[OT] Do you subscribe to any conspiracy theories?

[arcseed]

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, that the US government (and perhaps those of other large industrialized nations), along with the oil and automotive companies, are willfully preventing the eradication of the current car engine designs. You cannot make me believe for even one minute, that designing vehicles which can efficiently run on other forms of "clean" fuel, is not yet plausible.

The problem is that none of the aformentioned parties want to witness the decline of oil prices, or lay out the cash necessary to re-tool production lines. So, in the meanwhile, we continue to pollute the environment and make ourselves reliant on nations we'd sooner have nothing to do with. Lovely.

I don't really wanna get in a political argument here... but, well, I can't quite let this go.

If the invisible hand is a conspiracy, if people acting out of pure self-interest without consulting anyone else is a conspiracy, then count me in on this one. Along with the Evil Government, the Evil Corporations, and several million americans who just like being able to drive 300 miles on a ten dollar bill.

Now, maybe, yes, the oil companies want to sell more oil at higher prices. And I'm sure the automobile industry doesn't really wanna spend money retooling their prodction lines. But why invent a conspiracy when what you see can be explained perfectly well without? Gas is CHEAP. Particularly in the US. But even in countries where taxes make gas more than twice as expensive there's still not much demand for alternate fuels, mainly 'coz gas still gets you there cheaper. The conspiracy to keep gasoline vehicles alive is a conspiracy of the consumers, who just want their transportation needs filled cheaply. (And 'stylishly', I guess. Ick. I don't care for SUVs either.)

And there are alternate fuel vehicles being produced: I know of a few places where the buses are run on natural gas, and I've seen natural gas cabs. So Ford, at least, has one production line able to bust out a Crown Victoria that runs on natural gas, and if you really wanna drive an alternate fuel car, I'm sure you could make arrangements. Don't wanna pay a few grand more for your car, you say? Don't wanna deal with a more expensive and less convenient fuel system? Neither does anybody else.

And, despite burning that horrible, filthy gasoline, cars these days are really very good about emissions. Compare the smog in LA to what it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. Despite a LOT more cars on the road, and a lot more gasoline being burned, the air is better now than it has been for years, and continues to improve. Someone (Audi, maybe?), due to popular demand, just produced a car whose exhaust, they claim, has less CO2, NOx, and particulates than the air coming into the intake in an average city. The claim looked good when I checked it out, I wish I could find it now...

No one wants to pollute the environment any more than they have to. The auto manufacturers really aren't afraid of innovation. But no one is going to be able to replace the gasoline economy from above. It's going to have to wait on other technologies becoming cheaper than gasoline, either through technological innovation or gasoline becoming scarce, which isn't going to happen any time soon.

Besides, if, as you say, the conspiracy is to keep oil prices high, wouldn't we stop buying oil from the Middle East, so Texas and our buddies in Russia could sell their oil for a bit more?

 

[PenguinKing]

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[Cyberzombie]

Jezrael said:
Well the F-117 (Stealth Fighter), was built in the late 70's yet everyone thought it was shiny new in the Gulf War, only later did the gub'mint admit that it had been built and used earlier.

Well. I knew about the Stealth Fighter way back in the mid-'80s. When I was still a teenager. I was probably a freshman in high school when I heard about it. And about what a truly crappy plane it is, too, since the damn things are almost impossible to keep in the air. They crash a lot.

As for conspiracies in general: I don't believe in them. Especially not ones involving moderators and admins and former posters, watching the boards from the shadows and plotting to take over the gaming industry.

Nope. Not a bit of it. Couldn't happen in THIS country.

 

[Martin]

You know what the best thing about conspiracies are?

Best thing about conspiricies is that when you talk about the big ones--the ones that everyone's fond of, y'know, the Masons, the Illuminati, etc--is that it doesn't really matter. Think about it. You find out that there is a major conspiracy of monumental proportions, you pull out a handful of evidence, and you can't do anything about it. No one will believe you, and if they do, they're just as likely to be looked upon as gibbering crackpots as you are.

Look, the best thing to do is just to accept the fact that there are likely to be consipiricies in the government and within corporations. The ones that can be brought down will be brought down and the ones that can't be or are too big at the moment won't be. They'll generally die out eventually. That's part of the nature of the beast as well.

Accept the fact that nothing lasts forever and in a hundred years, anyone involved in your pet conspiracy will likely be dead. Accept that most underhanded dealings are usually discovered, thus leading to the downfall of such things. Look at the progress in dairy products alone, from the watered down, chalk enhanced milk that was produced by dairy farmers feeding their cattle swill, to the higher quality product that we have today. Things we can change we will. Things we can't, we won't.

Conspiracy theories about whether Neil Armstrong walked on the moon or whether he walked in a Burbank studio are of the latter variety. Who cares? What can be done about it? What effect does it have on the world? By creating a myth that man could reach the moon, the moonwalk, real or not, gave us hope. JFK, regardless of who shot him, will not get better. Can we take back Pearl Harbour if we were to find absolute proof that FDR knew about it? No.

Keep your conspiracy theories to yourself, I say. Sure, they're fun and all, but still--they don't matter. You're only making yourself look like a loon when you share them. If you don't believe me, take a good, long look at your fellow theorists. You'll see what I mean. And if you don't like what I've got to say . . .

. . . lodge a complaint to your local chapter of the Illuminati. Maybe they'll listen to you.

 

[Martin]

I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories . . .

. . . I buy them at the newsstand.

 

[maddman75]

Its the squirrels! They control it all!! They are everywhere, and meet in the--

*collapses screaming under a pile of fuzzy tails*