The story about the British "businessman" who sold fake bomb detectors over 10 years beggars belief. Two things struck me particularly. The first is how morally bankrupt do you have to be to spend your time pretending that you are selling an explosives detector when you know it's just an ariel attached to a piece of plastic? You know that people are relying on it to keep themselves safe, but you just don't care. You know that bombs are going off that your device was supposed to detect, but you don't give a damn. How do you sleep at night? The second thing is, bearing in mind that the device does nothing at all, how did he manage to sell for £85m to all sorts of armed forces and security companies? Didn't anyone test the thing before parting with "up to £55k" for one? Didn't anyone ever take one to bits? Certainly he bribed all sorts of people. What does it say when the head of the Iraqi bomb squad will take black money and sacrifice the innocent lives he is supposed to be protecting? You couldn't make it up. The device, if I understand correctly, was also meant to identify ivory or gold at different settings. Sure. Like... er... how? How were the physics supposed to work? And the final question, why are these fraudsters always referred to as "businessmen" by the media? Fraud is no more (or no less) a business than burglary. Selling a novelty toy to people under false pretences does not make you a businessman. Or are burglars just removal experts?
Why does homeopathic "medicine" exist? For the same reason - people are gullible, stupid or do not understand reasoning. Or all 3. The fake bomb detectors were debunked back in 2008, possibly earlier: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html?_r=5&hp The UK did ban export of them in 2010, but the company just moved overseas and kept selling them. The ADE-651 wasn't the only one either; there's a long line of fake bomb detectors that all use the same idea, including the Quadro Tracker, DielectroKinetic Labs LifeGuard, Treasure King System 2000 amongst others. Maybe he believed what he was selling worked?
Recent years have seen a whole stream of amazing technological devices released onto the market (some of them by Apple, Glidd) of which hardly anybody understands the internal workings. We have come to be prepared to believe novel and surprising claims about all sorts of new contraptions. In some people this has gone so far that it amounts to believing in magic, and it has become a cliché to say sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. A more sensible approach is to test out any device sceptically and see if it actually works or not. If you were a con-man looking for credulous marks who would believe your nonsensical claims without evidence, where would be your best chance of finding them? Right, amongst people who have already demonstrated their willingness to believe other nonsensical claims without evidence.
But all the same, if you're going to buy a device on behalf of a security organisation, wouldn't you expect a test first? Even if you're just buying a photocopier, you'd expect a demo. Unless, of course, there were also faked demos. Could have been. I don't think the guy could have believed his own hype as he knew he was buying them for $20 and selling them for thousands. Ergo he was aware that they were novelty items that did nothing.
When you have procurement departments who do not consult with practitioners as to their requirements, inadequate kit issues will always happen. This situation has been exacerbated by corruption and kickbacks that no doubt have been written off as "corporate hospitality" or networking if you will. He has clearly taken advantage of peoples greed / vulnerability / incompetence to get to where he is now in terms of personal wealth. Individuals at the top of the chain who have accepted said hospitality suddenly find themselves in a vulnerable position and at risk of loosing their lifestyle and reputation if this guy were to grass them up. Others simply didnt care and accepted handout after handout in order to grease the wheels taking a cut of any deals subsequently completed. The irony of this is that once one organisation kits themselves out with an item, other departments / organisations and Government procurement quickly follow suit on the "assumption" that the item would have been tested to death and accepted, which, in itself saves time and money in further assessments hence situations like this are allowed to get out of control. i.e if its good enough for *insert relevant organisation here, it must be good enough for us. Now then I have a piece of plywood in me shed that can detect fraudulent businessmen.......anyone?
whilst I despise what this guy has done there is a fundamental principle in procurement "caveat emptor" lit. buyer beware. Notwithstanding the corruption etc. I accept this in no way absolves him of the terrible consequences of his actions but you'd like to think there is a need to see a positive test prior to acceptance.
Hold on a minute, that's not quite the whole story. Homeopathic medicine exists because of the placebo effect, which is real and demonstrable. Placebo does not only work on people who are gullible, stupid or lack reasoning - it works on most people actually. See discussion on other thread.
Western world gives money to countries as aid, to by security stuff. They buy crap like this. Invoice goes to western governments, kickback goes to officials in buying company.
No - homeopathic is marketed as a cure, with a method behind how it (supposedly) works. Practitioners believe it works this way. The placebo effect is well documented and is still not fully understood, but nobody is under any illusions as to what you are doing. The two are completely different.
No, they are exactly the same thing. Homeopathic medicine works only and to the extent that there is a placebo effect. Practitioners know this very well - but they don't tell the punters, obviously.
The Society of Homeopaths would disagree with you Pete, as they say: "Homeopathy is a system of medicine which involves treating the individual with highly diluted substances, given mainly in tablet form, with the aim of triggering the body’s natural system of healing. Based on their specific symptoms, a homeopath will match the most appropriate medicine to each patient." From: What is homeopathy? | The Society of Homeopaths Note the use of the word "medicine". Nowhere does it mention placebo.
Of course it doesn't mention placebo! You don't tell people you're giving them a placebo, that's the point of a placebo. Especially if you're charging them good money for rubbish.
this is not a joke, I feel that aside from a lengthy prison service, he should be fined £100bn - he should never have a penny to his name ever again. It still seems cheap against the amount of lives he mortgaged.
I think on this we'll have to disagree... (except on the bit about charging good money for rubbish!) I still believe that Homeopaths are prescribing their "medicine" in the belief that it does actually have some basis in the way in which it works (see the "What is homeopathy" link above if you need a chuckle...), and that the instances where it is found to work is nothing more than the placebo effect. This is completely different to a qualified Doctor prescribing a placebo in the knowledge that of what he is doing, and why he is doing it.
