I consider myself 'intellectually adventurous'. I don't know how else to describe it. I will very willingly read total bunk and extend to it every hypothetica

I consider myself 'intellectually adventurous'. I don't know how else to describe it. I will very willingly read total bunk and extend to it every hypothetical and grant it the widest margin of "OK, just maybe..." But, when it comes down to discussing it, I like using strong language where called for and absolutes when they can be defended. Reason can get you far. But I've run across the same folks you have, not willing to actually explore ideas at all and clearly looking only to find one excuse to throw something out. The most annoying are the many who claim to be approaching thins with reason who immediately flee to the worst flaws in thinking there are, ad hominem and arguments from authority. Rather than focus on substantive issues, they point out that those putting forward the ideas don't have the right credentials or similar. Which, if you're just dealing with "am I personally going to accept this idea", that's fine. But it's a pragmatic dodge that is guaranteed to fail quite often. Identity of the speaker can't influence truth of what is spoken, it's that simple. Then you've got things like the issues you mention, like the expense. So tackle the expense problem! WHY is it expensive? Things are only expensive for a few reasons. Either they require rare materials, extremely precise engineering, or they're being produced for an extremely small destination market. It's not magic. If the things can be made at scale, and they can be made with commodity components, they can be made cheap, end of story. That's just a matter of scale. Whether that scale could ever be achieved is one of those "you have to grant the hypothetical" situations. The slipperiness might be a bigger sticking point. What physical properties lead to stickiness and how do they affect light transmission through a medium? That might be the killer right there, but you have to actually pursue it before you can write something off. Being intellectually adventurous isn't for everybody. Many people can't take an idea like "maybe it would be best if we ate people" and then just take it apart and determine what the consequences would be and whether they accomplish a desired goal. They just can't bring themselves to do it. Or once they hear about prion diseases, they bail instantly without looking for workarounds. You have to WANT an idea to work to ever have a chance of proving whether its possible. Then you can define the conditions under which it WOULD be possible. And if it's not possible, then you actually know why. Which means you probably know far more about the original problem you were trying to solve and that might generate some great ideas going forward.