- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2999441
I’m not plugged into all the hype around lk99, but this person seems to be a nice balance of hype, technical background and eagerness to not be wrong about things.
They seem to make a good and simple case for why the superconductor possibility is slipping away (as far as mostly internet hype based replication attempts go)
There’s skepticism, and then there’s the knee-jerk “it’s a fraud! It’s impossible! Nothing ever happens!” reaction. I’m all for skepticism, and as we found out today there’s even some actual fraud going on (one of the “levitating speck” videos turned out to be a deliberate fake by an attention-seeker). But it becomes really wearying dealing with people who have already made up their minds and seem downright angry about the possibility that there’s something to be found here.
It sort of spoils your point when you have to accept that the very thing you’re saying you got upset about people predicting actually happened. These kinds of situations are ripe for fraudsters coming along and tacking on for attention, money, or both.
One of the videos turned out to be a fraud. That does not invalidate any of the others. It’s like how lots of people immediately assumed LK-99 was a fraud because Ranga Dias’ high-pressure room-temperature superconductor was in the process of being retracted due to apparent data manipulation - they’re completely unconnected things.
If 99 labs fail to reproduce LK-99’s superconductivity, release fraudulent videos and data, and so forth, but one lab is able to perfectly reproduce it and show that it works, that lab wins and LK-99 really is a superconductor. Scientific reality is not subject to democracy.
Sadly, it seems to be victim of perpetual hype by people that think if 99 labs fail to reproduce a result, 1 lab faking a reproduction means a “win”.
That’s not what’s happened. There have been some other promising results, and some ambiguous results, alongside that one fake.
If LK-99 really is a superconductor then there’s nothing that the negative-nellies are ultimately going to be able to do about that. When trains are levitating around on superconductive support, when every corner clinic has an MRI machine stashed away in a back room, are they going to just continue confidently declaring it’s all fake? Sounds like a fun way to live. That’s not skepticism, that’s insanity.
Preemptively declaring LK-99’s superconductivity to be impossible before it’s been thoroughly vetted is just getting a head start on that.
So now that it’s officially debunked, can we all admit that the hype videos from the usual youtube suspects were just utter nonsense by people collecting ad revenue instead of informed parties sharing worthwhile information?
Your very framing of your response shows your implicit bias and why it’s pointless to continue a conversation. Branding realists as “negative nellies” is childish and ignorant of history at best. Your speculation of the utility of such a breakthrough is narrow minded and alarmingly simplistic. You wouldn’t know what to do with an MRI in the first place.