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Old 17th July 2018, 06:39 PM   #41
Dabop
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Originally Posted by MRC_Hans View Post
Interesting. I'm afraid I can't quite figure out what a "Freeman" is (except apparently a complete sucker), but ... I'll follow.

Hans
Freeman on the land ie FOTL or footle
closely related to sovcit or sovereign citizen

Basically there are no laws (that apply to them) so they dont have to pay for things like water, electricity, car registrations, insurance etc etc

When they get busted, as they usually do, file massive amounts of legal gibberish

A strange lot, but be warned- once you get dragged into following their (very amusing) antics, you will get hooked
Theres nothing like the sound of breaking glass and the buzz of a taser as they scream "I do not consent' over and over!

Be warned!
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Old 18th July 2018, 06:20 AM   #42
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abaddon: I do understand that you lot are probably sick of Freeman stuff now, which is why I debated starting this thread in the first place, then initially planned to stick to Quatloos based on Hans's suggestion till others posted asking me to keep posting. If their interest wanes, I'll go back to posting only in the Quatloos thread. In any case, I won't be spamming these forums with loads of Freeman threads; I'll keep all my FMOTL content contained within this thread so those who are sick to the back teeth of this stuff can easily avoid it. Does that sound like a fair compromise?

I suspect I'm fighting a losing battle in trying to pique your interest, but would you reconsider your "Oh no, not another FMOTL thread" reaction if I told you that in a later story (Spoiler alert!) Ash performs an exorcism to rid me of a Jinn he comes to believe has possessed me? If not, fair enough, there's no point in subjecting yourself to any more of my TL;DR rambles because that's about as juicy as my material gets.
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Old 18th July 2018, 06:54 AM   #43
P.J. Denyer
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Originally Posted by abaddon View Post
Your interpretation is correct. Hey, I'm glad you got a decent reception over there, not a place of which I am a member, but reading the thread, it seems pleasant and so far, everyone seems to be positive and encouraging. That's a win.

As far as this place goes, we are all just a little tired of the FOTL malarkey. One can only listen to so much of it. Menard the Retard probably pushed many of us over the edge with regard to rational discussion of FOTL matters. He finally bought the ban hammer, so we can all malign him at will. Oddly, we don't much really. That just tells you how irrelevant the guy was. I think member Aridas still posts occasional updates, but even those are few.

You could chuck a PM his direction. That would be a rich vein of source material.

As for posting here, I cannot speak for everyone, but I find your POV to be at least an interesting perspective. There are plenty of folks here who have simply washed their hands of FOTL stating that they have had a sufficiency of that nonsense. Truth be told, I am close to that position myself. I am quite happy to allow some wiggle room. But it is up to you to choose how to wiggle.

Other than that, I am not a spokesgronk for anyone. Can you at least understand that we are tired of all the FOTL baloney?
As far as I can tell sue858 is posting about her experiences with FOTL rather than as one or to support their views or claims, that to me at least is a very different position. I've found her posts interesting and wouldn't want her to be dissuaded from posting.
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Old 18th July 2018, 06:56 AM   #44
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Originally Posted by Dabop View Post
A strange lot, but be warned- once you get dragged into following their (very amusing) antics, you will get hooked
Theres nothing like the sound of breaking glass and the buzz of a taser as they scream "I do not consent' over and over!

Be warned!


It's like when Sideshow Bob keeps stepping on rakes, you know it's silly but you just can't stop laughing.
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Old 18th July 2018, 04:10 PM   #45
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Originally Posted by P.J. Denyer View Post
As far as I can tell sue858 is posting about her experiences with FOTL rather than as one or to support their views or claims, that to me at least is a very different position. I've found her posts interesting and wouldn't want her to be dissuaded from posting.

