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Clinton Wants $497 Million for Nanotech Research
jimmcq writes "President Clinton on Friday proposed a $2.8 billion increase in research into elusive medical cures and high-technology breakthroughs like reducing information in the Library of Congress into a unit the size of a sugar cube. More info at Yahoo! News." Specifically, Clinton is advocating "as much as" $497 million for nanotech out of a $2.8 billion increase over last year's ~$38 billion federal allocation for scientific research. But don't get excited yet. Congress holds the budget pursestrings and may not go along with all or any of the President's proposals.
It is not 'evil' for the private sector to do research. The reason it is benificial to have government funded research, is because corporations have only a responsibility to there stock holders. Stock holders rarely take the long view on investments, hence all research will be for immediate applicability. Unfortunately, basic research, that which brings about enourmous leaps in our understanding and technology, are not a good short term investment.
Ergo, we have the government making a long term investment for the public good.
LetterRip
i found these two links from the A-Infos Radio Project:
this is an MP3 interview with the Professor
and this is his essay on Nanosocialism
basically he talks about the social aspects of nanotechnology, building on some of the promise resident in the molecular and massively mirco scale.
I'm not someone who advocates trying to resist the progress of technology, I believe we have to embrace it and change our lives accordingly, but its interesting that Nano-technology research is not more controversial considering the possible dangers involved.
The "dangers" involved in debated and even banned areas such as human cloning, bio engineering, and true AI are really pretty small compared with Nanotech, where one invisibly small nanomachine, programmed to multiply and destroy its host could eradicate life on earth and still not stop. Does Clinton want to be known for having started a second Manhattan project (I suppose it is a lot better than what he will most likely be known for)?
And the prospect of Nanotech has some _very_ interesting implications on the current RIAA, MPAA, and other "evil forces of the world" situation with the freedom of Information. When nanotech comes along, will we have a Copyright Act that forbids programming nanomachines to work-around "nano-scan protection systems"? Will Ford sue me for writing a Nano-assembler that can make a copy of your neighbors Mustang? Will Coca-Cola go after me for having bought one bottle and then copied it to all my friends at the party? And most importantly, if its true as the Copyright defenders say, that copy protection is necessary for the economy to work, will society then end with Nanotech? Maybe all the companies that produce physcial items ought to be out lobbying congress to not spend another cent on Nano-research, which could cripple their bussiness!!!
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.