Why would the left not want small modualr nuclear reactors?

[Jccarlton]

You would think that they would be pushing these things like anybody's business:
http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2011/01/s ... ve-in.html
instead it's the opposite. Maybe because to the left their agenda and power are more important than prosperity.

[djolds1]

You would think that they would be pushing these things like anybody's business:
http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2011/01/s ... ve-in.html
Instead it's the opposite. Maybe because to the left their agenda and power are more important than prosperity.

Not so much agenda as spiritual righteousness. Reactors are the tools of Satan (i.e. Western Civilization, the civilization that spawned the heretics today called Progressives). Satan/ the Demiurge must be opposed. The false veil of the world destroyed so that the pure souls of the Enlightened may soar to their Gnostic hereafter.

Note that the New Age/Gaianist Spiritualism so popular on the Left since the Generation of '68 came of age is a perfect fit for Gnosticism, a perennial heretical creed that shows up in all belief systems and denies the reality of the physical world in favor of Inner Spirit ("Use the Force, Luke") and secret wisdom permissible only to the Chosen Enlightened Elite. An Enlightened Elite which all Progressives flatter themselves that they are.

[MSimon]

dj,

Hate to burst your bubble but I'm a gnostic. There is hidden knowledge and you can find it. Of course as an engineer I always keep in mind I could be fooling myself. In any case it works for me.

Why don't I talk about it much? Well for one I would be laughed out of town.

In the 21st Century the knowledge is an open secret. Of course the ratio of charlatanism to real knowledge is high. But I studied them all way back when and managed to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Jewish mystics are best on the subject. But even there it is wise to watch out.

[MSimon]

I use The Force all the time. The description of it in the Star Wars movies is correct. It influences you - you can influence it. "Trust your feelings Luke" is very good advice. But you have to have a mechanism with no biases. Very difficult. Meditation is one way to reduce or eliminate the biases.

Also note that on the gross level "I have a bad feeling about this" works well for most people even if the reasons are not currently articulatable.

And the real difficulty is that most folks have no defense against the Dark Side and don't even recognize it when it starts to insinuate itself.

I don't think it is a heresy so much. More akin to playing with high explosives or firearms. Training is required. And very few want to train. They want instant results. Boooom.

I did do a post on the subject once:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2009/12/magick.html

[MSimon]

There is magical thinking and then there is Magic.

All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that is was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. T.E. Lawrence

We actually owe more to engineers than scientists. Sure - scientists discovered the principle of the Electric motor. But engineering is why you have a washing machine.

All the best engineers I know are dreamers. Tempered by practical matters - like making things work. Showing a profit.

[djolds1]

dj,

Hate to burst your bubble but I'm a gnostic.

(Shrug)

Unfortunate, but your choice. An odd one tho, as it places you in the same intellectual order as the elites you politically oppose - the self-elevated snobs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Voege ... Gnosticism
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JH12Ak03.html

Gnosticism tends to lead to denial and perversion of the physical reality of the world in favor of the elevations of abstract gnosis. It is heresy in ALL creeds.

I use The Force all the time. The description of it in the Star Wars movies is correct. It influences you - you can influence it. "Trust your feelings Luke" is very good advice. But you have to have a mechanism with no biases. Very difficult. Meditation is one way to reduce or eliminate the biases.

Qi is useful in training and metaphor. To think it is physical reality is to delude yourself, however.

[KitemanSA]

You would think that they would be pushing these things like anybody's business:
http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2011/01/s ... ve-in.html
instead it's the opposite. Maybe because to the left their agenda and power are more important than prosperity.

Their "power" is predicated on keeping a divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots" and fooling the "have-nots" into voting for them. Any technology that threatens to convert the have-nots into haves must be STOPPED!!!

[Tom Ligon]

A bit over a week back I spent the day in the National Steampunk Museum, better known as the Museum of American History. It has a wonderful collection of old electric generators and motors.

The relationship between electric current and magnetism is a scientific discovery, rightly enough, but I think you'll find that inventors (engineers) were building practical motors and generators before science had the subject well understood. Scientists were amusing themselves with feeble sources of electricity (with the exception of a rather ambitious voltaic pile in Paris), but the inventors were looking at serious power. This drive toward practical application and big power brought attention, funds, and the ability to do serious work to what was otherwise a collection of parlor tricks.

If this cockeyed LENR device turns out to work, the same will have happened. They will have made it while the scientific basis was weak and highly dubious. Of course, if it is a scam, it will join a long line of fraudulent devices, many of which showed up as electric motors and generators were being invented. Not understanding what makes them tick opens this door.

[Skipjack]

You would think that they would be pushing these things like anybody's business:

It is the same with the left here. I have been wondering about this for a long time. I think that they just would love us all to return into caves and live like in the stone age, or something like that.
I dont know what they are smoking, but I think it made them rather stupid.

[93143]

@djolds1: Did you read his link?

[GIThruster]

I think it would be worthwhile to examine just HOW the OBama administration is "dragging its feet" on the issue of next gen reactors. Without some evidence, I'd hesitate to take that as gospel.

One reason I would be cautious of smaller reactors is that although there are huge benefits to power generation being distributed more broadly, there are hazards as well. If you have five small reactors spread over five different locations INSTEAD of one large reactor, then you have near five times the security costs. One expects the utilities have thought about this but I've never seen a real study.

In any event, what we don't need is more demonization of the left or right based upon a single unreferenced phrase in a single web piece. That's just silly.

[CaptainBeowulf]

So what if gnosticism is "heresy in all creeds?" What's wrong with heretics? Or do you want everyone to be an unquestioning conformist?

The new-age progressive left just turns what they call gnosticism into their own faith-based conformity. Question tenets such as global warming and you become a heretic to them. Not gnosticism, just another conformist faith that tries to mind control its adherents.

The only way to go IMO is to ALWAYS think for yourself. Do not just accept what people spouting a creed tell you to think.

[kunkmiester]

One reason I would be cautious of smaller reactors is that although there are huge benefits to power generation being distributed more broadly, there are hazards as well. If you have five small reactors spread over five different locations INSTEAD of one large reactor, then you have near five times the security costs. One expects the utilities have thought about this but I've never seen a real study.

One of the things you can do with these though is bury them deep--you might put a fence around the area, but any tunneling operation or attempt to dig it up can easily be detected and defeated long before there are any risks.

[93143]

The only way to go IMO is to ALWAYS think for yourself. Do not just accept what people spouting a creed tell you to think.

So... "motives of credibility" for stuff you can't figure out based solely on reason and observation and have to accept on authority, and "primacy of conscience" for when it doesn't all seem to line up nicely, in the language of Catholic theology and doctrine...

...maybe I shouldn't be getting involved in this...

[MSimon]

An odd one tho, as it places you in the same intellectual order as the elites you politically oppose - the self-elevated snobs.

They make the claim. I don't see the practice.

BTW can one be a Christian and oppose the Church? Probably more so the closer you adhere to the teachings of Jesus.

Same thing.

It is like so many things - form vs substance. The elites as I see them mouth the words. But you know - by their fruits ye shall know them.

You don't know any Christians in the same category do you? I could be a Christian if it wasn't for the corruption of the Church. The only good minister I have come across is Joyce Meyer. I'm a fan.

It all went wrong at the Council of Nicea IMO when Jesus was elevated to God. And yet he specifically said that anyone could do what he did. So am I God? According to gnosticism I am. In part. I can affect the Force. It affects me.

My will was to get Polywell funded. I did it. With the help of a few others. I'd say that qualifies. YMMV.