Fusion Power - Is it worth banking on?

[Ara Pacis]

That's us...we'll spend billions of dollars on sports stadiums, but a long-term, sustainable, scalable power source? We grudgingly allocate a couple hundred million a year, spread across the entire field, and gripe about the lack of progress as under-funded fusion experiments are canceled one after another.

I can live without fusion power, but I can't live without football.

[NEOWatcher]

I can live without fusion power, but I can't live without football.

But then how do they play night games or broadcast it to your TV?

[SkepticJ]

Good on China.

If the West fails (and boy does it look like it lately), they'll carry on. Over two thousand years of unbroken civilization, they must be doing something right.

[Ara Pacis]

But then how do they play night games or broadcast it to your TV?

GITD Football, of course. And who needs TV when it can be seen live? Just make bigger stadia.

[Ara Pacis]

Good on China.

If the West fails (and boy does it look like it lately), they'll carry on. Over two thousand years of unbroken civilization, they must be doing something right.

"Unbroken"?

[HenrikOlsen]

Good on China.

If the West fails (and boy does it look like it lately), they'll carry on. Over two thousand years of unbroken civilization, they must be doing something right.

I'd call the first half of the last century a breaking of civilization.

[whimsyfree]

I'd call the first half of the last century a breaking of civilization.

AFAIK they (at least some of them) could still read, grow food and had a more or less functional waste disposal system, so I don't think a few decades of disorder counts as a break (i.e. absence of existence) in their civilization. By the same token Western civilization has been unbroken for well over 2,000 years too.

I am more sceptical of the common claim that China has existed as an independent nation for more than 2,000 years. There are many times over that period when the current territory of China was divided between multiple states, and times when most of it was controlled by people who were, at the time, regarded as foreigners. Chinese continuity is maintained retrospectively: when there were many Chinese states one particular Chinese state is picked out as the "real" one; and foreign dynasties such as the Mongol and Manchu are "promoted" to be Chinese.

[cjameshuff]

AFAIK they (at least some of them) could still read, grow food and had a more or less functional waste disposal system, so I don't think a few decades of disorder counts as a break (i.e. absence of existence) in their civilization. By the same token Western civilization has been unbroken for well over 2,000 years too.

Um, they couldn't grow food...not nearly enough. Mao's policies leading up to the Great Leap Forward produced a famine that killed tens of millions of people, while systematically attempting to wipe out the existing social structures and traditions.

[novaderrik]

i'm convinced that fusion power will always be 50 years away..

[whimsyfree]

Um, they couldn't grow food...not nearly enough. Mao's policies leading up to the Great Leap Forward produced a famine that killed tens of millions of people, while systematically attempting to wipe out the existing social structures and traditions.

I have trouble placing the Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1961) in the "first half of the last century".

[Jens]

Um, they couldn't grow food...not nearly enough. Mao's policies leading up to the Great Leap Forward produced a famine that killed tens of millions of people, while systematically attempting to wipe out the existing social structures and traditions.

HenrikOlsen specifically said the "first half" of the last century, so I assume he was referring to the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty, the republican revolution, and then the Sino-Japanese war. But maybe he meant the second half. The Great Leap Forward was like in 1956 or 1958?

ETA: Sorry for that duplicate. I guess I was typing and was outposted!

[HenrikOlsen]

Change "first half" to "first 6 decades" if you want to be pedants.

Geez, I'd have thought this was a science board where people know what the error bars are on "half".

[Jens]

Change "first half" to "first 6 decades" if you want to be pedants.

I wasn't trying to be pedantic. I assumed that you were talking about the downfall of the Manchus and the emergence of the KMT. Because if you were talking about Mao, I would have gone even further to like the 1960s and the cultural revolution. If you were talking about the PRC, that's fine, it's just that I didn't get that.

[quotation]

Good on China.

If the West fails (and boy does it look like it lately), they'll carry on. Over two thousand years of unbroken civilization, they must be doing something right.

Ah yes, well, the proverbial passing of the torch, what? Perhaps we did get a bit hidebound over here. I'm reminded of the advice a good friend/coach/mentor once gave, "Whenever you're in a slump, go back to basics." Right, well, good luck China. Would write more, but am busy trying to pull a plasmoid out of the microwave oven. Right ho!

[whimsyfree]

I wasn't trying to be pedantic. I assumed that you were talking about the downfall of the Manchus and the emergence of the KMT. Because if you were talking about Mao, I would have gone even further to like the 1960s and the cultural revolution. If you were talking about the PRC, that's fine, it's just that I didn't get that.

Ditto (collapse of ancien regime, KMT, warlords, jap invasion). Actually the first half was probably worse than the second. Sure the second half started disastrously but it ended on an upbeat note, whereas the first half was grim from fart to spinach. I don't think Chinese civilization was interrupted in either half, though. In fact I don't think China will ultimately be seen as having done that badly in c20. Despite all the talk of the terrible impositions of foreigners they came through it with their empire intact. They still have dominion over the Tibetans, eastern Turks, and the Mongol territories they held.