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Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0596.html
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Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning
Molecular nanotechnology manufacturing is coming soon. The economic value--and military significance--of a nanofactory will be immense. But if a well-designed plan is not in place, serious risks will very likely lead to military destruction, social or economic disruption or unnecessary human suffering on a large scale. Here's what needs to be done.
Originally published in The
Federation of American Scientists Public Interest Report, Volume
56, Number 2, Summer 2003. Published on KurzweilAI.net October
8, 2003.
Despite claims to the contrary, molecular nanotechnology manufacturing
is coming soon. Because it will be so useful, there will be strong
pressure to develop it as soon as possible, and past a certain point
it could happen quite rapidly. Macro-scale integrated nanotech manufacturing
systems will improve product functionality, product design time
and manufacturing speed and cost by orders of magnitude. This advance
may profoundly affect economics and geopolitics, creating enormous
benefits and risks. It will be difficult to prepare adequately for
such a powerful technology. For all these reasons, molecular nanotechnology
should be a current topic in high-level policy and planning.
The word "nanotechnology" means several different things.
Today's nanotech research is mainly concerned with building small
structures that have novel properties. Such research adds steadily
to the technological toolbox, leading to improved products and occasionally
to new industries. Broadly speaking, such "structural"
nanotechnology creates risks comparable to other material science
work. The second kind of nanotech is the science-fictional kind,
in which nanobots can go anywhere and do anything but generally
do not conform to reality.
The third kind of nanotech, "molecular" nanotechnology
(MNT), is the focus of this article. MNT will combine chemistry
and fabrication to produce precise machines and manufacturing systems
at the nanometer scale. Much of the basic science work has already
been done; what remains is the engineering to create a working device
and then integrate many devices into a human-scale "nanofactory".
Although most nanotech projects today focus on structural nanotechnology,
development of molecular nanotechnology will surely become a priority
within a few years. Full MNT capability may not be developed for
a decade or longer, but preparation for it should probably start
now.
The economic value—and military significance-of a nanofactory
will be immense. Even a primitive model will be able to convert
CAD files to products in a few hours. Duplicate nanofactories will
cost the same as any other nano-built product. The capital cost
of manufacturing will be negligible by today's standards, and manufacturing
capacity can be doubled in a matter of hours.
Nanocomputers will quickly replace semiconductor technologies;
whoever controls this technology will be able to produce more computers
than the rest of the world combined. The ability to fit a supercomputer
(or sophisticated robotics) into every piece of equipment, at no
extra manufacturing cost, will enable new kinds of products and
weapons. A nanotech-built surgical robot with a full sensor suite
could be smaller than a hypodermic needle. Development and deployment
of new weapons systems could be far faster and cheaper. Even the
initial products of an MNT nanofactory would be worth hundreds of
billions of dollars, and the potential for extremely rapid advancement
of nanotech fabrication capability means that no economic or political
unit can afford to allow a competitor to control the technology.
Much evidence has accumulated to indicate that molecular nanotech
manufacturing is possible. A decade ago, Nanosystems studied the
required chemistry and engineering in detail; not a single significant
error has been found so far. Cells, natural self-replicating machines,
make a variety of minerals including magnetite and silica—and
they do this under water, using chemical techniques four billion
years old. Mechanically guided covalent chemistry has already been
accomplished with a scanning probe microscope.
The best arguments of intelligent critics regarding the feasibility
of nanotech manufacturing have been refuted in detail. There is
little doubt that a small self-replicating system can be built.
There is strong theoretical support for basing such a system on
mechanochemistry. And given the variety of buckytubes, buckyballs,
buckyhorns, and other graphitic and diamondoid shapes that have
been manufactured or found in nature, it's likely that a self-replicating
nanoscale machine based on 3D covalent carbon mechanochemistry will
be relatively straightforward to design.
A goal or milestone of MNT is an "assembler": a self-contained
mechanical system capable of fabricating duplicates of itself from
simple chemicals. Several researchers have investigated the requirements
of an assembler, and Robert Freitas and Ralph Merkle are due to
publish two books on the topic in 2003 and 2004. A single assembler
is not very useful, since it can only make very small products.
However, if a nanofactory containing many assemblers can combine
the tiny products (nanoblocks) into a single large product, the
result would be extremely useful. It has been claimed that this
will take years to achieve, blunting the utility of MNT assemblers.
