[Rezwan]

Thanks for the update. What is your role in this?

Thanks also for the recipe suggestion. More for the food corner 🙂

[Rezwan]

Is DPF aneutronic fusion the main thing here, or just any aneutronic fusion? I do not mean what do we think is most likely to be successful, or what we personally support, but I mean what do we think FFS is about?

“I do not mean what we think is most likely to be successful.” This shows an “pro-specific technology” approach. – like you like to focus deeply on a technology, for its own sake.

I am definitely going to resurrect the DPF site we started, and you can take it over. We need something like that, very technology specific. It looks like you have the focus for it.

Like you say, if this does not work out, the name can be changed to “Focus on Fusion Society” at that time and we can all carry on.

Name Change: Actually, we’ve discussed it, and wouldn’t change the name even if it doesn’t work out. Because science is about trying things. So if we’d keep the name if it’s successful, why would be not keep it if it wasn’t? The pursuit of knowledge is its own reward. Other stuff is gravy.

“at that time and we can all carry on” – time is running out for a lot of fusion programs. They could all benefit from synergy. There’s too much at stake for taking a linear approach, one thing at a time.

However, let’s think positive, and put our energy into making it work out.

Alas, I was just reflecting on this today. I’m a bit of a negative person. I suppose you might call it a pessimist. (pessimists for fusion!) I prefer realist. But in any case, positive thinking seems unnecessary. You do the work. You don’t have to fake emotion around it. Just do it. So, yes, put your energy into making it work out. I agree with that wholeheartedly. But why mask things with unproven positivity? It’s healthier to acknowledge the risks, and diversify the portfolio. That seems sensible to me. General fusion managed to raise $35 million for a fusion project with just such an approach. No need to fake anything. And their scientists want other approaches tried as well. There’s no either/or here.

Back to positivity – I’m still working out the balance. I find that a lot of people require the positivity thing, and this attitude of mine is perceived as a downer. Then again, Fusion has been called the “science of wishful thinking”, with enthusiasm met by the “wait and see” stonewall, (i.e., you talk to folks and they say, “Whatever. Let me know how it turns out”). But we want to engage people now, without “over-selling”.

I can’t change that, so that would be another thing to outsource. A chipper communications person 🙂

I suppose one could lean towards positivity, followed by being absorbed by the specific technology in question. The fusion is a possible outcome that would be nice, but you (one) would focus on the thing right in front of you at the moment.

I lean towards negativity/realism/diversification, followed by – expansion? holism? Where I am trying to get a sense of all the chess pieces and the optimal collective action outcome.

At the end of the day, the problem we’re here to solve is the fusion puzzle, the specific technology is a means to an end. We’re being practical by investigating the coolest, most cost-effective route first (DPF + pB11!) And we’re being responsible by looking at the broader picture and ways to develop synergy in case things stretch out.

“just any aneutronic fusion” – you say it like it’s so easy. Where is the awe for what is being attempted? Aneutronic fusion!

Can team DPF do it? (And cut to you: Team DPF rep – sell it!)

[Rezwan]

Getting clearer by the post! Thanks for this. You make some excellent points and you’ve set up the issues very well. My favorite line:

However, personally I think DPF aneutronic fusion is pretty cool

🙂

The DPF indeed has a rich heritage and a lot of fascinating science. It deserves a thorough exploration.

Alas, I’m no expert in it. My understanding is good, but not deep. As someone noted on another post, it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. My approach to that is to work on developing our organization as a nonprofit, with fundraising, so that we can get a budget, to hire someone to develop extensive materials to explain the science, and to moderate discussions. It’s something I’d have to outsource.

The crowdsourcing you’re suggesting might also work. Alas, no one has jumped forward yet to take charge of that, suggesting that other folks on the site don’t feel they are experts either. If you’re just being shy, I would like very much for the experts on these forums to come forward and develop content and materials and landing pages etc. to explain the DPF (and specifically the aneutronic aspects).

I.e., if you have the ability, it would be fantastic if you (and others) can take initiative to develop the technical aneutronic DPF materials! I keep pushing that to the “YIKES! Later when I have time to sit down and really grok this stuff” pile.

Most of the people here in this forum seem to regard LPP as the work that we are primarily interested in here, with other fusion projects being “other” fusion projects. It would seem to be a dilution and limitation not to be able to take all of the characteristics of DPF aneutronic fusion and use them to bring up some support.

