Suppressed technology. Fact or fiction?

[BearGrounds]

Do you believe that certain tech with the potential to be humanity-advancing, has ever been shelved, kept secret, and/or suppressed by existing power groups in order to maintain certain power structures and control?

This sentiment is common among CT crowds, but even plenty of your regular everyday folk seem keen to the proposition.

Here's a YT video with some proposed examples to help illustrate the idea of the thread:

Here is the list of 9 Suppressed / lost inventions in history that could have changed the world. From a strange time travel machine to a mechanic who invented a water fuelled car.
9. Water Fuel Cell
8. Cloud buster
7. Starlite
6. Rife devices
5. Sloot digital coding system
4. Ogle’s Carburetor
3. Greek Fire
2. Chronovisor
1. Project X.A.

Personally, I think you'd have to be pretty naive to think it hasn't happened at some level, and likely more than once. But with that said, whether or not an actual water powered car or free energy device was ever truly created and suppressed, I couldn't say. Maybe, maybe not.

 

[facePuncher7]

Most likely not a great deal of truth to it, and the reality is a lot more mundane like a lot of CT stuff.

When I worked in R&D I had a lot of ideas for things that would make substantial impacts to the way my industry functioned. I often wondered why they didn't already exist, as the implementation seemed so obvious.

Then I would begin the process of convincing the right people to help make it a reality and it becomes obvious quickly why some seemingly obvious inventions don't exist yet.

We've had the tech to produce self-driving cars for well over a decade, but how many do you see on the road?

That's to do with all the more practically conceivable stuff. Water powered cars and the like are so far fetched that no one would put up the resources to develop the concept further.

 

[loyalyolayal]

Militarize them first then commercial applications to make more profit.

 

[Alphaboy]

Of course. People think like children. For example alternative energy... Y'all think oil giants wanna lose their friggin' trillion dollar monopoly? And if a politician is bribed / threatened, think he'll say no to surpressing other energy forms?

I say tech will be suppressed if it is a threat to anyone in power. People's personal power and security overrides human advancement.

 

[Fluffernutter]

Of course. People think like children. For example alternative energy... Y'all think oil giants wanna lose their friggin' trillion dollar monopoly? And if a politician is bribed / threatened, think he'll say no to surpressing other energy forms?

I say tech will be suppressed if it is a threat to anyone in power. People's personal power and security overrides human advancement.

On the flipside, don't the oil giants have enough clout to invent and patent the next generation of alternative energy?

Oil isn't going to last forever, Big Oil certainly knows that. One would think they have a backup plan to ensure their billions of dollars companies will survive.

 

[Fluffernutter]

Isn't one of the reasons why we are seeing issues with the F35 is due to the technology of the plane is too advanced for the human pilots to keep up with it?

 

[BearGrounds]

BTW, planned obsolescence is a concept that sort of ties into this thread.

Making tech less effective and designed for eventual failure so as to ensure return consumerism.

 

[Fluffernutter]

BTW, planned obsolescence is a concept that sort of ties into this thread.

Making tech less effective and designed for eventual failure so as to ensure return consumerism.

I remember waaaaayyyy back in college reading a newspaper article that stated Nike had lost money the year before. The reason was that their shoes were lasting longer than they had anticipated. Therefore, since they lasted longer, people were not buying replacements as often as they used to. In essence, they lost money because their quality got better.

So, of course, they had to make crappy shoes to keep the cash coming in.

Also, didn't Apple recently admit that they intentionally slow down older iPones so that customers buy the newer models?

 

[MusterX]

On the flipside, don't the oil giants have enough clout to invent and patent the next generation of alternative energy?

Its a real mother F'er. You don't generally "invent" alternative energy, you might discover it but you don't invent it. That's why oil is called black gold, its not just some black gooey substance, its a store of energy. You would have to discover a new store of energy which is unlikely. We still aren't to the point where most people realize electricity is not an energy source. We have to take real energy sources like coal or natural gas and then convert it to electricity. We have coal, natural gas, petroleum, solar, wind, nuclear, but you are not likely to just come up with something new which is why this problem is so hard to solve.

 

[MusterX]

BTW, planned obsolescence is a concept that sort of ties into this thread.

Making tech less effective and designed for eventual failure so as to ensure return consumerism.

shhh, people are not ready to accept that the products they buy are designed to break so they have to buy more of them.

 

[OverCoronavirus Pressure]

I don't have any real reason to believe it. Like many things, one could suspect it and then go looking for confirming data.