However, work by the author demonstrates that a useful nanofactory
can be pre-designed, so that building and debugging the design might
take only a few months. Once the first assembler is built, a fully
functional nanofactory-and the nanofactory's products-may follow
in well under a year.
Although design at the atomic level will not be easy, a nanotech
product designer will not need to worry about that—just as
a software engineer does not think about the transistors in the
computer. A small and pre-tested set of nanomachines, built into
nanoblocks, can be combined in many ways to make a vast array of
products. By designing with nanoblocks instead of atoms, a product
designer loses little flexibility, and gains simplicity and reliability.
Nanoblocks can be fastened together in a process called "convergent
assembly." The joining process uses a single motion, requiring
only simple robotics, and the joints retain most of the strength
of the base material. A single nanoblock is big enough to contain
an assembler, computer or motor, and small enough to be built by
a single assembler in a few hours. A nanofactory built of nanoblocks
can build and assemble nanoblocks into a huge range of products-including
duplicates of itself.
Such a powerful technology introduces many risks. One obvious risk
is an unstable arms race. Rapid development of new weapons technologies
means less opportunity for surveillance and more uncertainty about
the enemy's future capabilities. Weapons could be more powerful
and far "smarter"—imagine the combined capability
of a million unmanned aerial vehicles with on-board pattern matching
and navigation capability.
Many factors tempt a preemptive strike if a temporary advantage
is gained in an MNT arms race. The likely outcome of a strike would
be either global domination requiring Draconian measures including
denial of technology, or a series of increasingly destructive high-tech
conflicts. Once weapons, or the systems that produce them, are dispersed,
preventing guerrilla use of them would require inspection of literally
every cubic millimeter, or continuous surveillance of entire populations.
Availability of unregulated MNT manufacturing could create several
serious problems. Criminal and terrorist activity would benefit
from smaller, more capable products. Small, widely available, cheap
surveillance devices would allow an unprecedented invasion of privacy
by governments, criminals and neighbors. Cheap microscopic products
can lead to widespread microscopic litter, with possible environmental
or health consequences. Small self-contained foraging self-replicating
systems ("gray goo") appear to be theoretically possible,
and might be released by terrorists, saboteurs or even irresponsible
hobbyists.
Though probably less dangerous than all-out war with MNT-built
weapons, such devices could be significantly more destructive than
invasive biological species because they would have no natural enemies.
Many of these problems can best be addressed by widespread environmental
monitoring, but the required systems may not be deployed quickly
or universally.
Molecular manufacturing may cause substantial economic disruption.
Several of today's sectors, including manufacturing, shipping and
raw materials, would be disrupted or outmoded. Fully automated self-duplicating
factories would reduce the value of both capital and labor, and
drive down the cost of goods. Large disparity between cost and value
would provide strong incentive for protectionism and anticompetitive
policy, resulting in widespread black markets. The entertainment
industry is already experiencing similar problems; MNT may extend
them to most manufactured products.
Simplistic attempts to regulate MNT could create more problems
than they solve. Attempts to restrict proliferation may generate
oppressive or even abusive regulation. Today, billions of people
live in sickness or poverty for lack of a few basic products like
water filters, mosquito netting and computers. All of this would
be easy to produce with MNT-based manufacturing, but recent US action
blocking a WTO attempt to provide affordable pharmaceuticals to
poor nations indicates that the same could happen with MNT.
A population denied access to lifesaving benefits of cheap molecular
manufacturing due to protectionist economic policy or paranoid security
policy (or even just blatantly overcharged) would have a strong
incentive to steal, duplicate or "crack" the technology.
Independent MNT development programs multiply many of the risks,
including the risk of necessary regulations and technical restrictions
being bypassed. Since nanofactories will be self-contained, incredibly
valuable and easily concealed, a black market in nanofactories would
be difficult to prevent. Ultimately, control of the technology could
be lost, and regions with excessive regulation may be sidelined.
In developing MNT, it may be that the safest course is a single,
international development effort, leading to a technology that can
be widely distributed and carefully administered—with tight
technological controls in place to limit its use. This would provide
an infrastructure for rapid humanitarian relief with basic products,
profit-making with other products, and perhaps even arms control-if
nations could be restrained from developing independent, unmonitored
MNT capability.
