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Revision as of 06:51, 18 October 2005

For older discussion, see:

• Talk:Jack Sarfatti/Archive 1
• Talk:Jack Sarfatti/Archive 2

The following Misplaced Pages contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. JackSarfatti (talk · contribs)

This article was nominated for deletion on September 5, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

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Mediator intervention

I spoke to Jack on the phone, and we've reached an understanding. I've unprotected his user:JackSarfatti account and reminded him that he'll have to follow our guidelines. He's authorized me to delete his "legal threat", for example.

When I unlock the page, I'm going to move the "disagree" and "crank" sentences from the intro. They belong further down. Uncle Ed 16:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

They are a large part of his notability, and such widely held views belong in the intro. They could be toned down a little, I'm not married to mentioning the crank award either. --fvw* 16:25, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

His reputation as a crank (one which extends far back beyond the creation of the internet, see the "paraphysics" section) is the primary reason that he is notable, and IMO must be mentioned in the intro in some form -- the exact wording is another matter. if changes to the intro form part of some sort of "deal" or "understanding" with Sarfatti, they are improper -- he has and should have no veto power over the content here. DES 16:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course. Is the current intro ok with you though? --fvw* 16:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

It is after the edit I just made to it. DES 16:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The monsters are due on Misplaced Pages

A parable for our times?

From the original 1960's Twilight Zone series:

"The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"

The episode ends with two alien observers watching the rioting on Maple Street and discussing how easy it was to create paranoia and panic, and let the people of Earth destroy themselves - one place at a time.

"Understand the procedure now? Just stop a few of their machines... throw them into darkness for a few hours and then sit back and watch the pattern... They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find and it's themselves."

Hmmm...how about:

"Just bend a few of their spoons...throw them into darkness for a few years and then sit back and watch the pattern...They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find and it's themselves."

Closing narration by Rod Serling:

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts. Attitudes. Prejudices. To be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to The Twilight Zone."

- Gary Bekkum

Posting of birthdate

User:UFO_Black_Ops has made the questionable claim that it is against the law (in what jurisdiction?) to publish somebody's birth date, as it facilitates "identity theft". If that's the case, then I guess Misplaced Pages is breaking that law all over the place; to give a few examples, we have birthdates listed for Hilary Duff, Kelly Clarkson, George W. Bush, Pope Benedict XVI, and Bill Gates. *Dan T.* 00:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, Sarfatti called me worried about it. Is there an official policy on this? What do the Wiki lawyers say? I will call Sarfatti back and tell him it's done routinely as he tends to get paranoid about all this right now. :-) Note I found some exact references for some of the papers with ISBN numbers and corrected my earlier inaccuracies on the exact names of those papers written during the Joe Firmage ISSO operation in which several million dollars were spent attempting to develop exotic propulsion systems. Joe Firmage now runs ManyOne and formerly was CEO of USWEB that was briefly a multi-billion dollar corporation on paper before the bubble burst. User:UFO_Black_Ops

Birth dates are normally matters of public record, and I do not belive that it is illegal to post them. However, if Sarfatti says that he doesn't want this posted because he fears it might assist in someone trying to steal his identity, lets simply list his birth year. That is realy all that is of primary encyclopedic interst anyway -- it indicates how old he is, and how old he was when various events in his life occured, which may well be relevant to the reader. The month and day are not nearly as relevant for wikipedia's purposes, IMO. DES 02:02, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

While I agree that his birth year has the most bearing on the other things in the article, there's a lot to be said for including full birth and death (where applicable) info in an encyclopaedia; given the fact that we do so on wikipedia too, I don't think we should be removing it because the subject wants it to be removed. --fvw* 02:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