I don’t mean to limit folks. As mentioned, I’d love it if people took initiative. This is, again, a resource problem. And a simple lack of expertise on my part. If you want that done, either I have to hire someone, or you guys have to do it on a volunteer basis. Eric and the crew have no time (I used to try to get them to sit down and explain stuff – but that was a dilution of their time and they had the research to do – plus there were gaps in my knowledge, and that’s just frustrating).

You guys can do the hard core stuff. Try to make it clear enough for me to lift stuff to use for our games section – scroll down to the DPF themed Flash game trilogy. This is not to dilute the science, but to start somewhere basic that I feel comfortable with, and build knowledge from there – drill deeper as things progress. I see this as useful for myself and others who want to come along.

And not to trivialize either the science or these games – they’re actually pretty sophisticated (well, you might not be able to tell from the short description. In my head they’re pretty detailed). Once we can get focused on them, it will still be months to develop them. And they have to exist in some sort of context, so there’s no getting away from the whole “knowledge map” idea. Those of you who are already conversant with this material just won’t get why the people you try to explain it to tune it out.

As to your other point here: “most of the people in this forum”, “it’s what mostly the people here are talking about”. About 250 people have ever posted, 30 or so actively – and that’s been pretty steady for some time. Sure it’s a majority, but of a small group. And I suspect developing more DPF material isn’t what will bring a lot more people over to the cause, especially as most people are turned off by physics, and other people find fusion in general suspicious and take the apathetic “Wait and See” attitude. It’s vital for the cause to develop popular, accessible materials.

I.e., while you might develop a well run technical forum, it would be bad to drop the rest of the forums because that’s where the broader support is eventually going to come from. Of course, it’s hard to see that now as well, because of the resource issue again. We need to turn the site into a platform that is a cool mix of science and culture.

Of course, I understand FFS is not legally part of LPP. We can’t be Eric’s cheering club, and I expect he doesn’t want that.

Of course he want’s cheering! (Or should! Who wouldn’t?) And deserves it! Three cheers for Eric!

We have no problem with cheering. Soliciting investment, yes, but not cheering. Songwriting is also cool.

I am bringing this up because I hope to get input from the wider community on this website, FFS members, etc. Is DPF aneutronic fusion the main thing here, or just any aneutronic fusion? I do not mean what do we think is most likely to be successful, or what we personally support, but I mean what do we think FFS is about?

Great question!

[Rezwan]

Now that you mention it, we did set up a separate section for the DPF – it was supposed to be for actual DPF practitioners to discuss their work, and we wanted to restrict it from the rabble. We set up a site (densplasmafocus.org), and I see that in the upgrade of our CMS, I have yet to change the settings to direct it properly. Not quite sure how. It’s not a simple re-direct, there’s a php thingie, so it’s low on the backlog list.

It wasn’t getting much play, in any case. It needs a specific, committed person at the helm to run/manage/build it up, do outreach to the rest of the dpf community. Could you be that person? It’s a great thing to do! Very important for dpf technology. Sketch out a proposal of how you would run a “DPF society”.

What would a DPF society mission statement be? That’s one area we had trouble with. This was a focus fusion initiated site, so it has a ways to go to connect with the rest of the DPF community. We tried to set it up for academic posting and discussion – but folks are already “posting” in journals. It would actually take a bit of work to set something practical up. If the “client group” is the dpf community, you need something tailored to them, you need to interview them all, rank their preferences, etc. etc. What do they want in a site? What kind of community support do they want? To what end?

Outside the scope of our capacity.

[Rezwan]

TimS wrote: Also, I want my ring with a plasmoid and plasma swirls, not p-B11.

Funny you should mention that. Here’s what I think of as my plasma swirl ring.

[Rezwan]

TimS wrote: That brings up one thing. All of this seems to be focused on aneutronic fusion, as opposed to aneutronic DPF. I think it would be great if any aneutronic fusion contender was successful, I certainly don’t just support DPF or LPP. However, when I think of the FF society, I think of DPF. I would not want to limit the FFS in any artificial ways. But this is a community, within that community I pay particular attention to DPF, and the F in DPF stands for focus, not fusion. The DPF is a particular type of reactor. That doesn’t seem to be an artificial limitation, that seems to be what we are about. Here.

Yes, but this isn’t the DPF society, this is the Focus Fusion Society – which is derived from the focus – applied to fusion. Hence the fusion in the name. If DPF is not successful at achieving aneutronic fusion – and more specifically, net energy, we carry on with the fusion message and change the name to Focus ON fusion. There are other sites about the DPF and things to do with it. Those other applications would be a consolation, of material value and technical interest, but they don’t change much in the world. The possibility of fusion is what’s bringing people to the table here.

