When people use the word "reflexive," they're talking about things like conflating business hype designed to attract publicity and VC capital with a press release for a major scientific paper from NIF. I don't think it's unreasonable for HN to hold itself to an understanding of these things. If you actually want to critically examine evidence then you must necessarily read the paper before posting.

Bodied, and deservedly so.

Bringing FTX into a discussion of nuclear fusion to justify skepticism is parody-worthy.

It's an example of latest in many high profile scams. If you think it's parody that's fine, but you cannot deny the public mood is souring on big promises with out big results.

FTX is simply the latest in a series of media empowered EXTREMELY high profile scams. You can easily put a thousand other different high profile companies or claims in there.

"reflexive contrarians" in the context here was being used a perojative rhetorical trick to broadly dismiss valid doubts people have about this research.

What specific issue do you have with the methodology and why? What specific scientific criticism do you claim is being silenced? Merely feeling strongly about this work contributes nothing to the discussion.

Note that there's multiple bits of hype compounding on each other. The scientists hype it up a bit, the University PR guys do it a lot more and the popular press goes nuts.

The scientists are like 10% to blame here.