You have a point, but identity theft is a real fear for many, and the exact birth date would perhaps help facilitate it. i am willing to make this minor concession as an act of good faith to Sarfetti -- with a person already dead this would not be an issue. Howver, the birth year is hivhly relevant, and at a minimumn it ought to remain, IMO -- we do this for all biography articles when the info is available. DES 02:31, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Where did we get the information from in the first place? I think we either should get rid of the information based on WP:V, or otherwise it's not a realistic fear as the information is out there anyway and anyone wanting to steal Sarfatti's identity would be able to find it just find whether it's in wikipedia or not. --fvw* 02:35, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know where the person who posted it got the date from. The year, but not the exact date, is included in the Martin Gardner article i cited: "Magic and Paraphysics" where it is sourced to a biography published in Ken Kesey's magazine Spit in the Ocean in 1975. DES 02:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, a little googling found this at the SF chronicle. Pretty mainstream and reputable I think; so can we put back the date, seeing as it's out there anyway? --fvw* 03:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I would... it's our normal style to include birthdates where known, as seen in many other biographical articles, and it's not a good precedent to cave in, in any way, to the paranoid delusions of a subject. *Dan T.* 04:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I suppose people do have a right to conceal certain aspects of their demographics, but once it's out it's out, and in the case of a birthdate there is little he can do about it notwithstanding his paranoia. Drdr1989 23:36, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages already has a policy in place at Misplaced Pages:No original research. There is no reason for us to censor information from Misplaced Pages if a credible external source can be provided which verifies the birthdate of a figure notable enough to have an article here. Hall Monitor 23:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

ISSO 1999-2001

This was an operation done with full knowledge of top levels of the USG Intelligence Community who monitored it. Several former Soviet-bloc physicists were brought in as consultants including Dr. Valdimir Poponin, allegedly a personal acquaintance of Gorbachev's. We were interested in evaluating the controversial claims of "Russian torsion field weapons" and, therefore brought Gennady Shipov over from Moscow several times. On one trip Shipov lived with Sarfatti for about 2 weeks. Richard Hammond, an American physicist from Fargo working on torsion fields for US Navy at one time was brought in as well as R. Kiehn a former scientist for US SAC and retired professor from University of Houston. Shipov worked with Akimov in Moscow who allegedly had strong military connections in the Soviet era. Sarfatti was the senior theorist on the American side of the ISSO core staff that included Saul-Paul Sirag. He arranged for Creon Levit to be borrowed from NASA AMES to run the daily operations of the project. Over a million dollars was given to SARA, a TRW spinoff DOD contractor in Huntington, Beach CA to further test a system developed by Jim Corum. Corum also wrote papers on "The Philadelphia Experiment" and had entre to the Tesla Archive in Beograd even during the Cold War. This was unusual. Corum later went to ISR in W.Va, a think tank doing exotic work with USG funds provided by Senator Robert Byrd and his Congressional counter-part in his home district. The key objective, of course, was to try to figure out how the "saucers" really flew. All of the key scientists had interest in that, with the possible exception of Hammond and Kiehn. Harold Puthoff was brought in as a consultant. Ken Shoulders was also involved as were many others whose schemes were tested. The key foreign figure was Professor J. P. Vigier from Paris who had been Louis DeBroglie's assistant for decades. Sarfatti arranged for a Telegraph Hill Penthouse for Vigier to spend extended periods meeting the scientists flowing through ISSO. Vigier and Levit made a trip to Budapest in 2000 to meet with two Serbian physicists Z.Maric & A. Dragic who were experimentally testing an exotic atomic energy release idea of Vigier's of obvious interest to USG Intelligence because of its WMD implications. See the paper "On the possible Existence of Tight Bound States in Quantum Mechanics". pp 349-356 of the same volume of one of Sarfatti's papers, i.e. Vol 126 of Fundamental Theories of Physics, ISBN 1-4020-0885-6. This is not a coincidence. There are few coincidences in "this Looking Glass War Twilight Zone interface between physics and politics" to quote Sarfatti in one of his more eloquent moments. ;-) In fact, ISSO paid most of the expenses for the meeting upon which the volume is based. Enuff said. I hope this helps to somewhat clarify Sarfatti's multiple roles in these events. Sarfatti is a kind of a canary in the mine shaft for MASINT. For example, he was quite alarmed about an immanent attack on important US Military targets in the Fall of 2001. Sarfatti wrote numerous e-mails on this during July & Aug 2001. It seems to be a case of precognitive remote viewing. Unfortunately, Sarfatti was not able to pinpoint the exact time and place of the attack (attacks). He had guessed Oct 2001 because of some big anti-space weapons rally by leftist groups scheduled for that time at Lockheed-Martin. ] Oct 16, 2005

Involvement with paraphysics section

I have restored the recent quotes from Sarfetti giving his current views on matters in this section. Since an editor objected to "wikipedia self-ref" I have removed the citations. If sources for comperable quote of recent vintage by Sarfetti on these subjects are available, they could be substituted. But it is IMO important to indicate his current views, particualrly since he himself has objected to being characterized based largely on his viwws of 30 years ago. A man does have the right to change his veiws over 30 years, and his current views are relevant.