I don't think a dispassionate look into it would reveal anything very convincing.

To the question, do I think those with the power would?
Yes, I do.

 

[MusterX]

I remember waaaaayyyy back in college reading a newspaper article that stated Nike had lost money the year before. The reason was that their shoes were lasting longer than they had anticipated. Therefore, since they lasted longer, people were not buying replacements as often as they used to. In essence, they lost money because their quality got better.

So, of course, they had to make crappy shoes to keep the cash coming in.

Also, didn't Apple recently admit that they intentionally slow down older iPones so that customers buy the newer models?

Absolutely 100% its done in a huge number of products, televisions, light bulbs, washing machines, etc. Printers as well, they are designed to break after so many copies made. Watch this video to have your blood pressure rise a little bit.

 

[My name is]

I'd bet my nuts on it... I know if I invented something that could kill the oil companies I'd tell the oil companies about it first and cash out like a mofo... or get killed

 

[Fedorgasm]

Also, didn't Apple recently admit that they intentionally slow down older iPones so that customers buy the newer models?

They admitted to slowing down the older phones but they claimed they did it to extend battery life.

It was a complete lie though. I had an iPhone 6 that didn't have any battery problems and was plenty fast, but after that update it became frustrating to do anything on that damn phone.

Fuck Apple

 

[BearGrounds]

The example @ 5:45 of the video in the OP.

Royal Raymond Rife

Royal Raymond Rife (May 16, 1888 – August 5, 1971) was an American inventor and early exponent of high-magnification time-lapse cine-micrography.

Little reliable published information exists describing Rife's life and work. In the 1930s, he made several optical compound microscopes and using a movie camera, took time-lapse microscopy movies of microbes.He also built microscopes that included polarizers.

Rife also reported that a 'beam ray' device of his invention could destroy the pathogens. Rife claimed to have documented a "Mortal Oscillatory Rate" for various pathogenic organisms, and to be able to destroy the organisms by vibrating them at this particular rate. According to the San Diego Evening Tribune in 1938, Rife stopped short of claiming that he could cure cancer, but did argue that he could "devitalize disease organisms" in living tissue, "with certain exceptions".

I find this case to be particularly interesting, given the fact that this kind of research is still being seriously explored (albeit in a somewhat under-the-radar fashion):

 

[Fedorgasm]

Absolutely 100% its done in a huge number of products, televisions, light bulbs, washing machines, etc. Printers as well, they are designed to break after so many copies made. Watch this video to have your blood pressure rise a little bit.

What I don't get is why doesn't competition prevent planned obsolescence?

Like if hp printers always break after 3 years you would think everyone would buy Epson or Canon.

Unless they all collude together and make their stuff break after the same length of time. Which I guess wouldn't be illegal, because I think only colluding to fix prices is illegal, but fixing quality isn't.

Why doesn't this happen in the Auto industry? Cars today easily go for 200,000 miles and we used to be happy if they made it 100,000

 

[ralphc1]

It's impossible to suppress technology as it will seldom be something that only one person thinks up. Everybody thinks up things that either don't work or aren't practical. Some things don't work with the technology of the time but become viable as technology becomes available.

Airplanes didn't become practical until an engine light enough to power one was developed.

The first electric car was developed in 1828 and there were electric cars in the early 1900s but the gasoline engine was more practical until the price of oil got higher.

Early lighting usually involved fire until incandescent lights were invented. The incandescent light was made possible by the development of materials that could be used. Those lights still used a considerable amount of power. Other types of lighting that were more efficient were developed like fluorescent and high intensity discharge were developed and used. Now, light emitting diodes have made most other forms of light production obsolete as they use less energy.

Rockets have been around for hundreds of years but the ability to control them has only been developed in the last 100 years.

Technology is seldom one giant leap but involves the combination of several innovations.

 

[ralphc1]

Isn't one of the reasons why we are seeing issues with the F35 is due to the technology of the plane is too advanced for the human pilots to keep up with it?

Humans haven't been able to keep up with modern fighters for many years. Computers do the actual flying with human input telling the computer what they want to do. Hydraulics control the flight surfaces and computers control the hydraulics.

The g forces the planes can develop has been beyond the capacity of most humans to withstand for many years.

 

[JabToucher]

I saw a really cool video talking about world changing inventions that the government took control over and suppressed. Mostly about the vehicle industry and battery's. I'll try and find it.

 

[Otto!]

Money is the driving for e behind industry and politics. Neither of those realms will support something that’s going to negatively affect their own position, unless they have no choice but to follow suit.