They're probably going by past experience in other tech products, which get development news but then you never heard about it again, or, if your lucky it hits consumer markets like 10 years later.

I have no experience in fusion, so can't comment on that either way.

I have thirty years of experience with people telling me we’re really close on fusion. Next year or the one after will mark my 30th anniversary of having heard the phrase, “fusion is 30 years away and always will be.”

If the people working on it today want to make beef with someone, they should complain to the people who have been lying for long enough that a joke about it is at least three decades old. If the real problem is that the only way we’ve gotten funding for this is to keep misleading politicians on how long the remaining road is, that’s fine, but once you’re known for lying - intergenerationally - how on earth do you expect the general public to take anything you say seriously?

Quite true. And this is something I have been quite guilty of myself.

> because almost all of these people lack the requisite expertise to weigh in on the actual details

You mean, starting from the journalists writing the articles?

I regret that I have but one upvote to give.