I have removed the adverb "ironically" from the mention of the Martin Gardner quote. The degree of irony intended by Gardnere may be debated, let's simply give the quote as it was published and let readers judge. The quote is sourced and the book from which it is taken is availabel on the net -- any intersted reader can asses context and tone. If people desire more of the relevant quote I can supply it. DES 02:27, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. As quoted, the ironic tone of the original is entirely missing: out of context, it sounds as if Gardner is praising him, not adding a final filip to a run-down to some of his nuttier beliefs.

And while we're at it, why is Jack still editing? I thought he'd been blocked until he gave up on the absurd legal threats? --Calton | Talk 05:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

DES says "the book from which it is taken is availabel on the net". It is? Is there a url? I couldn't find one. GangofOne 05:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

My copy is in storage, but I refreshed my memory by using Amazon.com'S "Search Inside the Book" feature. --Calton | Talk 06:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I meant that the book is avaialble fopr purchase, used, via bookfinder. As far as i know there is no full copy online. DES 21:51, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

My impressions

A lot of people dislike Sarfatti and are being mean to him. Misplaced Pages should not encourage this, nor should it permit him to retaliate here on our web site. As an admin, I feel a duty to uphold civility.

I don't think his birthday (or even birth year) is of interest to anyone: I think it's being included just to spite Sarfatti. This is petty.

His views defy the conventional scientific orthodoxy which posits that the material world is all that exists, and that natural law is sufficient to account for all phenomena. Unfortunately, he is no writer. He doesn't not organize his ideas well.

So it's not a good idea for Jack Sarfatti, the Wikipedian, to write about Jack Sarfatti, the physicist. But there's no policy forbidding this. We shall probably have to formulate a policy for cases like this.

Right now, the article is unsatisfactory because it doesn't summarize his views. It lists some of the topics he's interested in, but at best it only mentions some of his claims without giving any substantial details. It points out that he and has views have been dismissed, again without giving any substantial reasons.

If not for all the fuss of the last 10 days, and the considerable emotional energy we've all invested in this, I would reduce the article to a stub, like this:

• Jack Sarfatti is a physicist with unorthodox and controversial views. His self-published books are available at large online booksellers like Amazon, but the scientific establishment ignores him and newsgroup denizens dismiss him as a "kook".

This will not suffice. We need to do the work of finding out what this man is saying and why he says it; who agrees, and who disagrees; and why they disagree. Uncle Ed 21:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

FYI our normal style on biographical artilce is to give the birth date (and death date for dead people) whenver these are known and verifiable. This is routine in biogrpahical encyclopedia articles, and routine on wikipedia, and in no way is this article being handled differently on this issue. DES 21:54, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

At risk of sounding like a parrot, I thought that the proposed compromise a few sections up was reasonable bordering on generous—including the year of birth (not the full date) is not unreasonable in a biographical article, and represents less information than we include in nearly all of our other biographies.

I agree that we should make every effort to take a reasonable tone with Jack Sarfatti and with User:JackSarfatti, and that it is important to present his views and his biography clearly and professionally in the best NPOV tradition. I think that the birth year should be included because it's encyclopedic information that people expect to find in a biographical article. Though there have certainly been things added to the article over the last few days that were in poor taste, I don't think that the year of Jack Sarfatti's birth is one of them.

