[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote: My point about the video (which media I fully support) is to go for a positive theme rather than bashing the other side.

I notice a lot of dualism, either/or-ness in your use of language. “rather than”, “other side”.

Puts me in mind of that Chris Christian song.

Just sit back, don’t try to answer all the questions.
Just sit back, but don’t let the answers be ignored.
Just sit back, and try to love one another
‘Cause the way you love your brother is the way you love your Lord.

What we need to do is put the “other” back in “brother.”

Or change the line to “the way you love “the other” is the way you love your Lord”.

No! Not change it! That’s dualistic negation. We’ll just add another verse : ) Many verses in the universe.

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote: Rezwan, I understand the passion of your previous response. I was, quite consciously and directly attacking something you believe in [the oil spill video].

I’m not a believer, I’m a user. Haven’t I explained my philosophy of leveraging whatever presents itself? Eric dreamed up the oil spill video, and I was supportive. You, on the other hand, are being judgmental. “Attacking”, you say. You are free to come up with another video with a very different approach, and I will likewise be supportive.

FYI, first law of brainstorming is to be supportive. In improv, you say “YES” to things, even if you think they’re stupid. The opposite is called “denial”. Feel free to transform the improv, take the emergent work in new directions, add new stuff. But negating/denial is just a waste of time.

My point about the video (which media I fully support) is to go for a positive theme rather than bashing the other side.

So you bash it because you don’t like bashing? Oh! Wait a minute “the other side”. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. The video is somehow threatening? You see “sides” in it? I didn’t see that. It was a simple choice video. What do you want – oil based economy and the costs that entails – or something new, energy from stars? Very simple. I wasn’t reading much else into it.

A very great deal of research indicates that a positive message carries more weight with a new audience. Negative messages work best only when the audience feels it has to make imminent decisions. This can not come until well after FF-2 at least.

Pretty words, my friend. Let’s see something specific – I await your positive script with bated breath.

Will try to be constructive of your effort.

But I confess now some confusion. Where is the trust in the scenarios you present here?

What scenarios?

[Rezwan]

Aeronaut wrote: And sometimes you really do have to go beat the tar out of an extremist who never attempted diplomacy and shows no willingness to work things out to mutual benefit.

For the extremists today, there were many steps along the way in which policies were adopted that seemed expedient at the time, which ignored human rights or due process, and instead empowered tyrants so that someone in the west could make a profit. Along the way, many extremists were nurtured and funded, again by those profiting in the west. Now you’ve got all these extremists, and folks in the west don’t admit it but they’re happy because it justifies “beating the tar” out of them and additional collateral damage. What they’ve beaten the tar out of is reasonable people. Only extremists can handle all the western firepower. And they thrive on it. And also, there are some stands taken by reasonable people that are labeled extremists because people on the “non extremist” side want an excuse to dismiss them. It all really works nicely to the benefit, again, of the powerful who have no intention of working things out to mutual benefit. Lucky for them the extremists are such useful justifications. And the extremists for their part are fortunate to have such greedy, callous posterboys in the west to justify their hold on power. The reasonable folk on all sides are all hostage to this. But go on. Keep drawing the extremist rationalization for war card.

It’s like the rapist card. There have been times when guys offered to walk me home from a party late at night. “It’s not safe out there.” Really? Well statistically I’m more likely to be raped by someone I know – probably someone who offered to walk me home from a party. I’ll take my chances with the night. I hate guys who play the fear card. Rapists are their henchman, making the world unsafe in order to justify their services as people who can walk you home and try to take advantage of you themselves. Who needs that? You can just see them there, acting like they’re doing you a favor, conjuring up images of you being raped, playing on your fears. Sorry. I don’t buy it.

Besides, the only time I’ve had to deter potential rapists has been in broad daylight or in offices. When they see you walking on a street alone at night, they offer money.

I have strong feelings about this. Hope I haven’t been offensive.

This oil-fueled/fear/extortion/extremist-nurturing/holy/deuteronomy20/romanticized-armageddon-wish-fulfillment war is bigger than all of us. We shall have to nip it in the bud in these forums like the global warming stuff. No place for it here.

[Rezwan]

Very sorry to hear about your brother-in-law.

Also, apologies because I’m in a mood today and the following might come off as harsh.

About the rest of your post, I can’t 4th it because I don’t understand what you’re saying.

Phil’s Dad wrote: The sad truth is eliminating this source of conflict will achieve little in the way of reducing war.

