Re: "Levitron" maglev device

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Mon, 27 Sep 1999, Gerald Zani wrote:

> Bill, Tappers,
>
> The projo about the Levitron article is very good.  I have it posted on my
> bulletin board.  If you try to go to the web sites that Bill pointed to you
> will have trouble.  So I copied the articles and posted them at:

The author just contacted me to say that Projo takes articles off after
one week.  He gives permission to put it on WWW, so it now can be found
at:

http://www.amasci.com/maglev/levtr1.html

I've also added an old letter to the Sherloks (the ones who maintained the
evidence of the theft on levitron.com until Hone's got the courts to shut
them down.)

http://www.amasci.com/maglev/levbill1.html (also below.)


((((((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com                                  http://www.amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits          science projects, tesla, weird science
Seattle, WA   206-781-3320          freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L



                     THE "PATHOLOGICAL DISHONESTY" DISEASE

   To the Sherloks
   In reading the lastest LEVITRON "Expose" update on www.levitron.com, I
   suddenly realized that something seemed extremely familiar about the
   whole situation. About five years ago I went through the breakup of a
   small company. See if the following story strikes any chords with you.

   During some financial rough times, one partner in our little design
   company attacked another, and threatened to quit if the second partner
   was not ejected. As discussion ensued and threats and counterthreats
   were made over the following weeks, very strange things started to
   happen. As the group continued to discuss ongoing events, I started to
   feel as if there was something wrong with my mind, because some of the
   events that the group was discussing had never occurred. Other events
   that the people discussed were totally different than I remembered
   them. I began questioning peoples' memory during meetings, and I found
   that the rest of the group maintained a solid concensus agreement
   about several past events which were very different than my own
   recollections. Also, several real events which I remembered quite
   clearly were denied by the group as having never occurred.

   Fortunately I spent enough time away from the group that I could
   maintain a small amount of perspective, and I gave a great deal of
   thought to these strange memory mismatches. At first I suspected that
   this was the infamous "Rashomon" effect (from the Kurosawa movie where
   an identical event is shown from the perspective of several different
   people.) Some of the problem did come from this; from the fact that
   different people emphasize some events while forgetting others.
   However, I began to notice that something else was happening. Two of
   the partners were lying. They were lying quite openly, and about all
   sorts of minor things. The lies were small enough that I never would
   have noticed them ordinarily. To see them I had to be intentionally
   looking for them. As they discussed things over time, their stories
   slowly changed in obvious ways, and always so as to make themselves
   appear to be the "good guys," and so their opponents appeared to be
   evil. Long friendships were conveniently misremembered as hostile
   rivalry, and some recent major changes in attitudes were discussed as
   if they had always been the norm.

   The business partners were "rewriting history" as they desired, with
   little regard for truth. And strangest of all, they obviously were not
   doing this intentionally. The process took the form of a constant sort
   of "negative gossip", where the gossip was somewhat nasty, and over
   many days they would come to believe their own speculations as being
   actual events. The "solidified gossip" was then extended with even
   more subtly dishonest information, so the "warping of reality" built
   up more and more over time. I found that the overall effect was very
   hard to fight, and on several occasions I felt weird and confused, and
   had to sit down and try to sort out my original viewpoint from the
   subtly twisted viewpoints I had unknowingly taken on while working in
   the group.

   When I confronted them about some of the differences in our memories
   of ongoing (not past) events, they invariably attacked MY perception
   of events as being faulty. They usually added lots of emphasis on the
   fact that I had no proof that my version was right and theirs was
   wrong, and put much emphasis on the idea that all of reality is just a
   matter of opinion. (But although truth may be subjective, one thing in
   reality is real: intentional lying!) They had no self-doubts at all,
   and their defenses were impenetrable, which I found to be extremely
   unsettling. And so I started keeping written records of all the
   ongoing events, and began making tape recordings of company meetings.
   I did not trust my OWN memories, so I came to rely upon these records
   whenever arguments about the facts of the case came up.

