Steorn, The Undemo
My confidence has been shaken.
Over the past ten months, I have followed and, for the most part, supported Steorn in their adventure. In the full knowledge that their claims are ‘impossible’ I suspended disbelief on the strength of (for me) compelling circumstantial evidence. This stance was temporary as I was confident that, with patience, proper evidence would come our way. The demo was merely a start, but an important one, that would surely confound the sceptics. Instead, it is I, and many other ‘believers’, who have been confounded.
I have not posted for the past few days because I wanted to get to the other side of my disappointment before doing so. So much time, energy, emotion and money has been invested by so many people that it is easy to run away at the mouth (or fingers) and say things you later regret. With time to think and emotions calmed, I’m ready to re-engage and to explore what light, if any, recent events shine on the truth or fiction of the Steorn Story. At times I have convinced myself that Sean has been lying or deluded and at other times that this has all been a hideous and unfortunate mistake by otherwise smart, good people.
I like what Steorn is saying just now. The words are just words, but I will wait to see if they form into actions. I met a number of employees as well as Sean at various times over the past few days in
My confidence has been shaken, I am suspicious, but I have not yet given up hope.
Labels: demo, energy, free, kinetica, london, mccarthy, Steorn
posted by Paul Story at
17:32
5 Comments:
You comments are well thought out Paul. But if there is a flaw in them it is one repeated quite often by Steorn watchers. That is the presumption that there are just two possible situations here. Stoern are either scam artistis or they have this technology. But the truth, and I believe it is proven by recent events, is elsewhere. Steorn convinced itself of something that was not true, they raised money in Dublin based on this (Dublin was awash with money 2 or 3 years ago) and so could produce a slick and effective media campaign around this "technology". This bought an aura of truth for the whole thing - peole with money behind them always seem more beliveable. Would this have gotten anywhere if it is was some guy in his garage? Of course not, 85K for a page in the Economist got the ball rolling. And by all accouns they raised 14 million euros initially, so expect this show to keep on going.
Steron, like many before them, convinced themselves that they had a pertpetual motion machine. By a process of Group Think and delusional thinking they lured others in to this thinking. The whole delusion was blown apart last week when they had to produce the machine - and they couldnt, not even a video of it - nothing except excuses. And a week later still nothing. If such a machine existed anywhere in the Steorn enterprise they could have videoed it and realeased it to the media to claw back some cred. The stark bare cold bitter truth is that Steorn do not have a working Orbo machine - just a theory based on some flaky measurements. Such self-dellusional episodes have happened year in and year out in business, science and religion. This is nothing new - many people seem to think because they set up the Demo they must have had something - why else do it? This logic is very leaky - they set up the demo becasue a coule of guys at the top really belived they had something. And in the end the bluff was called.
Anway, my predicion is staff start defecting from Steron as the truth hits home. It will become embarassing to even have Steorn on your CV - think about it? Would you really admit to working there now? I dont think Sean knows the damage that has been done. Investors are going to run from this now -embarrassed that they invested in it. They wont want there money back, just to hide their assocation with it. And by all accounts some big Dublin names put money in.
Oh well...just my view - but Steorn will hang around for another couple of months while it consumes itself in bitter recriminations and a slow realisation that they never had anything, except a very personable and genial "leader" who convinced himself that black was white.
I think it just shows incompetence. Why would Steorn spend a fortune to make themselves look like idiots? You would have to think there is some complicated plot, where they deliberately wanted to fail.
I think there is sometimes another side to the story. I know from first hand experience, especially as the entrepreneurial type that clearly Sean McCarthy is as well.
We're an eager bunch. We're stubborn, and we are NOT level headed. We want it NOW, and it has to work yesterday. The trouble is that we sometimes get carried away with ourselves. When others all around are telling us to hold our horses, we're already galloping off into the distance.