You won’t know that ’til you’ve done it.

Other excuses will be found.
War is the natural state; peace needs constant vigilance and constant resourcefulness.

Trust is the natural state. I spend about 98% of my time getting along just fine with people. Conflicts arise, but get resolved amicably for the most part. Every now and then they don’t, and there may be some shouting. I haven’t beaten anyone recently. There are a few people, well OK, one, who aren’t talking to me (“cold wars”) but I’m extending diplomatic overtures. I’d say “war” is pretty rare.

Yes, conflict is ubiquitous, but there are many constructive ways to resolve conflict without letting it escalate to war. War is a failure of imagination. Pretending there’s nothing you can do about it is disingenuous and usually the refuge of people who are profiting from it.

In the mean time I would far rather focus on all the good we can do than preening ourselves over the harm done by the alternatives.

Not sure what “preening ourselves over the harm…” means. Looks to me like you’re preening as a movie critic here.

(and I’m sorry if this makes me unpopular but I include in that dreaming up holier than thou videos about oil spills on the drive to work)

It’s not about popularity here, but brainstorming. You said you want to focus on “all” the good we can do, but you’re already shooting down good suggestions, and not coming up with an alternative. Doesn’t seem like you’re pulling your weight.

If you don’t like this video idea, come up with – and execute – another one. Or are you opposed to videos in general?

Let’s please be the solution

A preening phrase if I ever heard one…

rather than letting this society be just another soldier twisting the knife.

A what? I don’t get this metaphor. I see why you don’t like the ready made mass appeal video idea. That quote seemed really “deep” in an obscure arthouse cinema way.

Ah! I crack myself up.

[Rezwan]

Breakable wrote: …in the world where resources are scarce and current living philosophy of consumerism is still promoted, human life will probably drop in value.

Someone made a fine distinction for me the other day. Value vs. cost. They said, “work doesn’t create value, it creates cost. Value is in the eye of the beholder.”

Hence, dropping bombs over the Middle East is a no brainer, because the cost is paid by those valueless people over there, who are threatening our precious, valuable sprinkler systems over here.

Cost? What cost? I don’t value their lives (those soldiers, or the civilians in other countries whose lives are in chaos) so it’s no cost at all. Why are you trying to stick me with this bill? It’s bad enough I have to pay for all this hardware (the lucrative contract which I’m giving to my golf buddy at Halliburton – because his company, I value). And I’d gladly throw another thousand lives (however many lives it takes) of other people’s valueless bodies at the problem to keep me in my rosy happy world. The only thing I really value.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:
OSHA rules that war is unsafe for soldiers, and must cease forthwith! 😆 %-P

lol? It is indeed unsafe, and unjustifiable in almost all cases. They got capone on tax evasion, I’d like to see some deft bureaucratic rule emerge that stops evil governments in their bloody wars. Perhaps if they had to pay the full cost of the war. Reparations, complete rehabilitation of damaged soldiers and civilians. Of course the lives can’t be restored. In which case those politicians all need to be tried for their war crimes.

[Rezwan]

Breakable wrote: I just want to remind you how this thread started. So does anyone has [have] a legislation draft, that for example would support Innovative Fusion Concepts? In case FF does not, maybe somebody else will need to succeed?

This requires research to see what’s out there. Fusion funding is covered under certain government programs and spending comes down to the discretion of a few people.

Before you can get to “Drafting Legislation” you probably need to have a plan in place and talk it over with all the probable folk who have jurisdiction in the area (of funding research, of disbursing the funds). You’d have to identify the players.

And you might not need “legislation”. Why rush to make laws when you don’t understand the funding environment?

Understand it first, have conversations with everyone involved (the “constituents”?) Eventually, you might see some specific laws or amendments that need to be passed

Before randomly drafting legislation, at least be clear on your purpose.

Some possible laws:
Modify definition of “Renewable Energy” in the codes: Derek’s “aneutronic” inclusion bill is a nice example. Doesn’t seem to have passed yet.

Modify “Accredited Investor” requirement for Fusion research investment: An amendment to the SEC rules that allows ordinary people to invest in Fusion (as opposed to accredited investors) provided that they do not exceed a certain portion of their income, and that they sign a waiver saying they know it’s high risk investment would be a fascinating law to pass.

Better approach to legislation:

Start with a plan, uncover the issues, identify your principles – the causal relationship you see between whatever proposed law and its impact on fusion research. Start with removing impedimentary legilsation (see what legal blocks there are to fusion research, what exemptions to other laws would be useful), and see what positive changes can be made.

