🚀 go-pugleaf

mmm@cup.portal.COM (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:

"Nanotech is certain to cause tremendous political upheaval if the
"appropriate steps are not taken in advance.

Quite so.  Drexler writes that it is not unreasonable to assume that
if a totalitarian state availed itself of nanotechnology, it might 
simply kill off all its people as superfluous and continue "life"
as a super-organism.  Consider the facts: 

a) States (ie, nations) are ubiquitous and hold essentially all the
power in the present world: there are no entities aside from other
states that can successfully challenge the prerogatives, much less the
survival, of a state.

b) Even the liberalized democracies of the West become quite nasty
when their prerogatives are threatened--threaten their survival and
they will willingly slaughter millions of human beings to get you,
whether "you" are a person, organization, or other state.

c) Major states can't afford to squelch development of nanotechnology 
internally, since this would simply mean the other states would have
it and they wouldn't.

Conclusion:  There is no humanly possible way to prevent nanotechnology
from being acquired by states in the not-too-distant future.

"For example, what if nanotech makes it possible for one man to become
"dictator of the planet.  The first man to realize how to do this may
"choose to do it in order to prevent anyone else from doing it.  

It is important to decide whether this seems even remotely possible.
If so, it might be critically important to *Do it Now*, important
enough to be worth a high probability of wasting your time.

"Doesn't this imply that as soon as the end goal of nanotechnology gets
"within sight, the government or the military will have to snatch it out
"of the hands of the technologists and wield it for their own purposes?
"...
"So nanotech represents the greatest threat to individual liberty yet
"devised. It will put events in motion which will bring about an oligarchy,
"if not a personal dictatorship. ...

...for this very reason!  Remember, a nanotech dictatorship doesn't
stay one for long.  People make lousy slaves, and with nanotechnology,
are easily replaced with much better ones.

Given the predominance and proclivities of states, there is the very
real and highly disquieting danger that in a hundred years, the human
race will not exist, having been replaced by nanotech systems which 
grew from the states.

First, a caveat:  what makes this possible is *not* nanotech, but AI.
In fact, you can take over the world with AI without nanotech, but
not vice versa.  (AI gives you self-replicating robots of the clanking
metallic kind.)  Nanotech may make AI possible/easier by producing 
enormous computers which may be necessary--who knows?

Anyway: if we hope to see a future in which the human race plays
a significant role, we had better come up with ways to make sure
that nanotechnology is developed in benign places first.  I think
this means as many places as possible--diversity and decentralization
of power are our major guarantees.  And what this means in turn is 
that advances toward nanotechnology must be published as widely and
freely as possible.

What's more, they will be.  Nanotech may be right around the corner,
but only to a full court press in scientific/technological endeavor.
10 to 20 years in computer development means 1000 to a million fold
increase in power, necessary to design/simulate/control assemblers.
Ten years development in STM's, in molecular biology, in micro- and
quantum electronics, etc, will mean similar gains.  *That's* the 
sense in which nanotech is around the corner, not that you might 
be able to do it in your garage tomorrow.  

It is up *us* to make sure the ideas are widely understood and 
people are ready to exploit the techniques everywhere as the 
technology comes into hailing distance of nanotech.  The survival
of humanity might just depend on it.

--JoSH