Hacker News Reader

Comment by lilSebastian | Hacker News Reader

I never cease to be amazed that people buy into obvious snake oil, it has been rife in tech since the beginning.

Never underestimate the ability of people to convince themselves that something they wish was true actually is.

So true. I remember as a 23 year old nerd when Pons and Fleischman announced cold fusion, I soooo wanted it to be true. I was literally drunk with the thought of the sci-fi possibilities it would bring. If the reality check hadn’t come so quickly and someone semi-reputable had offered a “Mr. Fusion” for the “low, low price of <some number I could just barely afford>“, I may well have been sucked in.

I just checked and apparently Pons and Fleischman was in 1989. Was cold fusion a thing in the 70s or very early 80s? Because I vaguely remember a story about a company that claimed to have done it some time before 1984.

This tech snake oil sucked me in for a while.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4

I remember being pretty amazed when I first seen that and followed it for a bit, kinda forgot about it only to look it up recently and find out they've been making a good living selling snake oil and empty promises ever since.

Because these are desperate people.

Look at the kinds of people who are part of the so called prosperity churches, they see mostly poor or lower middle class people who have no other means to raise their standard of living but to hope for god or some magical entity to just give to them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com