Good points being made about the hypocrisy of these sovrun types: "I shouldn't have to pay taxes, but I should get
all the benefits which are paid for by those taxes." Glad my stories are provoking interesting discussions.
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Since the discussion is going towards 'Freeman Hypocrisy', 'Electricity' will be the theme of my post today; I'll explain the link between these themes in my story.
I mentioned in passing that I got 'free' (albeit unreliable) electricity. Now, I was under no illusions about the fact that someone, somewhere was paying for it. Maybe one of the electric companies (or rather their customers through marginally higher prices). Probably one of the people living legitimately in the house above me - possibly any one of them, most likely the one in the room directly above where the cables came down. I did consider introducing myself to them and offering to pitch in towards the difference. Heck, if I could've found the Consumer Unit which supplied the basement, I could've installed a meter between me and the CU so there'd have been no arguments about who was responsible for the latest shockingly high bill. But I didn't know how they would've reacted. Maybe they would've accepted my offer of a few bob a week in the spirit it was intended. On the other hand, maybe they would've been jealous that I was living rent-free and resentful of the fact that I'd heretofore been stealing leccy from them; they might've decided to get revenge by grassing me up to the building's owner, then next thing I know I would've been on the streets in search of a new place to live. I felt guilty about not paying my share, but not quite guilty enough to risk eviction by blowing my cover. 'Keeping my cover', by the way, also involved trying not to be seen going in and out of the basement, making as little noise as possible (no wild house parties for me!), stuff like that - I wasn't just looking for an excuse to not pay for my electric!
Ash, however, thought electricity should be free for everyone. He believed that there is some super-secret free energy technology that TPTB are keeping a secret for some poorly-defined reasons. At my college, I was doing a 'Beginner's guide to construction' course where I learnt the (very bare) basics of plumbing and electrics. So there was this time when, after I'd become so sick of listening to his rant that I gave up on trying to explain the second law of thermodynamics ("It was TPTB that
taught you that 'law' in the first place!") and said, "OK, maybe there is some free energy machine out there, but I have no idea how to make it." So Ash said to me, "You're almost a qualified electrician (ha!) - have a google around and show me what you find." I knew I'd find nothing but scams, so I just bookmarked a few links to videos of machines which looked legit - at least to someone who thinks that the most likely explanation for a 2-minute YouTube video of some machine running without any apparent external power supply is that some random schmuck has invented a perpetual motion machine.
A few days later, Ash asks me how my 'research' went. I pull up the videos, but he immediately calls BS on them. I gently try to nudge him into realising for himself that there's no such thing as 'Free Energy', but he insists there is. I tell Ash that if he wants to get 'free energy', he should invest in rooftop solar panels or a garden wind turbine. Though I cautioned him that such an installation wouldn't power his whole house, but only a part of it. For example, evacuated tubes would just about give him hot water; a small wind turbine would just about cover his lighting needs etc. It would also require an upfront investment of at least 4 figures, if not 5. He
might be able to get a loan to cover part of the setup costs, but not all of them. He reacted to the prospect of spending thousands of pounds in much the way you'd expect a Freeman to.
"Well," I said to him, "Even if the Electric Company was producing most of their energy from renewable sources as opposed to fossil fuels, they would still have had to pay incredibly high startup costs. How would you propose they cover the cost of that initial outlay?" Ash insisted that the Electric Company need not invest exorbitant sums in wind or solar or hydro; they could build a large version of the Super Secret Free Energy Machine [TM]. I pointed out that, even if such a machine existed, it would still require significant resources to build in the first place. It would also require ongoing maintenance. Although its maintenance costs would be much lower than a conventional power station's, they wouldn't be nil. Even if the only maintenance an SSFEM needed was an annual once-over and the occasional squirt of WD40, that would still cost about £50 a year. Who should pay that? You'd also still have to cover the costs of
distributing that electricity somehow. Those pylons don't pull themselves back up after a bad storm, y'know. Ash countered with "Tesla invented an SSFEM which can also distribute electricity
through the air." Now, Wireless Power Transfer isn't total BS, but its real-life applications are limited; 'Transferring power from a faraway large SSFEM to your energy-sucking house' is, as far as I can tell, outside those limits. There would also still be setup and maintenance costs associated with such a method of distribution, though I couldn't speak to the relative costs of air vs wire distribution methods.
Ironically, Ash also subscribed to the 'Phone masts are giving everyone cancer' theory. Since those two topics were discussed at different times, I never saw the contradiction till now. But I guess his response would've been that since power lines give everyone cancer too, at least with air distribution the hazard would be spread evenly (and therefore more thinly) rather than unfairly falling mostly on those living near power lines. If things were the other way around - if electricity were currently all air-distributed - Ash would probably wish that a cable method of distribution were used instead, since then at least one could avoid getting too close to the 'danger'. And if someone wants to live near a pylon, well, that's their lookout.
But I digress. "Say you somehow managed to make your own SSFEM." I asked. "Would you be willing to give away half the energy it produces to your next-door neighbour? How about keeping only 10% for yourself - you could power your whole street with the remainder!" Well, the only thing that gets a Freeman riled up more than spending money is the idea of spending money
for someone else's benefit. He sputtered about for a bit trying to explain why the electric company should be willing to let him have free electricity when Ash would never in a million years want to pay for an SSFEM for his neighbours. He eventually settled on "Because they're keeping their FEM secret. If only they would release the blueprints, everyone would be able to make their own, and then there'd be no need to distribute the energy; you'd just make and use your own. But because they're keeping the FEM plans a secret to maintain their profitable monopoly, I'm morally justified in trying to rip them off."
From reading other threads on here, it seems Ash is not alone in being in the FMOTL/Free Energy overlap. There was a thread about how WeRe Bank offered a discount on some FEM scam. I guess that stems from the need of such people to believe that everything in life is (or should be) free. It begs the question though as to why FMOTL feel the need to A4V their electric bills when, with a trip to the local scrapyard and a little elbow grease, they should be able to make their own free leccy in no time. Well, aside from SSFEM being BS, 'a little elbow grease' is a lot more than the typical Freeman is willing to exert, so there's that.
Apologies for the rambling, disorganised and TL;DR nature of my posts. Like I said, I'm remembering stuff that happened years ago and would quickly lose my train of thought if I tried to properly edit myself. I can't remember what order stuff happened in so I won't be able to do 'chronological order' but I'll try to stick to a general theme with each post. I might go off on tangents and need to come back to some topics though, because a lot of things are jogging my memory about other stuff and so on. I might change my mind based on your responses, but tomorrow I plan to post on 'Water-Powered Cars' and 'Ash fiddles his meter'.