Isn’t occams razor the idea that it’s stupidity, not malice?
You explain two types of “malice” - one which is primarily driven by a lack of critical thinking and another which is an intentionally planned attack.
Occams razor would say the former is more likely. You may have well said “fuck occams razor I believe it’s Russian bots”
I’d argue that it wasn’t really “net-positive”. Certainly it was a positive energy gain, but it took way more energy to create the fusion than just the input energy. There is a ton of efficiency losses to create the input energy, which is defined by the energy in the laser beam that triggers the fusion. A lot of energy is also used to maintain confinement during the reaction.
I would like the term net positive to be more inclusive of all of the recurring energy used to support the fusion. It’s fair to not include the energy used to construct the machines, but anything that would need to be put in to a fusion plant each reaction to get out energy should be considered.