+1

I'm a member of Quatloos, but I haven't posted or read in quite a while (basically since Dean Clifford got out of jail). So please keep posting, Sue, I, for one, find it quite interesting.
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Old 19th July 2018, 01:46 AM   #46
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Originally Posted by abaddon View Post
Menard the Retard probably pushed many of us over the edge with regard to rational discussion of FOTL matters. He finally bought the ban hammer, so we can all malign him at will. Oddly, we don't much really. That just tells you how irrelevant the guy was. I think member Aridas still posts occasional updates, but even those are few.

You could chuck a PM his direction. That would be a rich vein of source material.
Messagin' a fotl?
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Old 19th July 2018, 09:56 AM   #47
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Originally Posted by abaddon View Post
Menard
Who?
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Old 19th July 2018, 10:35 AM   #48
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Quatloos Cross-Post

I’d better start giving these posts titles for ease of future reference. This one is ‘Water-Powered Cars’.

TBH, I can't remember whether Ash tasked me with researching water-powered cars alongside SSFEMs or whether he set me that task after my SSFEM research failed to yield acceptable (to him) results. Either way, I wanted to separate that topic from 'Electricity', because it raises some different talking points and I was already going off on too many tangents with 'Electricity'.

Ash believed that someone had invented a car which could run on water but Big Oil was suppressing it to maintain their profitable monopoly. 'Someone invented World-Changing A, but Big B is keeping it secret because XYZ' was a running theme throughout Ash's theories. When Ash brought up the topic of water-powered cars, at first I thought no further research or debate would be needed because for once I actually agreed with him. Back then, Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars could have been the next big thing - though today, it seems that advances in battery tech means we'll just skip the 'Use hydrogen as a battery' middleman. Why introduce conversion inefficiencies when you don't need to? If you can charge up an electric car which runs on lightweight batteries reasonably quickly, using that electricity to split water apart just so you can put it back together again is a waste of time, energy and money.

But back then, 'Hydrogen fuel cells are the future of personal transport' was a reasonable, non-crank position for one to hold - so of course, it turned out that it was NOT Ash’s position. When he said "Cars can run on water," he meant "Someone has invented a car which you literally pour water - and nothing else - straight in to." OK, that's still theoretically possible, I guess. Maybe it would be possible to design a hybrid electric/hydrogen car which, when left to charge overnight, would electrolyse the water you poured in instead of (or in addition to) charging up its battery. Maybe there's a reason why you'd want to electrolyse water rather than charge a battery - I can't think of one, but I'm sure reasons exist. If you put a couple of solar panels on the roof, you might even be able to design that car so it rarely needs charging from the mains. Such a car would be well outside the price range of everyone but the very richest, though.

Ash still wasn't satisfied with my answer. He wanted a car which literally turned the water into energy. Not 'Used water as a medium for storing energy'. Used actual water for actual energy as if it were petrol one could 'burn'. I'd long since given up trying to explain the second law of thermodynamics to him (again), so I said, "I'm afraid I have no idea how such a car would even work, let alone how to make it." I wrapped this statement up in, "What a shame the Illuminati assassinated the genius who came up with such a brilliant invention," and that satisfied Ash. He had a little, "Curse you Illuminati!" rant, and I was no longer expected to figure out how to get a car to run on water. For the time being, everyone was happy.

Now, I think this is interesting because, as well as the 'Everything is (or should be) free' and 'TBTP are suppressing technology which would give everyone free X' themes discussed in my 'Electricity' post, there was also something else going on here that I didn't notice at the time. Ash would only accept magical explanations for things. There seemed to be something about Ash which meant that, if it actually worked, he wasn't satisfied. For example:

Ash: I want a water-powered car.
Me: (Starts discussing hydrogen-powered cars).
Ash: No, I mean a car I can literally fill up from my hosepipe. If you’re using electricity, you’re cheating.

Ash’s mentality was such that, if his dream ‘fill it up with your hosepipe’ car were a reality, Ash would probably complain about having to use expensive potable water and come up with a conspiracy theory wherein someone had invented a car which ran on grey or seawater but this invention was being suppressed by Big Water Treatment to maintain their profitable monopoly.

