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The amount of cynicism around fusion is stupid. It reminds me a lot of the learned helplessness that surrounded the idea of reusable spacecraft. One of the eas

The amount of cynicism around fusion is stupid. It reminds me a lot of the learned helplessness that surrounded the idea of reusable spacecraft. One of the easiest (laziest?) positions one can hold is simply to be dismissive of anything that hasn't happened yet, and which appears to be moderately difficult or harder. Fusion, AGI, etc... Just dismiss those things as ridiculous and you position yourself as wise, informed, erudite, whatever - to most people.

omnicognate 5y ago
A lazier position is to dismiss the views of a vague group of people as empty posturing without even clearly identifying who you're talking about.
kitd 5y ago
The first fusion-powered blockchain should push HN to cynicism supercriticality.
- nr2x 5y ago
  Fairly confident we’ll get fusion before we use a “blockchain” to buy a loaf of bread.
  - solveit 5y ago
    Somewhat famously, the very first commercial blockchain transaction twelve years ago was for two pizzas. Cynicism is fine but you don't have to be lazy about it.
    - nr2x 5y ago
      I was the first person to accept bitcoin payment for a certain class of goods (not illegal, just don't want to out myself) - so yes, I'm aware of the pizza transaction and have friends who retired off of BTC. That doesn't mean I can buy a cup of coffee with what started as a cool currency idea and turned into a speculative asset for tech bros. In fact, just yesterday had a conversation with a friend and realized at current prices we jointly spent several hundred thousand dollars on VPN services. So yeah, I was there before there was a there.
pfdietz 5y ago
But there are excellent reasons to think DT fusion (which is what these people are trying to do, as well as most fusion efforts) is a nonstarter. And these reasons have been known since at least the 1980s. We skeptics get annoyed at vacuous optimism that just ignores these real arguments.

omnicognate 5y ago

A lazier position is to dismiss the views of a vague group of people as empty posturing without even clearly identifying who you're talking about.

kitd 5y ago

The first fusion-powered blockchain should push HN to cynicism supercriticality.

nr2x 5y ago
Fairly confident we’ll get fusion before we use a “blockchain” to buy a loaf of bread.
- solveit 5y ago
  Somewhat famously, the very first commercial blockchain transaction twelve years ago was for two pizzas. Cynicism is fine but you don't have to be lazy about it.
  - nr2x 5y ago
    I was the first person to accept bitcoin payment for a certain class of goods (not illegal, just don't want to out myself) - so yes, I'm aware of the pizza transaction and have friends who retired off of BTC. That doesn't mean I can buy a cup of coffee with what started as a cool currency idea and turned into a speculative asset for tech bros. In fact, just yesterday had a conversation with a friend and realized at current prices we jointly spent several hundred thousand dollars on VPN services. So yeah, I was there before there was a there.

pfdietz 5y ago

But there are excellent reasons to think DT fusion (which is what these people are trying to do, as well as most fusion efforts) is a nonstarter. And these reasons have been known since at least the 1980s. We skeptics get annoyed at vacuous optimism that just ignores these real arguments.