Why Credulous Journalism Persists in Science

Because journalism—especially grant- and PR-fed science journalism—functions as a symbolic accelerator.

GTESI doesn’t demonize this. It explains it.

Persistence through symbolic scaffolding isn’t “bad”—it’s often necessary to attract capital and buy time.
But it must eventually convert symbolic momentum into thermodynamic coherence, or it fractures.

(or why algae, DAC, hydrogen, and other “saviors” stick around longer than they should)

These technologies (DAC, algae, etc.) often produce motion and visibility but little thermodynamically grounded value.
The persistence (funding, articles, enthusiasm) outlasts operational merit, signaling a low IPR system.
Clickbait accelerates IPR divergence: motion without merit becomes a marketable asset.

The story is symbolically elegant (“fuel from air!” “plants that eat CO₂!”) and compresses decades of complexity into an emotionally satisfying pitch.
But as soon as someone runs real numbers at real scale, or looks at the entropy load, divergence between narrative and reality becomes extreme.
GTESI sees this spike in SCD as a predictive warning: persistence will fracture under scrutiny.

Initially, symbolic rituals (DOE grants, TED talks, magazine features) build trust.
But if all the amplification comes from the same loops, the usual suspects—the echo-chamber effect—GTESI marks the ritual as fragile or inbred.
Once the “ritual ecosystem” (investors, analysts, journalists) starts sounding like an echo chamber, trust collapses rapidly when failure comes.

These technologies are often entropy re-importers, not exporters. They concentrate disorder (water handling, energy input, biological variability) in hidden layers of the system.
The simple narrative lacks a place to “offload” entropy. That’s the can’t-afford-to-get-the-algae-out-of-the-water problem.
GTESI spots systems where entropy builds faster than narratives can offload it. This is a key flag that collapse is more than likely—it’s inevitable.

Traditional Analysis	GTESI Lens
“The IRR doesn’t pencil out.”	“The system is artificially propped up by narrative ritual; collapse will be sudden when symbolic divergence hits critical.”
“Why do people keep falling for this?”	“The symbolic compression is elegant and sticky—entropy remains hidden until scale demands exposure.”
“The hype train won’t stop.”	“It’s a persistence loop fed by SCD-fueled media rituals. Trust will snap, not erode, once entropy overwhelms narrative.”