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Social/Technological Implications Of Nanotech?
Morficflux asks: "I am a high school student currently working on my 18-plus-page College Prep paper. Currently, I am trying to write something that is not only interesting to me, but pertains to the all-important issue of the progression of technology. I really want to take the bull on by the horns so I am tackling the issue of the social and technological implications that will occur with the invention and mainstream use of Nanotechnology. What is going to happen when we must deal with these issues? Where might I find more information on this so I may proceed? What will be the scope of change, and how will it affect us all?"
He has loads of ideas there on how nanotech affects society.
George
You are about to get flamed.
By college professors.
Telling you to do your own fscking resarch.
Meanwhile, I will follow the occasional link listed in this article, and hopefully learn something new.
That is all.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
As if we are not bound and helpless already... ...
Technology is my false idol
Minimalism is the way to go as I see it.
No harm in the amazingly great things nanotechnology could do to improve our lives collectively...
Just don't accelerate these improvements to a point that we don't have lives.
TH3 L@t3X Pr0gr@mm3r...G0d3ss of 0p3n-s0ur(3.
It isn't going to happen. Not for A VERY LONG TIME. We might as well discuss how Vulcans will be more fun to play chess with.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
This would force Al Gore et al to either just come out and admit that their environmentalist hysterics are simply an attempt to force everyone in America to have the same dismal life as a Beltway insider, or to "roll with it" and remove a hundred years of ineffective Federal law.
Oh yeah... I bet we'd have a better handle on eugenics as well, and that would lead to the genetic perfection of the human race. I can't wait!
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
bow down infidels
I am God v.20 leader of all follow me or die.
Tell me you didn't just cut-and-paste your assignment text into Ask Slashdot... =)
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The gravitational constant of protein has been changed[...] Also, rabbit carcasses no longer weigh as much a
Of course, Eric Drexler's book Engines of Creation started it all. Unbounding the Future , by Drexler, Chris Peterson, and Gayle Pergamit, is a less technical popularization of the ideas put forth in Engines. Drexler's Nanosystems is the authoritative technical book on the subject.
Zyvex researcherRalph Merkle is acknowledged worldwide as one of foremost authorities on nanotechnology; his nanotech website is the definitive starting place for locating nanotech resources on the web.
Simpletoneity, n. -- The phenomenon of many people all doing the same stupid thing at the same time.
http://nanotech.rutgers.edu/nanotech/
Cliff, what are you thinking? Knock it off with these "Please do my homework when I could just run a search on Google and get more resources then I know what to do with!"
It's hard to blame Morficflux, but Cliff should know better!
While I'm sure that you will read various 'serious' tomes such as Drexler's Engines of Creation, I would reccomend that you not overlook using fiction as a rich repository of speculation.
The following books are ones that I would personally reccomend:
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Tech Heavan - Linda Nagata
The Bohr Maker - Linda Nagata
Bloom - Wil McCarthy
I hope these books are as enjoyable to you as to me, and useful to boot.
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The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
It is not so hard to estimate how far current and future technologies will have developed within 5 to 10 years. After all, most of them exist in a prototype stage, so it is only a matter of production technology to turn this into a product.
It is quite hard to estimate how technologies will actually be used. Take the Internet as an example - it started in 1969 with four universities being connected to it. Nobody thought about e-mail, which originated from a hack (someone deployed a file on some other workstation which was then read by the recipient when he logged in). Before e-mail, the 'net did not really take off, and it really started to rise like a comet when the WWW was born with the creation of the first browser.
Even back then, nobody could have estimated the impact of the *uses* of these technologies on society. Guesses about that will always be quite far from what will happen.
However, it is *vital* that we think about possible implications now, lest we are rolled over by new technologies before we know what effects they have.
are high school students nowadays aware of the fact that libraries, and librarians, exist? why are they asking slashdot questions that, for the most part, we are woefully underqualified to answer?
a word of advice: if you are trying to do research by asking around on the internet, you ought to be careful. the signal to noise ratio is very low, and you can get trapped if you don't double check the information you gather by sources that you trust (such as refereed journals).
