Modern Corporate Warfare

have been gone awhile

Edison was an @$$hole.

Check out his influence on the movie industry. He tried to monopolize that, too, and fortunately failed.

He's one of the reasons the Biz moved from its original locus -- Chicago -- to California: to try to escape his rapacious stranglehold.

BTW, on the cyberpunk scenarios: watch the movie "Rollerball". It's completely based on that premise, and was way ahead of its time. James Caan.

Yeah, I have been gone a while. Been pretty busy. Thanks for stopping by and noticing!

being busy can be good, bad or just busy. Edison was a dwork perhaps, but he did bring about.... actually not that much.

he did do one thing correct. He hired Charles Proteus Steinmetz (the "Forger of Thunderbolts").

Steinmetz did for electrical engineering what Einstein did for physics, he "determined" the mathematics behind AC electricity. We (i.e., electrical engineers) still use what Steinmetz quantified in our studies of AC electricity.

He was the first person (after God) to "create" lightning in a lab setting.

He became the unofficial "head" of the Union College electrical engineering department in Schenectady, NY and the chief researcher of the GE electrical engineering department.

As a young electrical engineer working for GE in the early 1970's, I studied under engineers who studied under Steinmetz. I visited the cabin that Steinmetz maintained overlooking the Mohawk River. I visited his office and got to examine Steinmetz's notes (which I didn't understand fully) of projects he was working on at the time of his death in 1923. I even visited his grave in Schenectady.

My master's thesis at Union College involved some of the techniques of lightning protection that Steinmetz first postulated.

Yes, Steinmetz (growing up in Germany) had a "brief" flinge with socialism; but he later renounced it saying that "socialism would never work".

Yes, Edison was an @$$hole, but he got one thing correct. He made sure the US got the wisdom of Charles Proteus Steinmetz.

Thanks Redhead for inspiring me!

I just posted an article on Steinmetz:

http://grayghost.blogtownhall.com/2009/09/29/the_forger_of_ thunderbolts.thtml

I appreciate your "help" in getting me over my "slump".

You come out of semi-retirement with this good'un, and inspire Ghost into a new posting at his place. Well done!

Glad I could contribute to the larger community of townhall blogs!
Ghost, thanks for the plug. Although I don't have that kind of connection to my chosen career, I have felt enough electrons to have a real respect for what the little guys can do!

I did come across something about the Edison's moving pictures when I was researching this piece.

This was a while in developing, which is one reason why it jumps around so much. I was also on my mind when we talked in Anaheim. I've still got mixed feelings about the role of manufacturers on code making panels. I did get a bag with "GE" on one side and the conference emblem on the other, though!

I know what you mean.

Parochial interests influencing outcomes is a very problematic issue.

Good essay! Nice to see you back.

From what I've read about some of the inventors from the age of Edison the term you chose would fit many of them. There was lots of arseholes in the days of the garage inventor.

Sadly, the chicanery of the late 19th and early 20th century has become institutionalized in the 21st with government, charged with protecting the interests of the public, now being a full partner.

Senator Sherman, of anti-trust law fame, would likely have a stroke if he could get a look a GE!

Glad you made it!

As a firm Capitalist, I don't think that most people understand that this is NOT Capitalism. This is a company using the police power of the state to further it's interest. This is an abomination.

without nations, with no borders, where sovereignty is a relic of the past long since relinquished to the global "corporate state", wherein the Energy Corporation, a "G"lobal "E"nergy monopoly provides oversight for lesser corporations of equal standing, controlling access to all Transport, Luxury, Housing, Communication, and Food.

Warfare as it was once known has been eliminated, having been reduced to "the game" -- a violent, full contact bloodsport called Rollerball. There's no place for individual excellence in the Game; the individual must be subordinate to the team and the team subordinate to the corporation. Rugged and successful individuals threaten the hegemony of the global corporation and thus to the peace of the global society they have created.

But then came Jonathan E... and Jonathan E. must die.

Kinda fits the GE prototype doesn't it?