An honest assesment acknowledges that current fusion research, like string theory and even HEP, has become an employment program. You can tell this is the case

An honest assesment acknowledges that current fusion research, like string theory and even HEP, has become an employment program. You can tell this is the case when 1) no efforts are made to change course once it is clear the current dogma is impractical, unprovable or lends increasingly marginal gains in knowledge at extreme cost; and 2) any who question the accepted view are shouted down and pushed aside. That is not to say there should be no money spent on researching fusion or the standard model (or beyond). Just that the current system does a poor job of allocating limited funds by putting most of the monies in one basket until well after other ideas/technologies should be given time of day and ample funding.