- pal
http://www.lucifer.com/~sean/Nano.html
http://www.itri.loyola.edu/nanobase/
http://www.dvtech.com/pages/pages/Tec NANO.htm
Nanotechnology is very intersting. Hope you enjoy writing the paper. :-)
------- What exactly is real?
Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems has a fantastic ariticle in the April issue of Wired (which was also mentioned on Slashdot) about future technology and talks alot about nanotech... specifically covers topics you mention. Highly recommended!!!
;-)
Good Luck
Have a Happy.
Do you mean MEMS (Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems), or the stuff of science fiction where small machines get injected into our bodies to do things? Do you mean the advances in electronics?
At work we're looking into MEMS to build "low-cost" RF and microwave components-- phase shifters, specifically.
You're posting to /., so you know about the advance in electronics.
Both of these have little social consequences.
As far as the ethical and social ramifications of other nanotechnology uses, what worries do you have? fortunately, we're shielded from many of them by scale-- there's a limit at which mechanical devices can't be made any smaller due to molecular effects. Things that are smooth at our sensory scale are unimagineably rough on microscopic scales. We have to deal with surface roughness in microwave electronics, as it can significantly change design parameters from what the classical (read: simple) analysis says they should be.
Don't want to sound too negative, but I don't see it as exciting as many people.
There are none.
Nanotechnology is a cool ploy implemented by college professors and researchers to keep their jobs. You see, it works like this. Some dumb old college provost goes down into academia and asks what the profs are up to. They respond, "We're researching stuff that will change the world...and oh yeah, it will make your college famous and filthy rich from all the patented technologies that are developed....but of course, the technologies will be developed over the course of decades, which will require serious dollars from the college to buy lab equipment, assistants and such"
The end result is the profs go out and buy shit loads of Dreamcasts and PSX2's and generally have a rip roaring time. They fly in cute showgirls from Las Vegas and Cuban cigars. After 10 or 15 years, they transfer to another college...of course taking all the best assistants and researches, forcing the colleges to start all over again.
So there you have it. Nanotechnology won't ever bother you because it isn't real....sort of like the internet, but that's another story.
Nanotech can to anything , just like atomic power could in the 1950s.
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I moderate at +3, Highest Scores, and I always mod down.
If you don't like it, vote me off the island.
Wired 8.04 suggests that humans won't be particularily useful in the future, but I think we should assume that we'll want to keep nanobots in our control as long as possible. The question then comes down to our ability to destory them: if nanobots get out of hand, will we be able to guarantee that we can deactivate them? How much should we worry about nanobots getting out of control? (Obviously the media and therefore the general public will worry about it, but should the professionals?)
If you're looking for a more technical paper, talk about how we would go about making a kill switch and how nanobots could be used for evil. If you're looking for something softer, talk about how the public will view nanotechnology and how it might end up causing more subtle problems like an economic divide.
You might want to try looking at Molecular Manufacturing Enterprises Incorporated (MMEI). Their websire has a lot of stuff on it about molecular nanotech.
In my opinion, Nanotech will have a posative affect on society - You always hear about releasing a box of nanosized bugs on your lawn to keep your grass cut to a certain length, or a nanorobot cleaning out your arteries or doing delacate surgery. It could be compared to the internet - While everyone has illegal mp3's and there's warez trading and hacking going on, no open minded person would say the internet is bad, it just has potential bad uses and demented phreaks.
same applies to nanotech. i'm sure someone will find a way to make nanobugs do something harmful, but overall it is exciting to see what may come
~zero
insert clever line here
sig?
On a global level, nanotechnology raises some serious issues. On the one hand there are enormous benefits that the technology may produce i.e. possibly final cures to the aging and diseases that have plagued us for our entire history. On the other hand are the dangers, hard to visualize at this point, but all stemming from the radical power of this new tool, i.e. home-made attempts at genocide. I wonder if the heralded "Age of Nanotechnology" will be nothing more than a finely engineered disaster. But who knows.
I woke up this morning, I was feeling kind of high, it was me, Jesus Christ and Haile Salassie I.
