OK OK, so you don't want to tell me you're young. Fine, then I should probably just deal with what you say since calling you a stupid fuck didn't jar your thinking to a more rational level.
D: They are researching fusion.. they are not creating bombs...
M: You're kidding me, right. Like I said they are creating bombs. I said they are providing charity for the nuclear folk to keep nuclear alive, that means energy and weapons, the scientific expertise needed for both, the pipeline of future nuclear scientists in colleges, etc. It's a nuclear dole.
D: They are not trying to replace solar power.
M: I didn't say they were. What they are doing is sucking up funds for solar and scientific talent better used there.
D: The science would be entirely worth while merely from an astrophysical point of view, the possibility of cleaner centralized power (which should only be used to augment a decentralized system, ideally) is just frosting.
M: Medical research to end something like malaria would be a better frosting. We have limited funds and fusion research is a man child engineering toy.
D: A bomb is an uncontrolled fusion reaction... sure with better understanding they could theoretically make a smaller H-bomb... but that is true of most any science.
M: Yup, Malaria research might lead to a malaria bomb too.
D: The point is to keep it uncontrolled, that is easy.. Controlling the reaction provides very little in the way of making a better way to blow yourselves up other than to make the weapon easier to truck around.
M: Right, about back pack size will do. Al Quaeda is looking for several dozen and will pay handsomely.
D: If you believe that nuclear physics has no place in society you are either profoundly ignorant or profoundly paranoid.
M: No, I already said you are young and ignorant. I was first so we will stay with that. What the young and stupid call profoundly ignorant and profoundly paranoid is simply how wisdom looks to a fool.
D: I assume your roof comment was about the power generation.. as I have said that is only a mere fraction of what this brings..
Brings? 50 years and we are maybe maybe going to see a billionth of a second first return. Moving right along, aren't we. I would bet a circa 60's solar cell in a calculator has returned more energy than we've seen from fusion, eh, net plus?
D: I'm not sure I understand your point though... Unless you are just trying to troll (mission accomplished if so)
M: Hehe, the next time I don't understand somebody I am going to stick them in a fire for an hour or two and then say WAT? Dollars to tokamaks you're young.
I have a degree in physics if that is what you are asking...
There are much more 'honourable' points of interest in the medical fields... but the same arguments you use to poo poo this could be applied to every aspect of physics.. You may not enjoy the science, but that i no way means it is less important than any other area of study.
The sun is the single most important thing to our existence.. understanding more fully how it works is quite valid.
Solar cells are already quite advanced.. money need not be spent to improve them in order to make them viable. We could convert every home to using them now and produce almost all of the power we need (excluding down town city cores). Spending money on fusion is NOT preventing this from happening. The lack of political balls is.
Is your point that you don't like the science or that you don't like that some folks who may have at one time worked on a bomb are doing it?
We will need centralized power for as long as we live in an urban setting. We need to vastly increase our decentralized power, but we also need to figure out a way to safely augment it. What do you propose? It would be entirely valid to propose the end to cities... which is how my wife feels.. but that is not nearly a good enough reason for myself to not wish to know more about things like particle and nuclear physics.
I feel your issue is that we need centralized power in the first place, which is fine, but not really what we are talking about.
Would you feel better if this never mentioned fusion and just called it "researching how the sun works" or is your only problem the cost and scientist investment? You realize those scientists could work on something else if they wanted to right? They tend to work best doing what they like best, sorry if that is not what you like best.
As for the cost.. yes it is expensive, as learning often is. Frankly though, while there may be more quickly useful science to spend money on we are spendign a LOT more on FAR more useless things (like war).
If the time until useful products is the issue, I don't know what to say other than that is ridiculous. Until we started the GPS (the system must be adjusted for gravitational time dilation constantly, to the best of my knowledge this is the only commercial system that makes use of the concept in the slightest, and would truly be impossible without it) relativity provided us with no useful products, almost a century for that to happen.. Were the scientists that proved Einstein correct wasting their time in the 30s? If yes, then your problem must simply be with humanity and not 'fusion'.
Please feel free to explain your actual stance... but "I don't agree therefore you are an idiot" doesn't hold much water where I come from.
Moreover, I don't quite follow if your problem with this is political (it cost too much, was payed for by the department of energy, etc.) or scientific (the experiments have no merit). If political, that is your opinion and all I can say is that I believe the costs is acceptable given the money spent on things like war. Though certainly it is a LOT of money and perhaps should be privately funded. If your issue is scientific, you are simply plain wrong. The science certainly has merit (in many disciplines, even solely in the field of laser optics) even if your political objection out weighs this (which is fair enough).
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