Why is Everybody Waiting for America When it Comes to Research?

In the short term I’m not pessimistic about the future, but I think that we have to acknowledge that our society has become orientated towards consumption rather than production. And a society that becomes orientated towards consumption abandons scientific investigation. There are plenty of historical precedents of this phenomenon. And in the end, what has happened in the past is that societies which abandon the pursuit of science die.--- Martin Fleischmann source NewEnergyTimes

My thoughts exactly, with respect to consumption. We owe this misconception to the modern culture that pushes the idea of consumption as opposed to production. If the incentives got reversed towards more production, there could be a turnaround. Going the Keynesian route is analogous to curing alcoholism by "pissing in a barrel".

The problem in engineering this turnaround is with our culture- people like Paul Krugman who follows these Keynesian notions of consumption as cure for our current ills. The 'cure' is the sickness- overconsumption. We are living beyond our means. It isn't just Krugman, though. Those on the right need to get with a program too.

For instance, here we are within reach of the beginning of a solution to our problems- a device that can produce the massive amounts of energy that we need for our society. But every which way you turn, people seem to insist upon blocking it. Those who might see the need for production don't realize that this can be far superior to relying upon oil. Those who can see the advantage to the environment are not showing enough interest in it; either because they are Luddites, and are opposed to any thing which would foster growth, or their environmentalism is so extreme that they think a return to caveman society would be an improvement.

If our culture was just a little different, you could handle this issue by simply having the government grant this patent now on the condition that it can be thoroughly tested every which way in order to see if it will work. Why not try this? The amount of money that you would need to do this would be so small that it would be inconsequential in comparison with what is already being spent on oil.

Now, I've read up on the controversy enough to have come across another phenomenon. There are those who say that is what a patent does- it provides protection for the secret while allowing it to be tested for its effectiveness. In such a case as that, one might come to the conclusion that the device is no good. But maybe that is not the problem. Maybe the problem is the process is broken. Maybe they won't approve a patent and the man simply recognizes that and won't trust the government to approve and protect his invention and he will lose his invention and the economic benefits from it that he has earned. That thought is chilling, for if that is the case, nothing can be invented anymore.

This requires somebody to step forward and resolve the problem in such a way that the possible solution can be implemented as quickly as possible. Even if the device is a fraud, we should be able to find out quickly if such is the case or not. Who's preventing this and why? People need to recognize this and act upon it, because time is running short. We need to know if this works and we need to know now. If it does, we need to implement it as quickly as possible.