I almost fell for the SSFEM nonsense because I don't know the answer to questions like "How does a magnet stay on the side of a fridge? If all energy gets 'used up' sooner or later, why doesn't it eventually fall to the floor?" For someone with only a basic knowledge of magnetism, this question is a very good one. Charlatans ask such questions as a way to open the door to filling their subject's head with the nonsense of the charlatan's choice. "How do fridge magnets work?" is an opener to all those SSFEM blueprints which are variations on a 'Reverse electromagnetic motor' theme - the type where a bunch of magnets (be they permanent or electro) are affixed such that they form a 'propeller' or 'windmill'. Some semi-plausible trickery is applied and - voila! - a perpetual motion machine. If you're not getting out ten times the energy you're putting in, then it's your fault for building/using the machine wrong, of course.

Looking back now, with the benefits of hindsight and no longer living with a human Gish Gallop, I can easily see the flaw. For a start, the premise is flawed. Energy isn't 'used up', it's converted from one form to another. The fridge magnet gained potential energy when you picked it up. Magnetism, which I don't fully understand but which I think in this case could better be compared to a boulder teetering atop a hill than to a motor running, effectively acts as a way to store that potential energy. That's what almost sucked me in. The SSFEM crowd conflate 'using' and 'converting' energy; this confuses the layman into believing that maybe there is something to this Free Energy stuff. They also ignore or deny things like friction which prevent any conversion method from being 100% efficient.

The thing I always wondered: why do certain 'gurus' promote such things? I understand why those who charge for their designs would do that; they're just running a variation of a straight 419 scam - pay me a small upfront fee and you'll have free energy for the rest of your life. Plenty of people out there with more greed than conscience - that fact isn't news. Then there are the lay members like Ash who just want to believe because if it's true then they're morally justified in trying to get something for nothing. But what about those who come up with various 'perpetual motion' designs and post them on the net for free? I don't see what they get out of it. They're not asking for money, and any fame they achieve will be short-lived once their followers realise that their designs don't work.
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Old 19th July 2018, 10:47 AM   #49
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Hans: 'Menard' = Robert Menard. He used to post/be discussed on these very forums. I still can't post links, so search for "Rob Menard's FOTL Claims".

PJ Denyer: Thank you, you've got my intentions pretty much spot on. I do have a few questions, but they're mostly like the "Why did that copper let Ash off the hook for speeding?" question. Being a sceptic, naturally I want to know the real answers to such questions. I also hope that some of you might be interested in the perspective of someone who participated in FOTL stuff (I wrote up some OPCA court filings at one point, but I'll get to that) but wasn't sucked in by it.
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Old 19th July 2018, 11:11 PM   #50
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Speaking of FOTL's, Neelu is getting her front door broken down ATM
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Old 20th July 2018, 02:06 AM   #51
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Do these people ever think through the consequences of their ideas? I mean, say there really were magic words that got them out of paying debt or not needing to obey traffic laws. Do they really feel that a society could operate if people are not obligated to pay back their debt or obey traffic laws?
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Old 20th July 2018, 03:56 AM   #52
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Originally Posted by sue858 View Post
So, what do you guys think? Do any of you actually want to read about my time with a Freeman, or am I far too late to the party for my stories to be of any interest?
Hi sue858. Yes, you are late and over the years there have been many posts in this forum that debunks FOTL ideas. However, there is never any reason why these ideas can't be revisited. New people come on to the scene and need to learn the same lessons again.

From what I have learned, the basic FOTL premise is that "there are no laws, only contracts". They also have their own vocabulary. For example:
"Strawman" = account or corporation.
"Promissory Note" = fiat currency (no obligation to make good on the note).
(others have probably added to the dictionary over the years).