If this is in fact the best approach, the need for action is even
more urgent. A nation with an entrenched MNT development program
may be less likely to join or support an international development
effort. It will not be easy to convince military and political leaders,
captains of industry and environmental and social watchdogs that
the best course of action involves giving up some control in order
to retain some control.
MNT development appears inevitable for two reasons. The first is
the immense utility of MNT. Even if public pressure prevented it
from being used in consumer goods, various militaries would not
hesitate to develop it as a tremendous aid to military capability.
In conventional conflicts, the improvements in logistics, miniaturization,
development and cost would give an overwhelming advantage to the
possessor of such technology, both in preparation and in actual
combat.
The second reason is the increasing ease of development. Enabling
technologies are improving each year. New families of structural
chemicals are being discovered. New fabrication technologies, new
nanoscale imaging technologies and increased computer power for
mechanochemical simulation will rapidly decrease the difficulty
of building an assembler-and thus a nanofactory. Today, a successful
program might require billions of dollars and several years.
A decade from now it might be possible for only $100 million, within
the reach of many corporations and nations. At that point, if MNT
is not already widely available, it will be developed in multiple
labs around the world-and will be almost impossible to control.
By encompassing all phases of production from chemical processing
to final assembly, MNT manufacturing can be far more flexible than
any other single technology, with the possible exception of programmable
computers. A few other technologies may be equally dangerous, but
are easier to control.
Nuclear technology can only be used for a few things—bombs,
power generation, cancer treatment—so it has been possible
for a fairly small international effort to keep control of various
aspects of this technology. Biotechnology is flexible in its domain,
but biotech products have been difficult to engineer. Conventional
rapid prototyping systems will improve gradually; it will be a while
before they can make complete products, and even longer before they
can cheaply duplicate themselves.
A single technology with the programmability and speed of digital
computers, the chemical flexibility of biotechnology, the military
potential of nuclear technology or airplanes and the utility of
very advanced rapid prototyping, will bring many changes. The variety
of potential problems, in economic, military, political, humanitarian
and environmental spheres, indicates that no simple solution can
work. A balance must be struck between national defense and arms
control; between capitalist practice and social needs and between
unrestricted private use and oppressive restriction. These issues
will not be easy to solve.
The final stages of development will occur too quickly for solutions
to evolve. If a well-designed plan is not in place before this happens,
one or more serious risks will very likely lead to military destruction,
social or economic disruption or unnecessary human suffering on
a large scale. Each major risk should be studied in detail. Public
education and discussion should take place. Policy makers need to
be informed.
There is very little doubt that MNT manufacturing will be developed
within the next three decades, and it may be as soon as ten years.
It seems likely that some sort of international administration will
be necessary. Any large administrative body, especially one requiring
complex international cooperation, will take time to design, fund
and create. All this may require more than a decade. A large international
development effort may also be necessary, and would have to begin
even sooner.
These factors indicate that preparation for molecular nanotechnology
should become a current topic in high-level policy and planning.
References
"A Debate About Assemblers" http://www.imm.org/SciAmDebate2/index.html.
See http://CRNano.org/bootstrap.htm
for the latest work.
For more extensive discussion of risks, benefits, and administration
options, see http://CRNano.org/overview.htm.
© 2003 Federation
of American Scientists. Reprinted with permission.
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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:
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Some of these thing are already happening!
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Fully automated self-duplicating factories would reduce the value of both capital and labor, and drive down the cost of goods. Large disparity between cost and value would provide strong incentive for protectionism and anticompetitive policy, resulting in widespread black markets.
This is already happening in that Far Eastern peasants are assembling these items instead of nanoassemblers. Electronics, especially computers have been drastically dropping in price on an accelerating pace for the past 15 years. It is very obviously doing that in the last 3-4 years. Even household appliances are beginning to share this trend.
There are notable exceptions! Houses and cars are two goods that have an entrenched commercial infrastructure that needs to disappear.
Otherwise, a car might be 50% cheaper, and a house, 67%, excluding the land. I can't wait for this to happen, social disruption be damned! Do we really need to employ people who profit solely from information friction?
