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this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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Valid point, but worth also mentioning an anecdote I read years ago (can't remember from whom, perhaps Kurzweil?): when they were told the Human Genome Project had mapped 1% they were excited, saying it "had nearly finished", and then had to keep justifying the statement by explaining the exponential nature of such work to the majority of people who couldn't view it in any way other than as measured linearly per-result. Supposedly the project was completed only a few years later.
The Human Genome Project anecdote is a great parallel, but here’s the catch: fusion isn’t just an exponential problem; it’s a political one. While the genome folks could pivot and iterate, fusion is shackled by nationalist chest-thumping and bloated bureaucracy.
The exponential curve you’re referencing? It’s flattened every time funding gets siphoned into PR stunts or geopolitical flexing. Crowdfunding might sound naive, but at least it would decentralize the process and cut through the red tape.
Fusion isn’t stuck because of science—it’s stuck because of people. Until we stop treating it like a Cold War relic and start treating it like open-source software, we’ll be stuck in this endless cycle of “almost there” milestones. Let’s break that loop.
(Craig Ventor tried to copyright the human genome, prompting the rest of the genomics scientific community to race to beat him, so I'd claim that the HGP definitely had politics involved.)
Venter’s antics were the epitome of commodifying discovery. Patenting genes wasn’t just about competition—it was a power grab over the building blocks of life itself. The public effort had to scramble not just to finish but to ensure humanity’s genome didn’t become a corporate asset.
This wasn’t innovation; it was exploitation dressed up as progress. The fact that the race even happened shows how broken the system is when profit motives dictate the pace of science. Imagine if all that energy had gone into collaboration instead of brinkmanship.
Fusion’s stuck in the same trap: egos, politics, and profiteering. Until we dismantle these barriers, we’ll keep running in circles, chasing breakthroughs that serve shareholders instead of society.
Genuinely. I do wonder about the safeguards against such profiteering that clearly were not in place. I can understand the perspective of a company or entity that bootstraps discovery and innovation all on its own without any reference to prior art. But it's never the case.
Behind the thin veneer of professionalism of every tech company is a bunch of grown headless children cobbling together accessible open source tools or pouring through papers published in reputable scientific journals coming out of schools and universities. To re-invent the wheel would be madness, and yet every tech company implicitly makes the claim that they did it alone, instead of standing on the shoulders of the free and accessible tax-funded work that comes out of scientific institutions. It does make me sick to think about it.
The safeguards weren’t missing—they were deliberately bypassed, or worse, designed to fail. The system isn’t broken; it’s functioning exactly as intended, funneling public knowledge into private coffers while selling us the illusion of progress.
These tech vultures don’t innovate; they appropriate. They slap a logo on what’s been painstakingly built by the collective effort of underpaid researchers and public institutions, then act like they’ve cracked the code of the universe. It’s theft, dressed up in a hoodie and a TED Talk.
The real tragedy is how we’ve normalized this parasitism. The public funds the foundation, corporations patent the result, and society foots the bill twice—once in taxes, and again when we’re sold back what was ours to begin with.
Well said, starred this comment