3 ms·

I think there's a lot of doubt, actually. He was very smart but he was not a magician.

by bastawhiz 4y ago

dmitriid 4y ago
Have you not seen the documentary "Prestige"?! /s
- somat 4y ago
  Which makes me want to share my new favorite conspiracy theory about the movie(you know a story is good when there are wild theories about an event that was entirely imaginary in the first place, that is a sign of first class world building). anyway, The entire tesla arc never happened, the whole thing was an elaborate con. "but " you exclaim, "we saw the machine, the hats, the trip to america", to which I reply this is a case of second person narrative the only source for this information is the diary(which the movie dutifully animates) and the diary was planted, the diary was the con.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    I absolutely love this theory. Now I definitely need to re-watch the movie
  - Oxidation 4y ago
    In the vein of fan theories about imaginary events, a favourite of mine was that James Bond died in Blofeld's brain drill chair and the second half of Spectre was hallucinations as his brain shut down. The release of a subsequent film with the same actor sadly disproved it.
    - gpderetta 4y ago
      I think that was another movie :)
      - krapp 4y ago
        "basically An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a perennial category of fan theory, along with "they were dead/in purgatory/hallucinating in an asylum all along" and "$X is a Time Lord." The latter i've also seen about James Bond. And of course Nikola Tesla. Which probably makes Edison The Master. There's definitely an AU fan fiction in there somewhere, which in its Golden Age (electropunk?) Lovecraft-noir incorporates "Edison's Conquest of Mars[0]," an influential but otherwise garbage sequel to H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Sorry, what was I.. oh yeah. Tunguska. Obviously Tesla accidentally reversed the polarity of the neutron flow. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Conquest_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Conquest_of_Mars
        mindcrime 4y ago
        And of course Nikola Tesla. Which probably makes Edison The Master. OK, sure, fine... but then who was The Rani??
wheelerof4te 4y ago
You don't have to be a magician to make a doomsday weapon. In fact, he likely did not make it. He just possesed enough knowledge to imagine such a weapon possible in theory. There's a reason why I said knowledge about a weapon.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  To this day, nothing in Tesla's body of work is relevant to any weapon of mass destruction. There's no evidence whatsoever that he had any specific knowledge [0] about the means to create a weapon of mass destruction. The idea "big weapon make big boom" predates Tesla by numerous centuries. Saying he "just possessed enough knowledge to imagine such a weapon" isn't a falsifiable claim, and could reasonably be claimed about any 19th/20th century inventor. [0] I would say that the "death ray" doesn't count, because he's not the first to come up with it. The teleforce is not a weapon of mass destruction.

I think there's a lot of doubt, actually. He was very smart but he was not a magician.

dmitriid 4y ago

Have you not seen the documentary "Prestige"?! /s

somat 4y ago
Which makes me want to share my new favorite conspiracy theory about the movie(you know a story is good when there are wild theories about an event that was entirely imaginary in the first place, that is a sign of first class world building). anyway, The entire tesla arc never happened, the whole thing was an elaborate con. "but " you exclaim, "we saw the machine, the hats, the trip to america", to which I reply this is a case of second person narrative the only source for this information is the diary(which the movie dutifully animates) and the diary was planted, the diary was the con.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  I absolutely love this theory. Now I definitely need to re-watch the movie
- Oxidation 4y ago
  In the vein of fan theories about imaginary events, a favourite of mine was that James Bond died in Blofeld's brain drill chair and the second half of Spectre was hallucinations as his brain shut down. The release of a subsequent film with the same actor sadly disproved it.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    I think that was another movie :)
    - krapp 4y ago
      "basically An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a perennial category of fan theory, along with "they were dead/in purgatory/hallucinating in an asylum all along" and "$X is a Time Lord." The latter i've also seen about James Bond. And of course Nikola Tesla. Which probably makes Edison The Master. There's definitely an AU fan fiction in there somewhere, which in its Golden Age (electropunk?) Lovecraft-noir incorporates "Edison's Conquest of Mars[0]," an influential but otherwise garbage sequel to H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Sorry, what was I.. oh yeah. Tunguska. Obviously Tesla accidentally reversed the polarity of the neutron flow. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Conquest_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Conquest_of_Mars
      - mindcrime 4y ago
        And of course Nikola Tesla. Which probably makes Edison The Master. OK, sure, fine... but then who was The Rani??

wheelerof4te 4y ago

You don't have to be a magician to make a doomsday weapon. In fact, he likely did not make it. He just possesed enough knowledge to imagine such a weapon possible in theory. There's a reason why I said knowledge about a weapon.

bastawhiz 4y ago
To this day, nothing in Tesla's body of work is relevant to any weapon of mass destruction. There's no evidence whatsoever that he had any specific knowledge [0] about the means to create a weapon of mass destruction. The idea "big weapon make big boom" predates Tesla by numerous centuries. Saying he "just possessed enough knowledge to imagine such a weapon" isn't a falsifiable claim, and could reasonably be claimed about any 19th/20th century inventor. [0] I would say that the "death ray" doesn't count, because he's not the first to come up with it. The teleforce is not a weapon of mass destruction.