I'm researching the purchase of a new car, and I'm appalled at the inefficiency and outright thievery inherent in the process! I won't even discuss the organized crime syndicates that masquerade as realtors. Those who own property and expect to make money while doing nothing are equally guilty. I am gleefully awaiting the supposed collapse of the housing bubble and the ultimate, permanent price deflation on physical goods. When enough items can be made for $10 and this fact becomes common knowledge, the ability of salesdroids to charge $200 for it will evaporate, regardless of how well they are dressed! |
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Re: Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning
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Even with the uncertainty of future technological progress, i would feel alot safer if someone in Government was availiable to answer such questions
The only reason why any government doesn't pursue every last freethinker "troublemaker" in the nation is private gun ownership and/or a lack of resources. Why should they tolerate a libertarian party (or individual independant candidates) that wants less government (especially when they point out how little value and how much suffering government causes)?
If I were you, I would feel safer knowing that the regulatory arm of the government was clueless about nano, and responsible private individuals are the ones on the cutting edge (just as they are in the United States gun culture today). If the government has the ability to regulate molecular manufacturing before it is widely established, it will be deemed "too dangerous for the masses".
At that point, the government will push to centralize control of the nano-engineering talent. Just after they do this, they will slaughter their opposition (quietly, so the scientists don't turn against them). History has shown us clearly that this is what we should expect to deal with.
Why pine for another FDA? (Through their sloth and incompetence alone, they sentence thousands to death every day) At worst, we might get a 'ministry of science' that will wield political power, controlling thought. At best another FDA-type regulatory body that is far from the cutting edge, slowing down research, development, and marketing. |
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Re: Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning
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Actually, you happen to be technically incorrect here. Federalist Paper # 46 clearly enumerates the fact that the founders intended decentralization of small arms, not cannons, nukes, etc... The point made comes from Madison, who points out that a people can never be oppressed if they equal a number far greater than the number possible for a taxation based army to support. Truly, I get my rights from my existence, and I protect them with both my individual might, and the might of the idea of limited government that is supported by whatever government or voluntary group associations I am protected by. That said, Madison was not the deepest thinker of the revolution or the rebellion, and the anti-federalists were more cogent thinkers than he. John Ross has now taken that thinking to an even higher level with his novel "Unintended Consequences".
The point is nearly moot. Most people desire to be sheep, and radical transformative offensive technologies are fast rendering firearms useless as weapons of defense. Who can defend against a viral nanobot weapon controlled with broadcast architecture, and programmed to kill a specific DNA? Who could even defend against Bradbury's robot hound?
Everyone is as disarmed as they are servile and obedient. That is the purpose of my post.
If you don't favor liberty of property ownership for gunowners, then you certainly don't favor liberty for the vastly more powerful owners of weaponized computers, and the power of retaliatory strategical organization, and new strong weaponry.
Without having thought these ideas through completely, you are destined for slavery. As a slave, you are one more person who is useless to me. As a thinker, you can still help to dectralize power.
But you cannot call yourself a thinker or a believer in human rights if you do not support the right to self-determine what is adequate defensive weaponry for yourself and for any individual.
If we are going to be the slaves for the federal reserve bankers, we should at least be able to greet them when they come to our doors with force of arms, so that Youtube can show the world the nature of the coming communist regime (that calls itself capitalist to confuse the sheep).
If you have a mind to understand I have given you enough to understand. If there is no mind to reach a thousand more words would be insignificant.
Good night and good luck, |
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Re: Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning
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Yes, but it is also a "leading force" technology, as Eric Drexler notes in Engines of Creation. Only an objectivist philosopher is possibly to not be corrupted by it. All other humans, especially the power whore collectivists in government are too weak to resist absolute power. The leading force of government contains the individual who is "FIRST". Therein lies the problem. Government collectives are the worst possible places to hold absolute power.
In democracies, the fear of retaliation is the only thing that keeps the rulers in line with conventional wisdom. see: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills All other governments ultimately mass murder and solely exercise tyrannical control/controls to maintain power. Even democracies fail: See: The Ominous Parallels by Peikoff. Democracies can also wage war on individual rights. (Even communism had the obedient support of the oppressed, and the philosophically confused or illiterate.)
