Just to finish this thread off ....
In the second campaign the total got to around $450k - so there were still lots of people willing to throw their money at a dream.
The guys on metabunk continued to ridicule the idea and were sending lots of requests to Indiegogo to close down the campaign - there were also some lawyers circling if the money was actually paid to the founders.
It would appear that, eventually, sanity prevailed and the campaign was closed down, with all of the backers being repaid their money.
So, my very first comment in this thread was fairly accurate
Does this look too good to be true ?