@SamanthaJaneSmith @coreyspowell also: can we except some breakthrough in nuclear physics, thanks to large colliders, which would help us to finally get fusion right? I seriously doubt so, but again, I am not expert... just maybe hard science fiction fan, or something like that. But there is still this "theory of mistakes", that when you are trying something, you can discover something completely different...

But the problem with fusion is mostly engineering... and perhaps few other problems, which are not just engineering, but rather extremely complex math, which you probably won't figure out without trying. So you iterate and try to make it slightly larger and different... so perhaps more teams in the world should be doing this, and not something else, but while it is applied research, you are still not guaranteed to achieve useful results.

So the activity kind of reminds me of ancient temple building. It does not automatically mean, that it is bad, because centuries ago, building temples was simply the way to organize society around some common activity, not directly practical (I am definitely not the first one, who has this feeling). Probably better, than fighting!

Do I want our everyday lives to rely on something as complex, as fusion energy? (or LLMs, by the way?). I am really not sure. I would rather trust something more simple, maybe. Solar panels and batteries are relatively straightforward and seem easy to understand. But they are not enough during the winter.... and of course, general computing seemed simple to me. But people wanted something more, than general computing could offer....

So perhaps: the basic research, which really does not threat to become the new key technology, on which everything relies, is not such a bad idea... I never said, that I am against basic research (even if myself I live and work outside of science and academia...)