[lordlicorice]

> Is it possible – just possible – that Edison honestly believed that AC was dangerous and honestly did not think it should be use?

This strikes me as pretty naive. Edison had the patents that effectively controlled the market for DC electricity. He would have been a Carnegie or a Rockefeller had DC been adopted. He had such an extreme conflict of interest that it's unreasonable to assume good faith.

[dimitar]

DC power distribution.

In the beginning DC dominated because of technical reasons. Efficient AC motors and generators were just getting invented eand transformers weren't that good.

And for various reasons some applications still use DC motors - for example only in robotics, servomotors; but consider that in the last 20 years do things like air-conditioners and elevators start to use AC motors (because of the efficiency made possible with solid-state inverters).

[jules]

Interesting tidbit: Modern long distance underseas power transmission is DC again (because it's more efficient, among other reasons).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

[nextparadigms]

It sounds like AC disrupted the DC market. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me that Edison didn't want to be disrupted and took legal action, not unlike how it happens today in many industries.

[luriel]

Another example of how patents actually hinder and harm innovation. Which is not surprising when you start to think of them as government granted monopolies.

[bshanks]

My opinion is that the reason conflicts of interest are suboptimal is not mainly that they tend to cause people to lie about their beliefs, but rather that they tend to cause people to truly believe that which would benefit them if true.

In other words, the presence of an extreme conflict of interest causes me to take anything the person says with a large grain of salt, but does not, to me, cast doubt on a person's good faith.

More generally, as a matter of etiquette, it seems to me that (a heuristic that encourages people not to assume good faith in response to evidence that does not include any implication of unethical behavior) is unwise. For example, the evidence here is that, "he would have been a Carnegie or a Rockefeller had DC been adopted," which is not, in itself, unethical. Therefore one should not, on the basis of this evidence alone, assume good faith any less than one did prior to this evidence.