Driving with the brakes on...
Just more evidence that the current system, capitalism, is holding humanity back.
Research budgets cut...so we'll have to wait for our time travelling hover boots then?
Budget cuts are forcing international science alliance CERN to postpone upgrades to the most potent particle-punisher currently operated by the human race - the subterranean Large Hadron Collider (LHC) outside Geneva. CERN has also been compelled to temporarily shut down other accelerators, and has seen "protests" from boffins …
Quick! Let's kill a few people and steal their property so we can /almost/ invent the atomic bomb and make a few basic missiles!
Or were you referring to the great science breakthroughs made in the USSR during the years of communism like, erm, something I'm sure*?
*Yes, I know something was bound to have been discovered or invented, but you could hardly call it worth the reducing of most of the population to a life of drudgery akin to slavery worth it.
"In that case the consequences were no more serious than global devastation of the porn and news industries. But things could be a great deal worse this time"
If you know your history of BOFH, you will know there is nothing more dangerous than a bored techie, but with the possibility of heralding in a whole new era of smut surfing I am willing to take the risk
From the article "Obviously concerns that the LHC might destroy the world, unleash some form of interdimensional portal invasion etc are baseless".
The most important duty of the teckkies is to keep the beam on track.
Risk in ten easy steps:-
1 Nuclear fusion of hydrogen gas by energy beam, proven.
2 Lots of energy in beam of aging under funded facility. presumably the point of the article.
3 Grumpy scientists searching job ads (or protesting) not keeping eye on the job.
4 Beam with several mile punching power.
5 Lake Geneva in range (or wet earth aquifer under Geneva).
6 Thousands of tonnes of nuclear fuel to fuse when reaction gets going.
7 Blast to shake the planet (like slapping a soggy pudding cos most of it is molten).
8 Oceans slop around for a while and London gets a soaking.
9 Combine captured carbon in lake mixes with nitrogen in air to form cyanide (many types non-toxic)
10 Glucose sugar shortages fail to offset long term cyanide health effects like paralysis.
No risk. Sure apples and almonds and cassava fruit carry small doses of cyanide and pose little risk. Industrial chemical prussian blue (dark blue) is a cyanide. Stock up on the sweets, floaties and don't drink the blue liquid.