We want aneutronic fusion, and we’re hoping this machine can do it. This site focuses on the DPF as our favorite approach. But that will only remain so if it’s successful. Otherwise, there’s a lot more work to be done.

[Rezwan]

I was told about a brilliant book relating to longevity, evolution, etc. Nick Lane’s Oxygen: The Molecule that made the world.

Apparently, oxygen enables predators.

And radiation and oxygen toxicity work the same way – need to read that chapter to see if we can leverage this for getting some perspective on those who have fears of radiation.

I got the book from the library because my cousin says there’s a bit in there comparing photosynthesis and the sun’s fusion energy in a weird way.

[Rezwan]

JimmyT wrote: I wouldn’t be involved with lots of projects If I were entirely selfish. I’m not going to live long enough to reap the entire benefit of most projects I am involved in. And I certainly won’t benefit from the life extension efforts currently underway. Others will and that makes these projects worthy of my support.

Didn’t mean to cast aspersions 🙂 I shall endeavor to be more supportive of the longevity efforts of others. That does sound like I want folks to croak :). No! Live long and prosper! May the sun never set. May the transition be easier than that envisioned by Albert Brooks.

Maybe I just need a good rest (sleep = mini-death). Things have been taking a toll, and extending this out in perpetuity is an overwhelming thought. But I still expect to check out in a modest amount of time. Will try to leave the planet all the nicer for those of you who stick around for the after-party!

Also, agree that deficit thing sounds like a fabrication. It’s being conned by other people in the present I worry about. Plus we don’t want to make it too easy for the future generations. Give them some challenges.

When you get sick do you seek medical attention? You don’t have to. Must be because you want to live longer. Others do too.

Y’know a lot of my family is of the Christian Science persuasion. Avoid doctors like the plague. I think the religion selects for healthy people. The infirm “backslide” and go to doctors. The healthy stay Christian Scientist and credit it to their righteousness.

Ironically, they also want to be immortal. Just without the medicine. I find them amusing as well. But you can all have the last laugh and dance on my grave. Speaking of which, did I mention I have a business idea for disco-graveyards? For those people who want to have people dance on their graves. Since I haven’t gone out enough to dance during my life.

[Rezwan]

@vansig & annodomini2, are you saying we should change “unlimited” to “abundant”?

While updating the website, I noticed in some places we had “abundant” already. Probably from a previous discussion.

Also, I noticed we had “affordable” rather than “cheap” – because we didn’t want to be seen as cheap. There was a discussion about that at some point as well.

Aside from that, our mission statement doesn’t [em]exclude[/em] conservation. Obviously, until we get it working, we can’t stop conserving, and even after it’s working, I think a big motivation for conservation comes down to not wanting to bother with excess stuff and building. We’d still like energy efficient buildings because it does away with the loud hum of cooling and heating machines (AC units and fans annoy me).

[Rezwan]

dennisp wrote: No idea what their budget was. Given their scalability requirements I suspect it was fairly high, but on the other hand I think it was mainly one guy who built the initial site.

How much do you think that one guy would charge for the initial site?

Better would be to target specific groups involved in related issues, like environmentalism or energy independence. Also, networking in the silicon valley startup culture, and among physicists and engineers in related fields.

How much do you think specifically targeted networking might run? What would be the budget for that?

I’m assuming this doesn’t happen by itself. You have to ID prospects, make calls, write letters, follow up, visit, schmooze, do lunch, etc. Probably a lot of travel and expense. I’m doing some of this already, but just barely scratching the surface.

I’m asking for #s because we are putting together our strategic plan, and we’ve got a lot of ambitious ideas, but no resources yet to carry them out. Budget is always on my mind. Other organizations seem to spend a lot on this sort of thing.

These strategic scale measures require coordination and specific personnel (people that the “targets” in those circles will listen to, relationships) and a budget, which is a separate (ongoing) discussion – links to come when we unveil the strategic plan.
[em]
What we’d like to focus on here is what individuals can do within their own circles.[/em] Encouraging conversation, and reminding people that it counts. The long tail adds up.

We want to use this forum to figure out ways to support that individual, local scale action.

[Rezwan]

Note, the default date is set for Saturday.

[Rezwan]

dennisp wrote: The Obama campaign used gamification to great effect on their website. Users got points for fundraising, canvassing, telemarketing, and holding neighborhood meetings. The site provided assistance for all these…a telemarketing interface with interactive script, setup for small online fundraising groups, etc. (Not that these particular activities are appropriate for FF advocacy.)