Now, if you look at the past history of the way this kind of person works, it's a risk, a gamble if you will. Sometimes it pays off. 60% of the time, maybe more, it doesn't. But that is enough for most of us to go with it anyway, and hope that when the time comes to do whatever it is we have to do, we'll be ready. Again, sometimes we are, sometimes we aren't. But that doesn't by any stretch of the imagination mean that we are not about to succeed in what we set out to. IF Steorn claim to have created a "perpetual motion" device - I'm holding fire on the technicalities for now - there is no reason why that is not possible. Remember, everything is possible, even if it seems like a pipedream.
There is of course the flipside of this very two sided coin, and that is that their objectives were otherwise unannounced.
I know for certain that I would probably have done the same as Sean, likely against the advice of his engineers - engineers are solid people, they don't like change, and they certainly don't like to be uncertain. They will have tried to beat Sean into submission, of that I'm certain, but we're a stubborn sort, as I've said before. I haven't yet worked out whether it goes in one ear and straight out the other, or whether it's just selective hearing. Either way, I know I would have done the same in a similar situation. Engineers amongst you, I know you'd do the exact opposite.
By the way, some of you may recall the greatest showman of them all making a stark demonstration set to change the world of computing, back in 1997. Yes, Mr Bill Gates. Even the richest man in the world didn't have the luck with him when Windows decided it was going to BSOD on him in the middle of his forthright speech. Some people have all the luck, others none of it.
I find this whole area so curious, which is why I keep coming back to it. One has to wonder what Steorn could have done last week to convince the "disciples" that Steorn had nothing. There were various possiblities (a) produce a wonderful machine that worked (b) produce a machine that worked then broke down (c) produce a machine that never worked once and cancel the whole demo with some lame excuse. They did C and people not only still belive them but strangely find the failure somehow a validation of their technology. All that can be said is that the removal of Logic as a subject from the standard curriculum 30 years ago was a serious mistake. The rationale that "well, they would not have gone to the effort to set up this public demo if they did not have the technology" is fallicious because that is exactly what happened; they set up an expensive demo and they did not have the technology. Not last week, not this week and not next week. Would not Mr. McCarthy, realising the serious blow to their credibility, have gone back to the HQ in Dublin and immediatley vide-taped a working machine? A realised it. Would he not have striven to save his credibility if he believed he had such technology.
Contrast it with the normal route. One hundred years ago Mr Orville and Mr Wright called a public demonstration to show that they had a powered flight machine. The film taken by the reporter is still shown today - and even though the flight was short, it proved the theory. Mr. Edison called in the newspapers to see his electic light . And once they saw it, then they knew it was a significant moment. The same with Alexander Bell. He demonstrated his telephone over a couple of miles. The media saw and accepted. What did Mr. McCarthy do?
Even with a team of engineers, a workshop and the expertise of many other people available to him in one of the capital cities of the world, he could not get his technology to revolve a small wheel. After two days he gave up. Why was that? Because he had the "slap in the face" realisation that what all those boring old scientists told him was true.
I realise there arer some out there will follow him like groupies and believe in him until he is out of cash - but that does not say anything about the technology; it says something about them.
Anthony, there is one thing in your comment that stands out:
Edison, Orville and Wright, and so on all called in the papers etc once they had a working model. However, consider how many of these are entrepreneurial in spirit, as opposed to physicists/scientists/hobbyists marvelling at their discoveries.
Sean McCarthy is not just an engineer. He is an entrepreneur. As I've said before, Entrepreneurs don't listen to reason, where an engineer would want to test the device to the ends of the earth under the conditions under which they will be shown, as much as possible.
I don't believe nor disbelieve Sean. I will continue to be a non-disbeliever in some method of perpetual motion until such a time as I can become a believer, simply because I believe it to be possible.
Feel free to disagree. I know you are intelligent enough to look at this from an objective standpoint as I am doing, but I'm sure you'd also like some form of the technology to exist as well. In that, I think you would have to put some disbelief on hold, even permanently.
One day, we will have "free" energy. We will have faster than light travel. We will live on other planets. We'll do all the things people in the past have said is impossible. Anthony, I ask you this: are you saying it is impossible to have a perpetual motion machine, be it through breaking CoE or through some hidden and infinitely renewable energy source?
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