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"Perpetual Motion DeLorean" Scammers Face $26M Judgment
An anonymous reader writes "Back in 2002, we discussed a story about the so-called 'Perpetual Motion DeLorean,' which could 'supposedly go "hundreds of miles" at speeds over 100MPH without stopping to recharge.' More than seven years later, the final shoe has dropped on this saga, with a $26 million judgment against Carl Tilley and his wife, who propagated this scam that ran for several years. Probably the height of its audacity was when Tilley told his shareholders in May of 2002 that GE had offered $2 billion 'sight unseen' to buy out the technology."
Serious? Really? How are most technology CEO's scammers on a level that this guy is on? Can you name a legit technology CEO that you think is at that same 'scam level'?
They're doing the human race a favour. Really.
Evolution in action, baby. Anyone who is willing to not only believe in perpetual motion but invest money in it deserves whatever it is he or she gets from their particular brand of ignorance. A basic grade-school science curriculum should be sufficient armor against a scam of this type (well, at least in my day it was.)
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
It was a tax on people who don't understand the basic laws of thermodynamics.
This ain't rocket surgery.
The GP seems to think that these scammers did humanity a favor by removing large sums of money from the scammed (fools) who can't then use that money for other foolish purposes. Any crime could be justified along those lines by blaming the victim of the crimes for being unable to defend themselves against it. Social darwinism at its finest.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Seems fair enough to me :-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
While I can see where you come from, this is still deception and should not be rewarded. Neither should the greed of the 'investors'.
I guess you never went to the movies.
...just like muggers and other thugs who help to weed out the weak and elderly?
Right, assuming that GE actually paid him the $2B, even though when contacted they said they haven't heard of him and that they always do due diligence when investing in anything, especially for that much.
In other words, $2B sight unseen offers do not exist. This should have been obvious to anyone he told that to. Anyone investing $2B into anything is going to do quite a bit of research to make sure their investment is going to pay off.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Ever tried to get funding for something? You'd be amazed how little investors know about your project. How little they actually want to know. Confront them with the technical side and their eyes will glaze over before you're halfway through. They don't care.
Make wild promises and call it revolutionary technology, then break directly to investment plan and projected revenue, and you're set. I'm not kidding here. They'd invest in a machine that turns shit into meat if you make it sound halfway scientific (use cyanobacteria you genetically engineered with a retrovirus, that's 3 hard to spell words that kinda sound like they could sorta do the trick), but don't spend more than 5 minutes with the technical side, then go immediately to the part where you promise them lots of riches.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I would argue that the "alternative energy/environmental impact" community has got to be a close second. There are still *plenty" of "alternative energy" people who think that the big car companies are suppressing 100 mpg carburetors and intentionally stifling innovation, despite the clearly suicidal reasoning that entails, not to mention the second-law-of-thermodynamics issues. There are plenty of people talking about space power systems despite the unknown technological basis and absurdly prohibitive economics (and, bizarrely, environmental impacts) of such a system. There are still people advocating orders-of-magnitude level of "conservation" despite the obvious economic and quality of life effects that this would have. There are still those advocating isolating human population to walled cities with limited external activity to "protect the world from people" People set SUVs on fire to protest environmental impacts of SUVs, and release more pollution in 1/2 hour than the SUV would have released in its entire existence.
Problems will not be solved by "true believers", precisely because they are true believers.
Brett
It's easy to bash the bankers - heck, a lot of politicians are making a career out of it.
But given that the banking industry basically underpins all the others, there were very few options but to bail them out. Not saying I like or agree with it, but I'm calling it how it is.
In consequence it comes down to this - when the banks hold a pistol to their heads, they're pointing a fucking big howitzer at everyone else.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The whole "but our ancestors worked and fought for it" argument is kinda pointless.
On the other hand, the whole "we are working hard and fighting for it" is relevant. It's completely fair and moral for a country's citizens to have their own culture, government, and economy.
I do actually consider it a possiblity that some new breakthrough at CERN will come up with a better understanding, which shows that for example the conservation of energy does not always hold. Like when most people though physics was pretty much understood and Newton's laws of motion were the absolute and final truth, until Einstein came along and showed them to be only an approximation. In that sense, the laws of thermodynamics are very much a "just a theory". [disclaimer: IANAP]
But I am quite sure no such breakthrough will come from people like Carl Tilley.
It's easy to bash the bankers - heck, a lot of politicians are making a career out of it.
But given that the banking industry basically underpins all the others, there were very few options but to bail them out. Not saying I like or agree with it, but I'm calling it how it is.
In consequence it comes down to this - when the banks hold a pistol to their heads, they're pointing a fucking big howitzer at everyone else.
Two things went wrong: improper Clinton-era deregulation (yes, this has been going on for a while now) and bank management that immediately began to exhibit the very behavior the original regulation was designed to prevent. Much as some of us detest the thought, the reality is that there is no such thing as a workable "free market", those with power cannot be trusted to wield it with anything but their own best interests in mind, and because of that we do need the institution of government.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.