   The whole upheaval took months. Time after time I found great
   mismatches in what the group believed and what had actually happened.
   Sometimes the partners would completely change their stories, and then
   insist that their stories had always been that way. They would accuse
   others of nasty acts that THEY THEMSELVES had actually performed. I
   kept exposing the differences and trying to force the group to keep
   honest contact with reality as best as I could, but they absolutely
   hated my "disgusting" truth telling and tape recorders, and it was a
   losing battle. I eventually got out of the whole toxic situation.

   After years had passed and I gained lots more perspective, I could
   clearly see the operation of a stunning human foible which I had never
   encountered earlier in my life: some people maintain a positive
   self-image by a habit of lying to themselves. The lies are small but
   constant, and their cumulative effect allows that person to carry out
   some fairly nasty and spiteful acts without knowning that they are
   doing so. They they either forget about them entirely, or they put a
   "spin" on them so they appear correct and righteous. "Convenient
   Disremembering" rules their lives. They constantly rewrite history to
   make themselves look good, and they view themselves as good people,
   even though their actions are very different from those of a good
   person. When someone should confront them with clear evidence of the
   original version of events, or if someone even *questions* their
   version, they burst out in rage. They deeply hate tape recorders and
   camcorders, but they are unable to give a coherent reason why this is
   so. (The reason is obvious, but they don't know that!)

   Overall, the dishonest reality-warp phenomenon is a very scary thing
   to be near. I see that it is the main force that produces Cult-think.
   I can easily see how the Nazis could kill millions of civilians during
   WWII, and the German people go along with it, all the while thinking
   that they were in the right. I can see how abusive parents can beat
   children to death, all the while believing that it's the child's
   fault. It's simply a matter of being slightly but constantly
   dishonest, of bad-mouthing the truth so that it vanishes, of coming up
   with warped justifications for your actions, and then learning to be
   blind to the warpings. It's simply a matter of telling small lies and
   then believing them, so that they turn invisible, and can form a new
   level of "truth" on which more subtle lies are again added, until your
   system of beliefs slowly twists into something that would shock an
   outside observer.

   What's all this leading to? It looks to me like Hones has this "lying
   disease". If so, then he is not consciously stealing Harrigan's work.
   He may REALLY BELIEVE that he is in the right, and so he explains your
   attack as being motivated by your jealousy, self-righteousness, evil,
   etc. (But why would a fellow Levitron-seller abandon a good business
   and start exposing Hones' misdeeds? How can he explain it?) He is
   unable to see his actions in anything but a good (but false) light.
   If he is indulging in this "reality warping" stuff, then whenever you
   defeat some part of his case, he will not back down, because for him
   history conveniently changes so that the defeat never occurred. This
   makes him a formidable opponent because he might never surrender.
   Also, he can tell enormous lies with a clear conscience, and people
   will believe his side of the story without a second thought, since his
   attitude and body-language is that of a truth teller.

   My advice on how to fight this stuff matches what you are already
   doing: be utterly honest, and expose both YOUR OWN actions and Hones'
   actions to as much publicity as possible. Assume that Hones is
   slightly dangerous: he is fighting to defend his image of himself as a
   good person, and consequentially you threaten him at a very deep
   level. He may talk himself into seeing a need to commit acts of
   violence. In addition, people with the "lie disease" are extremely
   vengeful. They will remember even small personal slights for the rest
   of their lives. On the positive side: from what I've seen of the legal
   world, the people there are aware of these "snake" types of
   personality, and probably won't be easily taken in by Hones as are the
   people surrounding him.

   Well, best of luck in the battle. If you want to look up an
   interesting book, track down Scott M. Peck's book "THE PEOPLE OF THE
   LIE," ISBN:0684848597 It's by a psychologist who noticed that a
   portion of his patients shared a certain trait: extreme
   self-protective and self-centered dishonesty; what the outside world
   labels as "evil."