[ninkendo]

I don't think your quote from the book conflicts with Dr. Hossenfelder's criticisms at all. The quote vaguely says "Q = 1 is a scientific goal", then describes Qplasma (and calls it Q): "Q is the ratio of fusion power out to heating power in" (that sounds like Qplasma to me.)

The source in the book is basically saying "Q[plasma] needs to be twenty or thirty times higher than it is to get more _power_ out than you put in", but there's already a term for that: Qtotal. Hossenfelder's claim was that the book never mentions Qtotal and continues the misleading technique of using Qplasma as if it's an indicator of power production (and saying it needs to be 20-30x), rather than using a much more clear term Qtotal to describe "total" energy out vs energy in.

The response video you linked is even worse: They "correct" Dr. Hossenfelder by showing papers that spout Qplasma numbers as just "Q" and talk about how ITER achieves a Q=10. But that's not in contradiction at all with Dr. Hossenfelder; her qualm is how misleading it is to talk about "Q > 1" as if it's producing useful energy when you actually mean "Qplasma > 1" (which does not produce useful energy.)

The response video then goes on to talk about how useful Qplasma is, but that doesn't matter to Dr. Hossenfelder's point, which is that it is unethical to go around touting "We're going to get 10x the energy out that we put in" when you're just referring to Qplasma=10. That's all her video said, and the response is attacking a straw man.