[theothermkn]

> "Once fusion is cracked" is almost on par with "once perpetual motion machines are cracked." It presupposes that fusion being "cracked" is a reasonable thing to expect.

Oof. One need only to peruse your comment history to see where this sentiment is coming from, but even that is no excuse for that obtuse argument.

"Perpetual motion," on the one hand, is quackery outlawed by straightforward thermodynamics, breaking the rules of which allows assertions like "chair seats and door handles should be spontaneously heating up to incandescence essentially at random." Fusion, on the other hand, is a technical problem.

Fusion researchers at MIT, ITER, and other institutions at the top tiers of academia across the globe are not a cabal of greedy grant-dependent charlatans bamboozling their way through careers in bad faith, deliberately ignoring the lone rational voice of Lidsky and his Johnny-Come-Lately-The-Baptist on HN, u/pfdietz. It's perfectly rational (Sane, even!) to cast aside internet naysayers (no matter how zealous) in favor of deferring to, you know, actual experts.

[pfdietz]

Fusion researchers are people who have irreversibly (or nearly so) committed their careers to something. They have a very strong incentive to not admit they have wasted their lives. It's touching you think that asking such a person if fusion deserves more funding that you'd get anything but a "yes" answer.

In general, you don't want to ask a person in field X if X needs funding. You might ask them what's the best way of spending money in X, but even then you better phrase the question carefully to avoid conflict of interest.