As for the concept that "banks create money out of thin air (therefore I don't have to pay them back"), that has been discussed in the economics section many times. However, feel free to revisit the topic in that section. Everybody should know the good and the bad about banking.
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Old 20th July 2018, 04:57 AM   #53
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Originally Posted by sue858 View Post
Back then, Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars could have been the next big thing - though today, it seems that advances in battery tech means we'll just skip the 'Use hydrogen as a battery' middleman. Why introduce conversion inefficiencies when you don't need to? If you can charge up an electric car which runs on lightweight batteries reasonably quickly, using that electricity to split water apart just so you can put it back together again is a waste of time, energy and money.

Well, the two big benefits of hydrogen fuel cells over batteries are: 1) range and 2) refueling time.

The biggest limits on the use of electric cars used to be that the batteries simply were not good enough, with ranges that would just barely make daily commuting possible, and that would take hours to re-charge even to those levels.

With hydrogen, your range is only limited by the size of the fuel tank, and like gasoline or diesel, refueling would be much faster, making long-haul driving more practical.

The biggest problem with hydrogen is that storage is difficult. It's either a high-pressure gas (which can explode if there's an accident), or a cryogenic liquid (which can also explode, in a different way, if there's an accident). You could use a more exotic storage system like loading hydrogen onto a metallic substrate, but that becomes much more expensive, and heavier.

There was also the problem of infrastructure: you'd need to build hydrogen fueling stations everywhere, and systems to distribute the hydrogen to them, or produce it on site. But electricity is already everywhere, and it's fairly easy to re-wire your garage to charge at home.

Back in the 90s, there was some hope that these problems would be worth accepting due to the expected development of much better quality fuel cells, but those didn't seem to pan out, and recent developments in battery technology have cut into both of hydrogen's benefits, while hydrogen still has its problems. So fuel cells have pretty much lost the game, barring some major breakthrough.


Quote:
They're not asking for money, and any fame they achieve will be short-lived once their followers realise that their designs don't work.

It's that last part that's tricky. The followers are always willing to look for an excuse to justify the failures, and they pretty much always find one. Take a look at this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=327782


That's part 3 of a discussion that's been going on here for over a year and a half, about a company that's been trying to make their magic work for almost 30 years, with no signs of success, and yet, there are still people here, and investors in the real world, who are convinced the company has a real invention, which just needs a little more tweaking to finally work. They've been 6-to-18 months away from a commercially viable device for over 20 years. Look around, and you'll find more such examples.
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Old 20th July 2018, 06:28 AM   #54
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Originally Posted by Travis View Post
Do these people ever think through the consequences of their ideas? I mean, say there really were magic words that got them out of paying debt or not needing to obey traffic laws. Do they really feel that a society could operate if people are not obligated to pay back their debt or obey traffic laws?
I don't think they get past, "How can I get one over on the system?" They really are a crazy stereotype of libertarians.
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Old 20th July 2018, 01:12 PM   #55
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Originally Posted by ahhell View Post
I don't think they get past, "How can I get one over on the system?" They really are a crazy stereotype of libertarians.

It's like children who figure out they can go to the amusement park every night if mom and dad just stopped paying bills.
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Old 20th July 2018, 01:26 PM   #56
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Quote:
It's that last part that's tricky. The followers are always willing to look for an excuse to justify the failures, and they pretty much always find one. Take a look at this thread:
Great examples there of the kind of thing I came across. I don't remember the word 'quantum' being used as 'sentence seasoning' like it is in that thread - maybe that's a more recent fashion. The fashion back when I was surrounded by such woo was 'mag-grav'; position your magnets just so and let them fight it out with gravity, and your device will keep on spinning forever. But the 'blind them with fancy words which sound scientific' tactic was very much in play even back then.
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Old 20th July 2018, 04:12 PM   #57
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Originally Posted by Travis View Post
Do these people ever think through the consequences of their ideas? I mean, say there really were magic words that got them out of paying debt or not needing to obey traffic laws. Do they really feel that a society could operate if people are not obligated to pay back their debt or obey traffic laws?
...or that a society would create such magic words in the first place and not get rid of them if they did have them.