Drexler is smart (much smarter than myself), but seems naive about government. He needs to spend more time in US courts of lies (just walk in to any courtroom, and then look at this page, and do the research: http://www.fija.org ). Or talk to Peter Voss, who is NOT naive about collectivism. Collectivism is the worst of man, not the best.
As such, we can only hope for an objective/objectivist leading force. See: http://www.optimal.org --Peter Voss really knows where his towel is. So to speak.
I hope you've enjoyed the reference.
I read a lot.
I've talked to over 100,000 people, and successfully circulated nominating petitions to put the http://www.lp.org and http://www.ronpaul2008.com on the ballot in most of the 50 states.
The prognosis is not good, and I'm maybe 1 of a few thousand who knows it, and maybe one of 10 who knows exactly why our democracy works the way it does. There is no logic, just collective emotion.
...And that's not good enough to prevent gigadeath, unless we're lucky.
-Jake
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Re: Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning
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If there is any chance of managing them responsibly it will be through a mature democracy with a tradition of counter-balancing powers.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing, and my previous posts clearly describe the error of such thinking. What laboratory group of government workers (who are already being supported by the egregious extortion of the taxpayer) are responsible and philosophically dedicated enough to the integrity of the individual that they are then not corrupted by being the first to control a strong nanotecnology (Nevermind what happens if they cede control to the military or the larger government which is even less moral and less checked and/or balanced)?
There are no checks or baces left on government power! They've been done away with by credulous simpletons (in the arena of government philosophy) like yourself! The very words you chose indicate that you have no comprehension of the dangerous nature of collectivism.
My entire series of prior postings point to the complete error in having erroneous faith in democratic institutions. I briefly refuted the above quote in my prior post, (but admittedly didn't offer a lot of evidence for my belief). The evidence would be an ecyclopedic volume in length, and if I were to begin offering my evidence, it would be necessary to continue to be complete. ...But it is as simple as what's in the book "The Ominous Parallels".
The fact that you put quotes around 'objectivist philosopher' actually means that you don't understand the meaning of the words. Investigate what an objectivist philosopher is. ...You don't understand objectivism, as Ayn Rand defined it, and David Kelley (and many libertarians) perfected it.
I could only agree with you if you were referring to someone who called him/herself an objectivist but was unnecessarily stubborn (like Ayn Rand). Stubborness in the face of countermanding evidence is not a virtue, and Rand was stuborn as hell --moreover, she was only philosophically consistent in her serious writing, not her speeches and Q & A sessions (and too many people thought she was infallible, and hinged on her every word). An objectivist like David Kelley would be our best bet to control strong nanotech, because people like that are
1) not prey to inconsistent or self-contradictory philosophies
2) Not ignorantly faithful in collective decision-making (AKA groupthink)
3) Not prey to ignorant social trends and fanciful thinking of the day
#3 is where you fall horribly short. You ignore the long history of oppression under even democratic governments, and you also ignore the fact that democratic governments have traditionally destroyed themselves. Moreover, you bash Bush when he is merely the latest oppressive pragmatist socialist in a long line of oppressive pragmatist socialists. Why?
The power of the people in the USA was totally stripped from them with the Sparf & Hansen V the USA Supreme Court Decision in 1895. All courts in the USA are now courts of lies where the judge wields absolute power (and silences any argument against the law), and the truth be damned.
Nobody has noticed, except a small group of people within the libertarian movement. Most of the people on this board (by my estimate, and I hope I'm wrong) are well-meaning socialists who have gotten everything except technology completely wrong.
Groupthink is the death of thought. Collectivism is the death of freedom. Freedom and its corollaries are our only chance at life.
But time and time again, humanity descends to the sewer of collectivism, bigotry, and mindless authoritarianism. The citizenry are gullible, and easily herded.
Look now, at the mindlessness with which the only mainstream pro-freedom US presidential candidate is received by the media and the citizenry at large. Look at how elections are completely rigged in the USA, and how even freedom of speech is interfered with before an election to benefit the incumbents (under McCain-Feingold).
Discourse and freedom are the things most Americans fear the most. They don't want to be faced with the fact that they are petty supporters of prison-slavers and tyrants! Anything but that! So they cowardly slink into the darkened voting booth every couple of years and vote for the most insidious destruction of the freest nation ever to exist.
The cowards!
They lack the bravery to master the simple tool that is a gun, decrying guns as tools of violence so they can feel better about their cowardice!