What was their budget for setting up the telemarketing interface, interactive script, online groups, point tracking and awarding, etc.? Is there off the shelf stuff we could use on our site to get that to happen?

I suspect political campaigns spend a lot of money to get that sort of thing to happen. It makes sense for them. You spend a lot of money to make even more money. The fundraising itself doubles as PR (the people are telling folks about Obama at the same time they are asking for money/commitment). And surplus $ goes to buying ad time, etc. More PR.

[Rezwan]

LOL! (both positive)

Jamesr and TimS, glad you covered the two important angles.

Jamesr – the first side of the equation is the fusion research community – getting them to find alternative explorations worthwhile. From my conversations with fusion researchers, most would really like to pursue a broad range of things, or see them being pursued. I get the impression that it’s the money thing that makes the community conservative.

For the most part, they have no objection to trying the science, but because they see a direct connection with limited research dollars, and the viability of a program they may be part of, or because they worry about giving advice about something when a person could lose money by investing in it – they tend towards conservatism.

I get the sense that finance folk have intimidated them. Or something. It’s that constant tension between results and exploration. And our mission is to make sure physicists feel they have permission to explore. Blank check : ) But don’t worry, physicists in pursuit of fusion alternatives are a cheap date. It’s the military industrial folks you need to worry about.

TimS – have you considered being on the board? You’ve just succinctly outlined (with improvements!) our fusion outreach campaign.

Note, we’re talking to folks at PPPL about setting up a joint fusion community wiki. We do have a wiki right now , not linked to because I thought we would soon switch to a mediawiki platform. Something that would be more easily extracted and used in other venues. I suppose for now, we could use the existing wiki, as a sandbox. Later copying stuff into the broader wiki. I am strapped for time, so I don’t like to do things twice, but this is about the community doing stuff, so it’s not as much work if you look at it that way.

Yes, we have some materials, and would love to improve them and develop more. Here are the links:

Here are posters to kick off fusion conversations.

Here’s the Focus Fusion Flyer.

And here’s another very cool poster by Sascha Becher.

Some animations exist (I have yet to set up a web landing page that links to all of them. You can see them all on Youtube), and we did have a call for more films to be made, but only got one submission. FYI, our counterparts at ASP (another organization that has a pro-fusion agenda, but prefers to work with the “grass tops” and takes a more mainline approach) said:

We discussed doing the same here – but due to the lack of basic eduction and community base, we decided that such videos may have the basic science wrong and so be misleading. It’s something we may take up in year three or four – once we have a common understanding.

They have considerably more resources than we do, yet they realize this is a long term project. FYI, the “common understanding” I think he’s really referring to is getting the fusion research community to have a more robust story (back to Jamesr’s angle, and more on that in a further post).

Also on our to do list, website improvements so that the information is easier to find. These are all multi-faceted, multi-task jobs, by the way. The educational materials you describe are not trivial. We’ve had one proposal on developing them – the estimate was around $100,000. My favorite model is the Khan Academy. We’d like to develop a comprehensive series that covers all you need to know about fusion in that way. But that’s going to be a lot of videos, a lot of planning, a lot of testing to see if it really works to explain the material. Education is an art. And we don’t have much in the way of resources. So the board and I have been working on the strategic plan and fundraising first to make sure we have the resources to do a good, thorough job of this.

[Rezwan]

JimmyT wrote: Since I won’t be alive 100 years from now why should I care about (insert virtually any item here). Nothing promotes good stewardship like self interest.

Very few people on the planet to date have lived over 100. Have they all been bad stewards?

I don’t know why I care about (insert the random group of things and people i care about), I just do. Call it a compulsion. I really would rather not care, and go get a beer and watch it all burn. But it’s here, and I find myself engaged despite my nihilistic laziness. Partly because it’s novel. Also, I find the shelf life manageable (“well, it’s only for another few decades, tops.”). And I like to cultivate autonomy in others so they can take care of themselves and I can check out. Seriously, you guys don’t find existence exhausting? It’s a lot of work to give things their proper focus. Haven’t you seen groundhog day? Every day has infinite possibilities. And you want to stretch this out?

But like I say, be my guest. It’s just a preference. No right or wrong here.

Maybe it all comes down to attention span 🙂

[Rezwan]

The She meme.

Might I recommend Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut. Includes a bit about how the brain really wants to kill you (meme on gene violence). Fun read.

Shememe sounds like a cool name.

Speaking of

realizing the value of term limits on presidents

Qaddafi bites the dust! Memetically, as a ruler. 42 years! Go Libya! May useful memes guide you on your way!

[Author]

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