Its all classic magical thinking - do x and get y for nothing.
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Old 21st July 2018, 10:23 PM   #58
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Originally Posted by Hans View Post
...or that a society would create such magic words in the first place and not get rid of them if they did have them.
This is something that has always puzzled me about the freeman thing.
If the whole Evil Oppression Plan can be foiled by citing laws that the EOP-ers themselves wrote, why did they write them in the first place, and why don't they just repeal them?

Has there ever been a straight answer from a FOTL on this?
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Old 21st July 2018, 10:38 PM   #59
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Originally Posted by Cosmic Yak View Post
This is something that has always puzzled me about the freeman thing.
If the whole Evil Oppression Plan can be foiled by citing laws that the EOP-ers themselves wrote, why did they write them in the first place, and why don't they just repeal them?

Has there ever been a straight answer from a FOTL on this?
Yes it was answered with a large, D'uh
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Old 22nd July 2018, 08:56 AM   #60
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Originally Posted by Cosmic Yak View Post
This is something that has always puzzled me about the freeman thing.
If the whole Evil Oppression Plan can be foiled by citing laws that the EOP-ers themselves wrote, why did they write them in the first place, and why don't they just repeal them?

Has there ever been a straight answer from a FOTL on this?


I think the idea is, the powers that be need these laws in place for their own purposes, but the Freemen have caught them in the act, and are now bending the secret laws to their own will.

It's like the notion of the "Birth Bond". The governments and the banks need the birth bonds, for some reason, so they can secretly sell you into slavery on the international markets, for some reason, and reap the rewards of doing so. But, legally, the money still has to belong to you, for some reason, so they need to hide it from you. But if you can find it, they have to let you access it, for some reason, or their whole system falls apart. For some reason.
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Old 22nd July 2018, 10:03 AM   #61
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Originally Posted by MRC_Hans View Post
Interesting. I'm afraid I can't quite figure out what a "Freeman" is (except apparently a complete sucker), but ... I'll follow.

Hans
Here's a good summary for you. And a closely related Sovereign Citizen one.
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Old 22nd July 2018, 11:12 AM   #62
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Originally Posted by sue858 View Post
Hans: 'Menard' = Robert Menard. He used to post/be discussed on these very forums. I still can't post links, so search for "Rob Menard's FOTL Claims".
Sorry I was kidding by pointing out he has dropped from the apex of the Freeloaders to the nadir.
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Old 22nd July 2018, 08:55 PM   #63
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Originally Posted by sue858 View Post
Looking back now, with the benefits of hindsight and no longer living with a human Gish Gallop, I can easily see the flaw. For a start, the premise is flawed. Energy isn't 'used up', it's converted from one form to another. The fridge magnet gained potential energy when you picked it up. Magnetism, which I don't fully understand but which I think in this case could better be compared to a boulder teetering atop a hill than to a motor running, effectively acts as a way to store that potential energy.
Hi Sue,

Interesting posts. Just a quick science thingie. I am sure that one of our Physicists would do a far better job explaining, but...

So magnetism is related to one of the 3 primary forces in the Universe, that being the Weak Electric Forces that hold electrons to their atoms and binds atoms together to form molecules.

Really simply, electrons have a spin, and this spin creates an electromagnetic field (called a magnetic moment) in either an up direction or a down direction. Usually when atoms combine to form a molecule the electrons in their outer most shells will end up being shared by both atoms giving one a positive charge, and the other a negative charge, thus pulling the two closer together and holding them together. This is the weak electric forces.

When the atoms do this they pair up their electrons, and in most cases you'll get one spin up and one spin down electron, and so the magnetic moments will cancel each other out.

However, in some materials, particularly Iron, but others as well, it is easy to force these electrons into lining up their spins, making most of them either spin up, or spin down. This adds their magnetic moments together, rather than cancelling them out, and as a result, the material creates a magnetic field, which we then refer to as magnetism.

