Fusion?

Tolerance Break

Tolerance Break

Well-Known Member
canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
Tolerance Break said:
That's cynicism at its finest. "Its not a breakthrough because it's expensive and it isn't the desired end result" is a shitty argument.
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Wood! We need only chop down our old growth forests and we shall have unlimited energy to heat our homes.

Coal! We have only to use peasants, feed them little, house them poorly and we shall have unlimited energy for our trains.

Petroleum! What a godsend, we need only allow it to bubble up from the ground in Pennsylvania and our cars will run forever.

Fission! Limitless and too cheap to meter!

There is no free lunch.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
canndo said:
Wood! We need only chop down our old growth forests and we shall have unlimited energy to heat our homes.

Coal! We have only to use peasants, feed them little, house them poorly and we shall have unlimited energy for our trains.

Petroleum! What a godsend, we need only allow it to bubble up from the ground in Pennsylvania and our cars will run forever.

Fission! Limitless and too cheap to meter!

There is no free lunch.
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canfusion
 
Tolerance Break

Tolerance Break

Well-Known Member
canndo said:
Wood! We need only chop down our old growth forests and we shall have unlimited energy to heat our homes.

Coal! We have only to use peasants, feed them little, house them poorly and we shall have unlimited energy for our trains.

Petroleum! What a godsend, we need only allow it to bubble up from the ground in Pennsylvania and our cars will run forever.

Fission! Limitless and too cheap to meter!

There is no free lunch.
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Again, cynicism.

Each of those steps has brought us here, to the internet age. The world has problems, and we are painfully aware of it, but compared to a hundred years ago, life is pretty dope. Knowing is half the battle, progress isn't a straight line, and we aren't in a particularly great moment in history. People lived through the last ice age, people will live through these tough times, and if the world ends, nobody will be around to tell me I'm wrong.

I'd rather believe in a solution AND criticize the world. Just criticizing without any faith in a solution is borderline masochism.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Tolerance Break said:
Again, cynicism.

Each of those steps has brought us here, to the internet age. The world has problems, and we are painfully aware of it, but compared to a hundred years ago, life is pretty dope. Knowing is half the battle, progress isn't a straight line, and we aren't in a particularly great moment in history. People lived through the last ice age, people will live through these tough times, and if the world ends, nobody will be around to tell me I'm wrong.

I'd rather believe in a solution AND criticize the world. Just criticizing without any faith in a solution is borderline masochism.
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Yeah, the article was overly negative but it balances some of the breathy press releases that oversold the accomplishment. Research into fusion energy is expensive. Project managers into fusion energy need to hype up good results to ensure they get the funding they need to continue.

That said, I support research, even on projects with low likelihood of success if the potential payoff is large enough. As the potential seems to be for fusion energy. But there is more to it than the goal. Research labs are where we train future science leaders and technologists in industry. Spin-offs from research labs are where much of the today's progress came from. Some say the Apollo program was a waste of time and money because all we got from it was a sack of rocks. They neglect to mention that spinoffs from that project is the foundation of much of the technological advances made in the last few decades.

I don't understand the point @canndo was making in his second post.
 
Tolerance Break

Tolerance Break

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
Yeah, the article was overly negative but it balances some of the breathy press releases that oversold the accomplishment. Research into fusion energy is expensive. Project managers into fusion energy need to hype up good results to ensure they get the funding they need to continue.

That said, I support research, even on projects with low likelihood of success if the potential payoff is large enough. As the potential seems to be for fusion energy. But there is more to it than the goal. Research labs are where we train future science leaders and technologists in industry. Spin-offs from research labs are where much of the today's progress came from. Some say the Apollo program was a waste of time and money because all we got from it was a sack of rocks. They neglect to mention that spinoffs from that project is the foundation of much of the technological advances made in the last few decades.

I don't understand the point @canndo was making in his second post.
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I agree completely.

I don't have much of an internet presence. I check Al Jazeera once in a while for major updates and I come to pot forums, so I haven't seen much in the way of overly positive articles, but I haven't looked either. I can understand being frustrated with overly positive propaganda though.

Gotta extract the facts and draw my own conclusions. I'll be fucked if someone is going to tell me what is good and what is bad. I grew up in the Midwest in the early 00s. I was told that we needed to be in Iraq by people I loved and trusted. Never again.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Tolerance Break said:
I agree completely.

I don't have much of an internet presence. I check Al Jazeera once in a while for major updates and I come to pot forums, so I haven't seen much in the way of overly positive articles, but I haven't looked either. I can understand being frustrated with overly positive propaganda though.

Gotta extract the facts and draw my own conclusions. I'll be fucked if someone is going to tell me what is good and what is bad. I grew up in the Midwest in the early 00s. I was told that we needed to be in Iraq by people I loved and trusted. Never again.
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The same people who killed the Apollo program and the Space Shuttle, lied to us about WMD in Iraq.

So there is that.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Tolerance Break said:
I would wager if this gets too much traction, they'll try and kill this too...

But hey, hope is free.
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now who is being cynical?

