[ExI] future of warfare again, was: RE: Forking

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Jan 02, 2012 at 07:37:02PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote:

> In the meantime, it took a consortium of 10 countries to put together a
> scant 10 billion in order to slowly build ITER in the South of France.

Tokamak fusion as a terrestrial source of economic energy is a dead end.
Will never happen.

What is happening in terrestrial solar volume growth is definitely very
impressive however. Thin-film PV will kill dirty coal stone dead in
less than half of a century. 
 
> One wonders, isn't that incredibly myopic for a would-be planetary empire
> when being the first to control viable industrial production of fusion
> energy would have guaranteed it a competitive edge on any conceivable
> competitors for decades or perhaps centuries?

Energy is just one thing. Food is another, and we've had peak of
(some) minerals/elements. None of the old industrialized places are
driving innovation hard enough to be avoided to be creamed by that.

I don't really understand why U.S. is intending to bleed itself dry
for campaigns that *on the surface* do not make any sense. There 
must be some hidden motivations.