So this is why your magnets stick to your fridge. The outer shell electrons in material you fridge magnet is made from are creating this field, and when they come in contact with the steel of the fridge, they force the electrons of the iron atoms in the steel to line up their spin as well, and they create an attractive force between them, pulling the atoms closer and forming a weak bond between them.

So there is no actual energy being used or converted, it's just atoms attracting each other by the prime forces of the Universe, sort of like how gravity attracts us and holds us to the planet's surface.

Hope that helps without confusing you too much.
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Last edited by PhantomWolf; 22nd July 2018 at 08:58 PM.
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Old 23rd July 2018, 11:19 AM   #64
CORed
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Originally Posted by Travis View Post
Do these people ever think through the consequences of their ideas? I mean, say there really were magic words that got them out of paying debt or not needing to obey traffic laws. Do they really feel that a society could operate if people are not obligated to pay back their debt or obey traffic laws?
I don't really think most FOTL/sovcit types even think it through that much. They seem to be two-year-old minds in adult bodies. They just hate that they have to work to pay for the necessities and luxuries of life and want to believe that there is a magic formula for getting out of it.
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Old 23rd July 2018, 11:35 AM   #65
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Originally Posted by CORed View Post
They just hate that they have to work to pay for the necessities and luxuries of life and want to believe that there is a magic formula for getting out of it.
Magic formula. Is that what Merlin got as an infant?

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Old 23rd July 2018, 01:55 PM   #66
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Originally Posted by abaddon View Post
As far as this place goes, we are all just a little tired of the FOTL malarkey. One can only listen to so much of it. Menard the Retard probably pushed many of us over the edge with regard to rational discussion of FOTL matters. He finally bought the ban hammer, so we can all malign him at will. Oddly, we don't much really. That just tells you how irrelevant the guy was. I think member Aridas still posts occasional updates, but even those are few.
That's "arayder".

It's interesting you should mention Menard.

If you go to his Facebook page you can see that yesterday he started yet another venture: https://www.facebook.com/robert.menard.52

Quote:
Robert Menard
I am looking for someone very special. Is this you? Do you know someone who would qualify? There may be a reward in it if you help me find who I am looking for!
CEO NEEDED
Are you a self-starter who thinks strategically and implements tactfully? Do you have leadership and managerial skills? Do you have financial acumen, integrity and experience with video game development, networking and Intellectual Property? Are you looking for an exciting opportunity and enormous potential for growth? Would you like to be involved in the next level of gaming? Then we have an employment opportunity for you. Real3Games is the owner of a very unique advanced video game concept, and we are forming our executive management team. We are looking for an aggressive and competent CEO to work with the Board of Directors to develop and implement long term business strategies. . .
Then today Bobby has it all together:

Quote:
Robert Menard
CEO Found. Funding Secured.
Now forming a team.
Experience is less important than trustworthiness, general intelligence and passion.
12 seats to be filled.
Paid training to be provided.
Administrators, Marketers, Accountants, PR, Communicators, IT, Sales, Engineering, Builders,
Contact me via PM ASAP.
This reminds me of the ACCP, the Ninja Goat and freemen valley in that Bobby made a big deal out of the business plan and the start up, but never followed through. He recruited members, or partners, or investors and probably got some non-refundable startup money out of the gullible fools.

We should note that, in another case of Bobby controlling the narrative, he can't name the company, the CEO, or anything about the new venture.

Last edited by arayder; 23rd July 2018 at 01:56 PM.
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Old 23rd July 2018, 04:10 PM   #67
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"unique advanced video game concept"? FTA! Freeman Theft Auto!
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Old 27th July 2018, 02:37 AM   #68
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Originally Posted by Trebuchet View Post
Here's a good summary for you. And a closely related Sovereign Citizen one.
Mmm, so in short, complete sucker. As I thought.