The result of their actions?
To make certain that only the police are armed, ushering in a totalitarian police state. One that isn't headed by a towering dictator, but by a decentralized army of bureaucratic cockroaches, each of them stealing from their fellow man, oblivious to the fact that the result of such collective theft is a dictatorship of the proletariat. The ATF is hiring! Forge evidence! Murder people at will! Railroad them in court and sentence them to jail for long prison terms, splitting families apart, and ruining entire lives! The Supreme Court has set precedents that say that such behavior is OK!
...And the US Constitution is vastly too weak, and too imperfect a document to prevent such abuses. The only reason there is any freedom left at all is because there are gunowners in the USA, and the cost of instituting a total police state is too great for the current government.
--But our prisons are packed full, and even minor trafic violations now result in people being mercilessly bullied. Offenses which carry prison term are added to the unconstitutional mountains of code books every day.
...It isn't carefully organized. It is just the collective action of a hundred thousand unphilosophical, unprincipled cowards.
The fact that the result is abject tyranny isn't even noticed by most people who are the very cause of it.
And then, people complain about the world they're living in, saying it's a result of voting for pragmatist B rather than pragmatist A.
Nope.
The reason why the USA is drifting rudderless towards dictatorship and abject tyranny is because people think that ideas don't matter, and that as long as the group decides, the result must be something that's not a dictatorship.
Well, sorry to break your bubble, but the preservation of liberty requires a decentralization of power. Slowly over the years, all of the protections and limitations on government power that decentralized power have been legally and illegally done away with.
But America and its un-American citizenry can't have their freedom and destroy it too.
And that's why the leading force must understand enough to decentralize its power -the power of super-computation.
A leading force cannot be handed down to new inheritors after an election, if it exists in isolation. You are correct then, the power would corrupt. But not all men are corruptible, ...just so many that it seems that way.
The people who have indicated that they are not corruptible should be sought out, and valued for the fact that their minds are not self-contradictory.
I have named a few such people in this email.
They are the intellectuals, and all the evidence that exists indicates they are correct.
http://www.optimal.org -this is the website of another intellectual. He is more well-mannered than I am. Don't tar and feather him by association with me.
But it would pay to read what he has to say about government, as well as about AI / SI.
-Jake |
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Re: Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning
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Sure, nanotechnology -- like all technologies -- is improving *gradually*, but would it be going to far to say that possessing real self-contained MNT would be a little like possessing the Philosopher's Stone of legend?
I wonder what would happen if, say, Japan were the first country to reach this goal. Don't get me wrong; I love Japan and Japanese culture. But, their fantasy of superiority, as evidenced by their myth-laden history school texts, has not completely vanished, and they've been aggressors before.
Or let's say someone with both the position and the religious of General Boykin
[ http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=boy kin ] were to take an interest of American scientists' possession of such technology. Equally scary.
As Chris Phoenix' article suggests, this is all going to be hard to regulate. Before the beloved Singularity comes (if it comes), there are some chaotic times ahead. Am I being alarmist?
If I were find a small device bearing MNT in my basement, I think that would be the best for everyone. I promise to you all right now, that I would only use it for the betterment of mankind. |
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Re: Molecular Manufacturing: Start Building
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I wonder how nanotechnology will be developed by governments
Who says it'll be developed by governments? Ideally, they'll be clueless, because it'll be people with too much personal integrity to work for the government who get there first. Why do I say 'ideally'? -Because government's sole proper domain is the use of force -and using nanotechnology as a weapon would give nearly any government absolute power over its people (and any others it wished to conquer).
Government attracts the kind of people who want to control other people, and who can manipulate the willfully ignorant majority. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Causescu, Mussolini, Amin, Hussein, etc... We'll get to experience a much more effective version of these regimes if a government is the first to control MNT. Just think: everyone who's ever effectively complained about paying taxes -dead of something that looks like cancer and can't be proven to be otherwise. Oh well! Nobody cares! -As long as they keep paying their taxes and keep their mouths shut, the trains they see every day won't be carrying them to the chambers.
With nanotechnology, our parasite class will have a window of opportunity to perfect itself beyond the moral limits currently imposed by the remnants of our Bill of Rights.
