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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1414 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 18, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Goldbugs in shambles (if and when anyone actually makes fusion power): https://x.com/MasterTimBlais/status/1946291116954763388

Also some nominative determinist fun.

Wouldn't the next step be to actually do this? We've "made fusion power" quite some time ago, it's just not significantly energy positive, so not super-useful as a generating station.

There's no such requirement if it's a method of making gold -- it doesn't even need to be net-positive in terms of gold value for it to be an interesting thing to try in the lab.

So I'm a bit suspicious that it's not actually that easy to do -- although maybe they are kicking off Project Rumplestiltskin at Livermore Labs as we speak, who knows.

Claude tells me it's basically 'self-sustaining fusion reactor +++' since you have hundreds of tonnes of high-temperature, enriched mercury and lithium in there too somehow being restrained by a material under intense neutron bombardment. It needs months and years of sustained neutron production to work.

Probably easier to do the 'we made like 6 atoms of gold in a particle accelerator' thing in a lab.

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