Thanks.

Hans
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Old 27th July 2018, 02:44 AM   #69
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Originally Posted by PhantomWolf View Post
*snipped for brevity*

So this is why your magnets stick to your fridge. The outer shell electrons in material you fridge magnet is made from are creating this field, and when they come in contact with the steel of the fridge, they force the electrons of the iron atoms in the steel to line up their spin as well, and they create an attractive force between them, pulling the atoms closer and forming a weak bond between them.

So there is no actual energy being used or converted, it's just atoms attracting each other by the prime forces of the Universe, sort of like how gravity attracts us and holds us to the planet's surface.

Hope that helps without confusing you too much.
This is basically correct, however, there is some energy exchange involved as the magnet approaches or is removed from the metal, in the form of an exchange between potential energy and kinetic energy. Essentially like lifting up or putting down a rock. As with the rock, the energy does not come from the magnet or the fridge, but from whatever moves the magnet (presumably you).

Hans
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Old 30th July 2018, 01:11 PM   #70
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Originally Posted by MRC_Hans View Post
Mmm, so in short, complete sucker. As I thought.

Thanks.

Hans
Hmmm, It seems more as if they believe that everyone else is the sucker, but they themselves have got the inside knowledge and the intelligence to stick it to "the man"

Isn't that the normal stance of every two bit scam artist?
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Old 30th July 2018, 01:53 PM   #71
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Originally Posted by Lplus View Post
Hmmm, It seems more as if they believe that everyone else is the sucker, but they themselves have got the inside knowledge and the intelligence to stick it to "the man"

Isn't that the normal stance of every two bit scam artist?
It's just as often the stance they rely on in the mark to successfully sell the con.
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Old 31st July 2018, 01:38 AM   #72
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Originally Posted by MRC_Hans View Post
Interesting. I'm afraid I can't quite figure out what a "Freeman" is (except apparently a complete sucker), but ... I'll follow.

Hans
Originally Posted by Trebuchet View Post
Here's a good summary for you. And a closely related Sovereign Citizen one.

Here’s a slightly longer one: https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/do...12abqb571.html
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Old 9th August 2018, 12:07 PM   #73
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Originally Posted by sue858 View Post
Quatloos Cross-Post

I’d better start giving these posts titles for ease of future reference. This one is ‘Water-Powered Cars’.

TBH, I can't remember whether Ash tasked me with researching water-powered cars alongside SSFEMs or whether he set me that task after my SSFEM research failed to yield acceptable (to him) results. Either way, I wanted to separate that topic from 'Electricity', because it raises some different talking points and I was already going off on too many tangents with 'Electricity'.

Ash believed that someone had invented a car which could run on water but Big Oil was suppressing it to maintain their profitable monopoly. 'Someone invented World-Changing A, but Big B is keeping it secret because XYZ' was a running theme throughout Ash's theories. When Ash brought up the topic of water-powered cars, at first I thought no further research or debate would be needed because for once I actually agreed with him. Back then, Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars could have been the next big thing - though today, it seems that advances in battery tech means we'll just skip the 'Use hydrogen as a battery' middleman. Why introduce conversion inefficiencies when you don't need to? If you can charge up an electric car which runs on lightweight batteries reasonably quickly, using that electricity to split water apart just so you can put it back together again is a waste of time, energy and money.

But back then, 'Hydrogen fuel cells are the future of personal transport' was a reasonable, non-crank position for one to hold - so of course, it turned out that it was NOT Ash’s position. When he said "Cars can run on water," he meant "Someone has invented a car which you literally pour water - and nothing else - straight in to." OK, that's still theoretically possible, I guess. Maybe it would be possible to design a hybrid electric/hydrogen car which, when left to charge overnight, would electrolyse the water you poured in instead of (or in addition to) charging up its battery. Maybe there's a reason why you'd want to electrolyse water rather than charge a battery - I can't think of one, but I'm sure reasons exist. If you put a couple of solar panels on the roof, you might even be able to design that car so it rarely needs charging from the mains. Such a car would be well outside the price range of everyone but the very richest, though.

