Edison Would Have Loved New Light Bulb Law, Says His Great-Grandson

New submitter futuristic writes with a link to Thomas Edison's great-grandson's take on Thomas Edison and the alleged demise of the incandescent light bulb. From the article: "My great grandfather's 100-watt incandescent will be replaced with new energy-efficient versions, including CFLs, LEDs, and — yes — new and improved incandescent bulbs. ... And my great-grandfather wouldn't have it any other way."

Comments

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolute bullshit. As much as any sensible man should support the new lightbulb law, Edison was *not* a sensible man. All you need to know to figure out his stance on old outdated technology versus new, superior technology is this: DC vs. AC, Edison vs. Tesla.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't old vs new technology, it was where he could make the most. I'm sure he'd love the new laws....if he could make a buck from them.

Re:Bullshit

[Forty Two Tenfold]

You mean Washington, DC? Because you can't do half of the things with direct current that are possible with AC. And I don't mean Anonymous Cowards. AND DC is in fact way more dangerous than AC, especially if the AC frequency is very high.

Re:Bullshit

[icebraining]

You mean, my light bulbs composed of LEDs? Yes, they're DC.

Re:Bullshit

[bunratty]

The same reason there are building codes. People would just buy cheap houses that fall down and have all sorts of other hazards otherwise. People are pretty dumb and cheap. We're doing all sorts of other things to reduce energy use, also, including having new standards (laws) for energy efficiency for cars and applicances. We should also update building codes to require more insulation.

Re:Bullshit

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What bullshit. Anybody who wants to pay more in taxes can at any time do so, without be compelled to do so. ... The only fucking reason this hypocrite pays less taxes is because he sets out to do so from the beginning.

No, THAT is the real bullshit. There is no contradiction between using "loopholes" and simultaneously wanting the loopholes to be taken out of the system because the simple fact of it is that there is no such thing as a loophole - only legal and illegal actions. Buffet explicitly wants the capital gains tax rate to be increased such that taking his income as dividends instead of earned income won't save him or his cronies from the higher tax rates that regular people pay.

Re:FP?

[JWSmythe]

    Heh. That's pretty much what I was going to say.. If he had the patent(s) on it, he'd praise it as the best thing since ... well ... the light bulb. If he didn't, he'd be pushing all the reasons that it was horrible and dangerous.

    That's the way he played.. Otherwise, we would be praising the successor to the Joseph Swan light bulb.

    Patents are a bitch, and Edison was the original patent troll.

Re:FP?

[hairyfeet]

He'd be shocking animals to death with the new lightbulbs, suing Westinghouse and Tesla and everyone else, and in general acting like any other a$$hole - because that's what he was, and that's what he did, as well as cheating Tesla out of $$$ - all putting the "Con" in "Con Edison."

Uhhh...how EXACTLY is that flamebait? doesn't anyone know their history anymore? it was Edison that was frying animals and pushing for the electric chair because he was sure it would discredit Tesla and AC power and since he had DC patented up the ass he stood to make a fortune if he pulled it off. its pretty common knowledge that even after it was proven that with the tech of the time DC just wouldn't scale Edison was pushing for "neighborhood generators' belching out coal smoke to power a couple of blocks rather than admit while DC had its uses it wasn't gonna work long distance.

Sorry to burst anyone's bubbles but while Edison was a brilliant man he was also as ruthless as they come and had NO problem with deep roasting animals and people just to try to ruin a competitor. Hell Gates and Jobs didn't have nothing on Edison as i can't really picture Jobs having someone bashed to death with an IBM PC to "prove" they were unsafe.

Re:Really?

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

No, because it is impossible to prove. I call it the post-mortem fallacy: where someone argues a position is held by another who was dead long before he or she could have had any opinion on the topic. We don't know what opinion Edison would have had on the new law.