Most people approach laws by making an overreacting law here or there, with very specific goals in mind, specific constituents to placate.

Policy making – not something you can do off the top of your head.

[Rezwan]

Patientman wrote: I like the focus on business model discussions. I have only looked at the Face Book pages briefly. One of the bigger concepts ( I have personally) was an interactive science fiction story generated by scientists, creative writers, business people and anyone else interested. This would have two parts, the organization of telling the story(private) and the actual published story to the public. Here again, you could make links within the story to give educational definitions to concepts of a technical nature, yet entertain the audience with a future vision of fusion energy. If you published the story on Face Book and invited comments and discussions, who knows what direction in might take. That seems to be the beauty of the idea. Some of your background organization may change as the story progresses, because you only publish a few pages or a chapter at a time. That is just one of many concepts I think Social Marketing can lend to getting the word out. It is extremely important these forums generate discussions and different perspectives on Fusion. Spreading these words should spark a clear understanding of the difference between DPF and other types of Fusion technologies. Like a fine wine.

Interactive user-generated sci-fi story? Sounds like a job for a wiki. Should we set one up? I think I have a wiki on the site, but haven’t used it for anything. It is unlinked to.

[Rezwan]

Rezwan wrote:

I said I doubted they’d let him sit pressing a big red button to fire “shots”, but he could always ask!

It’s not a big red button, rather it’s a small lever type switch.

Well well! For lunch today I had a nice Italian sub and a side order of the above words.

It is, indeed, a red button.

I always thought it was that silver thing they were hitting, but that’s the mode switch, and it’s always on manual. More evidence that eyewitness testimony is unreliable.

But the macrolens is quicker than the eye. Behold, button pictures.

Note, just set up the flickr account today. Also a pBase account for photos. Not sure which one we’ll end up sticking with, but flickr has a handy plugin with lightroom which is about to make short(er) work of the 2650 picture backlog.

And lightroom, what a DREAM!

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: I said I doubted they’d let him sit pressing a big red button to fire “shots”, but he could always ask!

It’s not a big red button, rather it’s a small lever type switch.

[Rezwan]

Patientman wrote:
The conversations by non-technical advocates of fusion need a guided understanding of how and when this technology may impact the world. One of the key aspects of Dr. Lerner’s book was to dispel misguided theoretical science. The fine line in science fiction writing on this subject should be in the area of providing possible futures without fantasy. The site already has a section on Space ships and their engines, which is good. Are the expressed concepts within the realms of solid science and how does it bring Focus Fusion into the spot light?

Well said!

Then again, is it possible to “provide possible futures without fantasy”? Isn’t imagining any possible future a fantasy? It may turn out to be an accurate vision of the future, but only hindsight will corroborate that.

And there’s also the “self-fulfilling prophecy” element. We have flip phones now because they were so cool in Star Trek that people just had to make them real. “I WANT that.”

I wouldn’t try to limit the scope of fantasy. I would go ahead and provide broad categories for the purpose of, say, awards programs (e.g., the “Best Fusion in Sci-Fi Awards” would have a prize for “most possible, realistic” (the “drama” category”), as well as one for most over-the top ridiculous (the “most creative pseudo-science award”).

No need to limit exuberance.

[Rezwan]

Breakable wrote:

Hi guys,
Looks like this can be split off starting at Breakable’s post on shielding requirements. Should it go under a new “shielding requirements for flights” post, or merge with “FF for jet engines” post?

I think less management is better than more, because it is easier to track the posts and topics.
If we had a Tree-like instead of single Thread forum (such as Reddit, or Slashdot comments) – that could help manage itself.
Reddit btw allows creating your own sub-reddit’s that have all kind of nice features for management, voting and thread display.

Can you provide an example/link?

[Rezwan]

Pictures are fine. Ken Burns it and it will be powerful enough.

Not the golf pictures, though. But wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where that was the main conflict.

[Rezwan]

This shows the alternative in the absence of fusion success.

[Rezwan]

Technical Problem:

TULSE:

Your email address seems to be causing a glitch.

Every time someone posts here, I get a mail delivery error from your email address on file. It’s trying to automatically notify you and is not able to.

This may be related to a problem just reported by Brian in which he is getting repeat notifications on posts.

I tried to send you emails via your profile (private message, and actual email) and both seem to have bounced.

If you read this – try updating your profile with a different email.

Thanks!

[Author]

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