I'm for research if the payoff seems worth it. But there are other benefits. Research is used to train the next generation of scientists. Even if the project turns out to be impossible, when we learn enough to know it can't work, maybe we will learn what can. Predicting the future is hard.
 
Tolerance Break

Tolerance Break

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
now who is being cynical?

I'm for research if the payoff seems worth it. But there are other benefits. Research is used to train the next generation of scientists. Even if the project turns out to be impossible, when we learn enough to know it can't work, maybe we will learn what can. Predicting the future is hard.
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I agree, mostly. I think research is good even if there is no "payoff". Sometimes the journey is the payoff in and of itself. The attempt, intent and all, has value. Who knows, a lifetime of research may not draw any meaningful results, but someone else may come along several lifetimes later and use said research to further humanity.

I was just saying the powers that be are cunts, but there is always hope.
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Fogdog said:
now who is being cynical?

I'm for research if the payoff seems worth it. But there are other benefits. Research is used to train the next generation of scientists. Even if the project turns out to be impossible, when we learn enough to know it can't work, maybe we will learn what can. Predicting the future is hard.
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For terrestrial use, my money is on magnetic confinement hardware.

But what this inertial rig might become is a large, expensive, very efficient reaction drive that’ll send a crew of hundreds and their instruments to anywhere in the solar system and back for a refuel. The ship will be so big that the habitat portion will be spun up, preventing the usual severe health problems from prolonged microgravity.

We might mine the asteroids, bringing the prices of platinum metals way down.
 
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cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Fogdog said:
agreed.

But to simply stop? There wasn't a program to take the learnings and build better. We just went to small simple probes.

Now, private billionaires like Musk think they own space. Fuck that.
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It took me three decades to embrace the hard truth that Apollo was not science but politics.

While I believe Musk is basically Dr. Evil, pinky and all, he did find and exploit the time when corporate space vehicles were finally a winning proposition. He sort of is hogging the stage right now, but Artemis just closed out a very good flight. New Glenn, which is a good design, might beat Shartsip off the pad. Rocket Lab is developing the nearest thing to a fully reusable design. Virgin Orbit doesn’t scale, and Stratolaunch has been downpurposed to atmospheric testing of weapons.

We have to endure the bottleneck, but better designs are actively being realized.
 
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tangerinegreen555

tangerinegreen555

Well-Known Member
cannabineer said:
It took me three decades to embrace the hard truth that Apollo was not science but politics.
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Lol.

So there was a time when there were political driven scientific breakthroughs instead of culture wars.

I had almost forgot that beating the Russians was the main progress driver of the Mercury, Gemini & Apollo programs.

I wonder what JFK would think of these morons?
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And to think of the people who were sacrificed for this country to protect their way of life?
 
MtRainDog

MtRainDog

Well-Known Member
Why does politics in my country have to resemble UK football hooligans, or worse? I haven't voted in a loooooong time. Long gone are the days of inspiring US leaders. They now engage in the culture wars, push the boundaries of what constitutes free speech using social media as their battleground, and are embattled in endless scandals and litigation. And half of these stories are bullshit, and the other half are worse than you know. I'm so glad my state legalized, and legalized growing in particular, so I can lead my life happy, stoned, and away from all these jackasses.
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
tangerinegreen555 said:
Lol.

So there was a time when there were political driven scientific breakthroughs instead of culture wars.

I had almost forgot that beating the Russians was the main progress driver of the Mercury, Gemini & Apollo programs.

I wonder what JFK would think of these morons?
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And to think of the people who were sacrificed for this country to protect their way of life?
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Call this pure hunch, but I think he would be displeased.
 
Tolerance Break

Tolerance Break

Well-Known Member
MtRainDog said:
Why does politics in my country have to resemble UK football hooligans, or worse? I haven't voted in a loooooong time. Long gone are the days of inspiring US leaders. They now engage in the culture wars, push the boundaries of what constitutes free speech using social media as their battleground, and are embattled in endless scandals and litigation. And half of these stories are bullshit, and the other half are worse than you know. I'm so glad my state legalized, and legalized growing in particular, so I can lead my life happy, stoned, and away from all these jackasses.
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No offense, but I think this attitude is part of a larger problem.

The american people are disenfranchised, we (anyone left of center) dont feel like our vote matters.

The religious right on the other hand? They absolutely, unequivocally, believe their vote is imperative to saving the heart and soul of this nation. I think their hearts are in the right place, but they believe magic is real and giving to the poor is only good when its not called "socialism."

We have to vote, in spite of the situation, if we are ever going to have a hope of changing it.

Hope is free, but you have to make it yourself.
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Tolerance Break said:
No offense, but I think this attitude is part of a larger problem.

The american people are disenfranchised, we (anyone left of center) dont feel like our vote matters.

The religious right on the other hand? They absolutely, unequivocally, believe their vote is imperative to saving the heart and soul of this nation. I think their hearts are in the right place, but they believe magic is real and giving to the poor is only good when its not called "socialism."

We have to vote, in spite of the situation, if we are ever going to have a hope of changing it.

Hope is free, but you have to make it yourself.
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I am always a bit nonplussed to read someone say “I didn’t or don’t vote” without any apparent shame.
 
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