[hluska]

I live in a Canadian province that is blessed with many sources of renewable energy. We have enough potential hydro in the north to power much of Canada, and extremely favourable conditions for solar and wind energy. Despite all of these benefits, our power is still almost wholly generated by coal fired power plants (and our ruling party predictably opposes any attempts at a carbon tax).

Because of that, I believe that if fusion were to become viable, at least in my part of the world, it would have to start with a serious shift in worldview. People would have to become politically astute enough not to fall for stupid Trumpian divisive tactics. And, we would have to adopt a stance in which the far future is as important as our present.

I really wonder what kind of advancements a species like that would want to make. My suspicion is that a species like that would invest much of the savings into completely eliminating the very concept of poverty.

I know that eliminating poverty isn't a terribly sexy answer, but I think it's the most likely big change.

[Someone]

_If_, as stipulated, fusion energy will become as good as free, people will switch away from coal not because of the environment, but because it’s cheaper. That doesn’t require a shift in world view.

On the other hand, we would really need that shift in world view. Without it, global warming would be avoided, but I fear we would destroy the world even faster than we do now.

Free energy makes anything produced automatically free. That means we could afford more disposable junk, more and bigger houses, more and bigger cars, likely even flying ones, with many flying supersonic.

Increased mobility would mean less pristine wilderness (if energy is free, any group of people could afford to do a mini burning man anywhere in the States)

Also, we would also scrape the ocean floor for minerals, destroying the ocean.

Finally, I am more cynical w.r.t. poverty. We already could have solved it, but didn’t. Why would that change?

[hluska]

In my province's system, you would still need political will to build a fusion plant. That would require some serious political will, since it would dramatically change a very wealthy/highly conservative city's economy. That type of political will would tend to come out of a longer term, more global point of view.

[paulcole]

> People would have to become politically astute enough not to fall for stupid Trumpian divisive tactics.

Not insulting them would be a good place to start.