Prime example of sunk-cost rationalization. When has such a gargantuan expenditure of time and resources ever produced the promised second-order benefits that outweigh the lack of first-order benefits?
Neutron fission was discovered in 1938, ten years later we'd flattened two cities with it, and ten years after that we had working, profitable power stations. Theory to useful first-order application to useful second-order application in two decades.
Meanwhile, ITER started planning in the late 80s, began construction in 2007, and won't be fully operational until 2035, assuming no delays (hah). Even then, it won't do anything directly useful. That'll be figured out by grad students who haven't even been born yet, possibly.
This just isn't how healthy scientific and technological research looks like. If nobody expects anything of actual tangible value for 20 years, and there are billions of dollars of funding being thrown around, obviously you're going to get people riding the gravy train instead of getting real jobs. ITER is welfare for physicists.
> When has such a gargantuan expenditure of time and resources ever produced the promised second-order benefits that outweigh the lack of first-order benefits?
Pretty much all space programmes prior to the commercialisation of space. We're only at the start of that, too: today imaging satellites and internet connections, tomorrow potentially heavy industry, solar power generation and mineral extraction. Who knows what else.
If we count the commencement date of that investment from 1960 or so, and assume the start of real returns on that investment hasn't arrived yet, the main second order benefits of space research and the associated feats of engineering will have taken 60+ years to appear. By the time any of the applications I mentioned above are realised, we might be at 80 or even 100 years.
Some things just take a really long time. I haven't studied ITER or any other fusion tech, but long timelines don't mean things aren't worth it. They can deliver things iterative processes might be unable to do.
Lastly, if you're concerned about the money going to the wrong place, it might be better to start with fossil fuel subsidies - diverting these to clean energy production and research would speed the transition immensely.
>Pretty much all space programmes prior to the commercialisation of space. We're only at the start of that, too: today imaging satellites and internet connections, tomorrow potentially heavy industry, solar power generation and mineral extraction. Who knows what else.
Those had *direct* benefits at the time, immediately: satellites of all kinds, classified military stuff, and the dickwaving pleasure of putting a man on the moon before the Soviets.
The comparison to space would make sense if we spent billions of dollars building a single large rocket starting in 1950, finally launched it in 1975, with a payload of nothing but styrofoam. Then tried to justify it by saying that by 1990 we'll have something useful.
Even then, the space programme was a decadent swamp of pork-barrel spending and vanity project scams like the Space Shuttle and the SLS. I severely doubt that the benefit to humanity outweighed the money spent and lives lost on that crap.
The problem with saying "the benefits just take a really long time to come about" is that it's completely unfalsifiable, at least within the lifetimes of the people who profit from the funding today. They can just dangle that "second-order benefits" carrot in front of the rest of us suckers until they retire.
An interesting article, but rather undercut by the fact that he highlights quantum computers as the same situation. Twelve years later, they exist. They work. They have APIs! Yet the development process displayed all the negative symptoms he highlights. How can we be confident fusion is different?
It is welfare for the otherwise mostly military contractors who get contracts for construction. It would be overwhelmingly cheaper to just pay the physicists, even if we supported tem times as many.
Neutron fission was discovered in 1938, ten years later we'd flattened two cities with it, and ten years after that we had working, profitable power stations. Theory to useful first-order application to useful second-order application in two decades.
Meanwhile, ITER started planning in the late 80s, began construction in 2007, and won't be fully operational until 2035, assuming no delays (hah). Even then, it won't do anything directly useful. That'll be figured out by grad students who haven't even been born yet, possibly.
This just isn't how healthy scientific and technological research looks like. If nobody expects anything of actual tangible value for 20 years, and there are billions of dollars of funding being thrown around, obviously you're going to get people riding the gravy train instead of getting real jobs. ITER is welfare for physicists.