As fvw noted above, Jack Sarfatti's birthdate is readily accessible through Google; the cat is already out of the bag. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

It is possible that some of my edits, and talk-page comments, over the last few days were motivated in part by "meanness" towards Mr. Sarfatti; his style has a way of provoking this sort of thing, and I have a habit of taking the bait from trolls in ways that I probably shouldn't. If I've done this here, I apologize, and will try not to do it again. That said, I still feel that the standard bibliographic format used by Misplaced Pages (and other encyclopedias) is to include the birthdate when known, so there isn't anything "mean" or "spiteful" about doing this. *Dan T.* 22:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

(1. About me being wary) Ed, you have done a lot of good here at Misplaced Pages and claim to be here on this article at least in part due to legal concerns from Misplaced Pages's board. Fine. But NO ONE has judgement beyond questioning, as I am sure you will agree; so please don't misunderstand arguments about what you say as being as about you (not that you have or will; but some of your friends do this a lot and it leaves me wary).

(2.) I disagree that "A lot of people dislike Sarfatti and are being mean to him." has anything to do with the current state of the article.

(3.)I think your statement that "I don't think his birthday (or even birth year) is of interest to anyone: I think it's being included just to spite Sarfatti. This is petty." is as far off the mark as claiming George Washington is a minor historical figure. Please take up this quote by you with someone you trust to set you right. You have before you objective evidence of Misplaced Pages contributors who find his bithdate "of interest". Only by without evidence claiming ignoble motives to all those who have expresessed such an interest can you possibly delude yourself into such a conclusion. This is easily the most absurd thing I have ever read from you. I'm assuming on reflection (or maybe after talking it over with someone you trust) you will see the problems with this quote from you. I'm sorry if I expressed myself less gently than I could have - I did my best.

(4.)You say "His views defy the conventional scientific orthodoxy which posits that the material world is all that exists, and that natural law is sufficient to account for all phenomena. Unfortunately, he is no writer. He doesn't not organize his ideas well." He is a nut case as well as, and more importantly, a world class physicist who expresses his beliefs, ideas, and concepts in PHYSICS EQUATIONS that presume the truth of "the material world is all that exists," (in the reductionist sense that things like conconciousness exist by virtue of the underlying material world described by the laws of physics). I'm sure Jack would be insulted at your description except all scientists are acustomed to the utter misrepresentation of all things science by the well meaning.

(5.)You say "So it's not a good idea for Jack Sarfatti, the Wikipedian, to write about Jack Sarfatti, the physicist. But there's no policy forbidding this. We shall probably have to formulate a policy for cases like this." Nonsense. His physics is the one thing he is the most qualified to contribute to. Not it's acceptance, validity, etc - just the actual physics part. Do you understand his equations for the effect of conciousness on the material world? Are we at wikpedia qualified to sumarize its details? Let him contribute to wikipedia to accurately express the physics of this hypothosis of his if he so choses. I'm sure it is nonsensce scientificaly if for no other reason than conciousness is too poorly defined to be a part of a physics equation but he IS best qualified to present the kind of summary of the hypothosis that would be suitable for wikipedia (a full blown mathematical treatment is not suitable, obviously).

(6.)You say "Right now, the article is unsatisfactory because it doesn't summarize his views. It lists some of the topics he's interested in, but at best it only mentions some of his claims without giving any substantial details. It points out that he and has views have been dismissed, again without giving any substantial reasons. " Great. Contribute away. Looking forward to seeing these failings rectified.

(7.)You say "We need to do the work of finding out what this man is saying and why he says it; who agrees, and who disagrees; and why they disagree." YES. WAS 4.250 00:32, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Birth Date Issue

"To be paranoid, you need a very good imagination." Larry David

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/1478/index.html

I actually am not paranoid about that and not too worried about it. It was my brother Michael who raised the ID theft issue. Someone who knows something about how the criminals do ID Theft should think about whether as a general rule posting exact birthdates of living people is wise? I am pretty well protected from ID theft - I think. This is an issue that affects everyone.