If any of this moves you, you can get a head start on preventing effective totalitarianism by voting libertarian:
http://www.lp.org --it's the very very least you can do. (And if you're like most people you'd rather vote for a killer because he fleetingly promises you a handout than vote for a liberator who will actually give you your freedom.)
If you want to see the ultimate cost of trusting that "governments obey the will of the people", visit:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills
All of these 200 million innocent people died because an ignorant majority didn't do everything they could to stop their socialist/fascist/statist dictators from seizing absolute power. Hitler's nazis operated with the blessing of the ignorant and anti-enlightenment German citizens. What made them anti-enlightenment? -They believed in collective rule of the individual, and of subordinating the individual to the "greater good".
-But really, the greater good is every citizen acting in his own self interest, to the best of their intelligence. The free market might not be perfect, but least under actual capitalism (not protectionist fascism), mass murder is avoided, and productivity gradually increases.
Ask most US citizens what they think about the Waco massacre in Texas, where the government killed a bunch of innocent people, on national tv, with no trial, after firing on them first and without provocation. If you're in New York City, most people sympathize with the slaughterers, and if you're in Fairbanks, Alaska, most people sympathize with the slaughtered.
Which city casts more votes? |
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Re: Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning
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Proponents of Molecular Nanotechnology (MNT) manufacturing claim that the technology will be revolutionary like the Internet in its effects on society and the economy, yet unlike anything we have seen so far. But we have heard things like this before – for the Internet, for wireless technology, for Virtual reality, for any new technology for that matter. Surely these technologies have affected our world to varying degrees but the Internet has not been apocalyptic so far. Though the Internet has brought its problems, it also has unforeseen benefits that society today is probably not willing to give up. Electricity brought environmental problems that we had not expected. Does that mean we will stop using it? No, even after almost a century, we are trying to find a solution. Similarly each change will bring good things and bad things for our society, and the way to face it would be to work to find a solution.
MNT offers many potential benefits for our society, albeit at a cost – the risk of radical changes to our society’s core. The Industrial Revolution transformed the 19th century world from an agrarian economy to a manufacturing one. It was a time of dramatic change and innovations, but those were changes that have led to our current world. Even then there were opponents of technology who worried about loss of income and fewer jobs. This was seen again in the 20th century when the economy was being automated and computers were being used to replace human services. Those changes did not bring the end of our civilization, rather enriched it. I expect to see similar reactions when nanotechnology comes in the mainstream, but I also expect that people will have other things to do – maybe trying to find ways to harness the potential of MNT. Even though optimists say that nanotechnology is coming, and coming very soon, it is hard to believe that it will change everything at once. It is quite reasonable to assume that the technology will be implemented in phases and won’t happen overnight, after all “Rome was not built in a day”.
We are living in an age of transformation – the economy is changing from manufacturing to a service oriented one, and future innovations will require us to keep up with those changes. After all, that’s what evolution is all about – keep up or get left out. Every time civilization takes a step forward, there will be some who were happy with the way things were and they don’t want anything to change, while others will want things to change. Most of my parent’s and grandparent’s generation complains about how fast-paced life is now and how they lived in much “simpler” and “happier” times. The fact is that pessimists will always be over cautious and techno-optimists will always try to “better” our world. Human nature is such that we are always cautious of the unknown, and will fight change as far as possible.
That is not to say that we shouldn’t be prepared to deal with the issues that will arise as nanotechnology becomes a common phenomenon. The solution to such a situation would not be simple and may require as much effort as the technology itself needed. It doesn’t necessarily imply government or a particular state’s control. Instead we need to rethink our current nation-state model to come up with something that treats all humans equally so that future technologies don’t widen the gap between peoples of different regions. I believe that our society will undergo an upheaval like the French Revolution which will change the way we view ourselves – not citizens of a country but of a global village. This change is necessary in view of global technologies such as the Internet and MNT, and will happen sooner or later. Such a model will encourage utilization of available resources and technologies for positive purposes and not to destroy “enemies”.
Realistically speaking, people like Hitler and Alexander will always find a way to fulfil their goals regardless of the age or available technologies. Even a thousand years ago, people were fighting yet surviving. They are still doing that. Possibly they will continue doing so for the next thousand years or more. Human nature won’t change. But that should not stop us from actively seeking improvements and change.
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