Ash still wasn't satisfied with my answer. He wanted a car which literally turned the water into energy. Not 'Used water as a medium for storing energy'. Used actual water for actual energy as if it were petrol one could 'burn'. I'd long since given up trying to explain the second law of thermodynamics to him (again), so I said, "I'm afraid I have no idea how such a car would even work, let alone how to make it." I wrapped this statement up in, "What a shame the Illuminati assassinated the genius who came up with such a brilliant invention," and that satisfied Ash. He had a little, "Curse you Illuminati!" rant, and I was no longer expected to figure out how to get a car to run on water. For the time being, everyone was happy.

Now, I think this is interesting because, as well as the 'Everything is (or should be) free' and 'TBTP are suppressing technology which would give everyone free X' themes discussed in my 'Electricity' post, there was also something else going on here that I didn't notice at the time. Ash would only accept magical explanations for things. There seemed to be something about Ash which meant that, if it actually worked, he wasn't satisfied. For example:

Ash: I want a water-powered car.
Me: (Starts discussing hydrogen-powered cars).
Ash: No, I mean a car I can literally fill up from my hosepipe. If you’re using electricity, you’re cheating.

Ash’s mentality was such that, if his dream ‘fill it up with your hosepipe’ car were a reality, Ash would probably complain about having to use expensive potable water and come up with a conspiracy theory wherein someone had invented a car which ran on grey or seawater but this invention was being suppressed by Big Water Treatment to maintain their profitable monopoly.

I almost fell for the SSFEM nonsense because I don't know the answer to questions like "How does a magnet stay on the side of a fridge? If all energy gets 'used up' sooner or later, why doesn't it eventually fall to the floor?" For someone with only a basic knowledge of magnetism, this question is a very good one. Charlatans ask such questions as a way to open the door to filling their subject's head with the nonsense of the charlatan's choice. "How do fridge magnets work?" is an opener to all those SSFEM blueprints which are variations on a 'Reverse electromagnetic motor' theme - the type where a bunch of magnets (be they permanent or electro) are affixed such that they form a 'propeller' or 'windmill'. Some semi-plausible trickery is applied and - voila! - a perpetual motion machine. If you're not getting out ten times the energy you're putting in, then it's your fault for building/using the machine wrong, of course.

Looking back now, with the benefits of hindsight and no longer living with a human Gish Gallop, I can easily see the flaw. For a start, the premise is flawed. Energy isn't 'used up', it's converted from one form to another. The fridge magnet gained potential energy when you picked it up. Magnetism, which I don't fully understand but which I think in this case could better be compared to a boulder teetering atop a hill than to a motor running, effectively acts as a way to store that potential energy. That's what almost sucked me in. The SSFEM crowd conflate 'using' and 'converting' energy; this confuses the layman into believing that maybe there is something to this Free Energy stuff. They also ignore or deny things like friction which prevent any conversion method from being 100% efficient.

The thing I always wondered: why do certain 'gurus' promote such things? I understand why those who charge for their designs would do that; they're just running a variation of a straight 419 scam - pay me a small upfront fee and you'll have free energy for the rest of your life. Plenty of people out there with more greed than conscience - that fact isn't news. Then there are the lay members like Ash who just want to believe because if it's true then they're morally justified in trying to get something for nothing. But what about those who come up with various 'perpetual motion' designs and post them on the net for free? I don't see what they get out of it. They're not asking for money, and any fame they achieve will be short-lived once their followers realise that their designs don't work.
Nice turn of phrase there
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Old 10th August 2018, 04:07 PM   #74
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And in related news, it seems like the arsonist who started the very Destructive Holy Jim Fire (after the canyon where it started) in California is heavily into Sovereign Citizen Nuttery.
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