Vanity Press Issue & Dancing Wu Li Masters

Is there a general Wiki rule about that? My book "Destiny Matrix" is autobiographical and has several chapters by other people in it who were witnesses to many of the extraordinary events in my life. "Destiny Matrix" and "Space-Time and Beyond II" have testimony by living witnesses to my ghost writing of the technical physics parts of Gary Zukav's "Dancing Wu Li Masters" including Gary's live-in lover of that time Lorna McClearie with a photo of her and Gary at the time. The project was started when as Director of the Esalen Physics/Consciousness Conference Jan 1976 (Month-long) funded by Werner Erhard, I invited Gary Zukav to Esalen. Gary and I shared an apartment 372 Green St on Telegraph Hill at that time. Gary knew no physics at all. I taught him basic physics. Gary did study with Henry Kissinger at Harvard and Gary was in "The Black Berets" in Vietnam as a volunteer. Living first-hand witnesses to my role in writing Gary's book include: Fred Alan Wolf, Saul-Paul Sirag, Jagdish Mann, Kim Burrafato, David Gladstone, Leila Dwight, Lorna McClearie, Csaba Szabo, Lee Myers, Dennis Wishnie, Randall Tinkerman, and Sally Yock. I have e-mail addresses for most of them. Many of our meetings on the book were in the Caffe Trieste in North Beach, San Francisco surrounded by people. They were "seminars" at times. Herbert Gold wrote about them in his 1993 book "Bohemia" (Simon & Schuster). Francis Ford Coppola wrote "The Godfather" in the same Caffe.

But back to the general issue of Vanity Press.

1) The book industry is changing. Mega-corps control it and they only care about bottom lines. It's a crap shoot. Also they make money on crap in many cases. Mindless crap sells. I won't mention examples. :-)

2) More and more serious authors are going the way of "Vanity Press" more and more. It's a rapidly growing trend. Author House is very profitable I hear. There is a sea change happening in publishing quite obviously and banning even the mention of "self-published" books with ISBN numbers listed in the standard book catalogs and data bases seems to me to be a bit like like putting blacks in the back of the bus - eh? It certainly seems ironic, if not inconsistent, for Wiki to do that?

3) Peer-reviewed journals are vanity presses in the sense of enormous page charges, e.g. Physical Review. It is an open secret that the peer review system in theoretical physics has broken down into claques for not-even-wrong speculations like string theory and loop-gravity with little testability. Shelly Glashow (Nobel Prize) has been quite vociferous about this. Of course that does not stop Brian Greene from making millions of dollars on purely speculative ideas - pretty though they are. BTW Brian, who I met at State of the World Forum in 2000 funded by Joe Firmage did borrow some "cranky" "crackpot" "kooky" ideas from me that he used in his NOVA PBS TV Show on "The Elegant Universe". For example Brian goes into a telephone booth to call ET! Compare to http://stardrive.org/cartoon/spectra.html Also I introduced Jacques Vallee to Francis Ford Coppola in 1976 when I brough Uri Geller to one of his parties. Everyone was there and that's how Jacques became technical director on "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

4) Wiki itself is sort of a Vanity Press for those who write in it.

5) It seems to me as long as the book is copyrighted, has an ISBN number and is listed in the standard book catalogs in every book store and on Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble et-al as my three books are, then they should count as real books.

It's too late tonite. I will check the angry writings - cross them out starting tomorrow.

The article as it is now is fairly good.

I would prefer some reference to my three books at least

Sarfatti's books are available at http://amazon.com

for people who want to know more.

I would prefer removal of the crank.net external link since crank.net is itself pretty cranky.

Sarfatti-Mussolini Connection

Good to put the Margherita Sarfatti link in. Photographs of Margherita and her two sons bear an uncanny resemblance to me and my brother Michael. I looked like Amedeo and Michael looked like Roberto who was killed at Mussolini's side in the trenches in 1918 and became the "Horst Wessell" of the Italian Fascist Movement. Although Margherita was a "Grassini" who married Cesare Sarfatti, they were also blood cousins. There were not a lot of Jews in Italy and there was a lot of intermarriage. I think my late aunt Victoria Sarfatti (a history teacher) actually knew Margherita. At my Midwood High School graduation in 1956 Aunt Vicky said cryptically "One day you will learn the history of our family." It was all kept from me. How I found out is in my book "Destiny Matrix". Indeed, my mother deliberately dropped the final i in my birth certificate. My father Hyman Sarfatti had it restored only I think in 1974. It was not popular to be connected to Mussolini in NYC in 1939. Jack Sarfatti 11:23 PM, 17 October 2005 (PCT)

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