and export of LNG, though every BTU of LNG typically turns off a BTU of coal at 1/2 the GHG. That does not make LNG perfect. There are real issues of methane release that need to be addressed (and can be). Protesting against LNG is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I apologize for the long and perhaps rambling post. I know your post was well meaning, and I think I understood the premise, but I also believe, that short of censorship, we do need to more aggressively call out this "I can have my own facts" mindset. We could probably spend pages and pages about the areas in which that is leading us down a dark path.

I will leave you with a thought. Can you name, throughout history, a successful culture that was not based predominantly on meritocracy? I would argue that the downfall of most cultures, throughout time, is when they cease to be meritocracies.

Climate changes are there all through history.... Then...But i am with you for the incompetence in gestion...And the necessity to answer to energy needs...

For the censorship permeating america and the world now, it takes us to the wrong direction and makes all this health crisis the worst managed in recent history....Anyway i hate cultist, being "scientific" one or "religious one", censorship is the weapon of powerful fanatics or the shield of the weak....

For meritocracy, yes, but we must live in society with the right balance between merits and freedom, we are not a hive... One this thing is said i dream about democracy which is now it seems a thing of the past...The balance between merits and freedom is achieved ONLY by EDUCATION...There is no more education , and developing specialized  skills is not to be educated, ants in their nest develop skills only....

Those who direct the tides at command posts now not only own no merit in general at all but are unelected...And the elected one are totally without any power in front of them...

We live interesting times for sure.....

To be frank and honest i am also flabbergasted by the actual situation in the world...

My best to you....

@mahgister , while I am obviously a proponent of meritocracy, that should never mean that people are not fed, that they have a roof over their head, that they should have to worry about medical bankruptcy or that the financial means of the parents define educational outcomes. None of those are good for the future of a society. Being a centrist, though, if you want to get a university degree in basket weaving, or anything that that will have very limited financial outcomes and could be viewed as a vanity degree, I think you should be paying more for your education, not less. Unfortunately, I see the opposite happening with public education, the degrees that could lead to larger financial rewards, even engineering, are penalized with higher tuition. This unfortunately just further stratifies "class" in society by keeping out economically disadvantaged students, no matter the merit of their being in that occupation. The outcome is the opposite or meritocracy.