In the 1970s the conspiracy theorists were all convinced that oil companies bought the patents to 100 mpg carburetors in order to keep them off the market. My father (ex military) laughed at the idea, as a huge problem for the military is fuel consumption, and they would not let a little old thing like patent rights stand in the way of using it.

It wasn't just the 70s, my father's picked up on it from all the conspiracy theory YouTube channels and rants on about it today. That, and the Zero Point Energy system that was developed and bought, then hidden away by the oil companies. No physicist can convince him that this is wrong, because "The designer found a way to do it."

Like making a spoken word version of a rap song...

Yeah that's true too it's difficult to stop technology once it's been discovered, someone will make use of it. Genie out of the bottle so to say.