The real problem would arise whenever it turned out that nanotech could not be controlled as easily as the internet. On the internet, you basically decide whether or not you will be monitored, and if you will read a given data. Ignoring something in real life is much harder than online. You can always scroll past the retarded punch the monkey ads in your browser, but you can't easily scroll past a punch the monkey robot array type thingy when it covers up the instrument panel (or worse, your windshield) in your car. It would get annoying to see nothing but ads whenever the advertisers manage to land nano-bots on your eyeglasses.
Simply, when nanotech comes, we'd all better become way more ethical, or we're all screwed.
"Assume the worst about people, and you'll generally be correct"
As I posted on GeekPress: According to a BBC article, researchers at the University of Massachusetts have made two major advances towards creating nanomachines from matter: a glue to group particles into highly ordered clusters and the capacity to move single atoms at room temperature. Looks like it's going to be a while before DNA rewriters replace colored contact lenses, though.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
I see nanotechnology as the single most interesting/important aspect to the advancement of technology. (yeah, I said it!) If we can create *little* robots that can interact with matter on a molecular basis, what can't they do? Take the atoms from a pile of dirt and make a building with it? Go into our bodies and fix diseases on a molecular level? Create food from useless items? Actually 'hold' out cars to the road? Anyone read the Wired a while back about future technology? There was some very interesting hypothetical inventions in there based soley on nanotech. Boots that turn into a car etc. Personally I'm super psyched for nano, and I hop I live to see high-level implementation.
Of course, I'm a fan, not the man of nano, so please feel free to flame away at my foolishness.
klyX
And slashdot? Yeah, that's the forum for people with well-thought out views about political and social issues. After all, spending all your time programming computers gives you a well-balanced view of the world, an appreciation for the difficult and complex nuances of human social relations, plus it gives you a load of spare time to think about things. And of course, slashdot readers are an incredibly representative sample of the population -- black, female, old, there's one of each, maybe more. Sure there are a few nutty knee-jerk libertarians out there, but in general they're swamped by the tide of reasonable, well thought-out debate.
Prepare to be swamped by a thousand links on the technological feasibility of nanotechnology, two thousand links to Bill Joy's speech, and precisely nothing of use to you in your essay. When you get an 'F' for failing to tackle any important issues whatsoever, do feel free to post to slashdot once more, and I will help to sue your school for causing emotional distress. Before long, your teacher will be strutting round the exercise yard, dealing crack, having knife-fights with other inmates, smoking blunts and pimping out his stable of bitches to the warders. And since he would almost certainly be sent to a minimum-security, white-collar prison, that kind of behaviour is going to stand out.
streetlawyer, abusing the privilege of posting at +2 since last week.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Like many other technologies nanotech has the potential to be the best thing since sliced bread or the cause havoc on the scale of a cosmic disaster. The middle ground, that is to say what you and i will likely see will be, hopefully, safely banal.
...
Perhaps nanites instead of surgery, that are targeted for cancer cells. Maybe artificial immune systems for those whose natural ones have failed.
nanomachines to make molecular level computers perhaps. payloads of nanites to observe for eploration of space, heck, something on that scale could be accelerated close to lightspeed without using resources on the kind of scale sending macro scale hardware requires. perhaps nanites could construct macro scale hardware both lighter and stronger than we can now. send them to alpha centuri with a mission to reproduce, mine, build communactions gear and explore
Perhaps the computers that design the nanites will engineer a machine intellect, perhaps not self knowing but quite possibly way more a powerful brain than you or i could have, especially if you consider distibuted computing.
the dark side of course is making a race of machines and pissing them off by treating them as subservient. the matrix has you neo...
use Signature::Witty;
The first nanotech prize winner, a really small motor, is still on display at Caltech's phsyics building.
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
I could make Blood Bowl 2000! My red blood cells vs. my white blood cells in a battle to see who is the Blood Bowl Champion of the World! The game would of course be NFL2K. I would also like to see if I could beat my kidney in Soul Calibur. Or if my right leg could kick my ass (literally) in DOA2. The possiblities are endless!
Do a search on altavista for nanotech.
Do a search on /. for nanotech.
Do a search on amazon for nanotech.
Doing just that will provide you with more material than you can read in your lifetime.
Personally I would recommend Stephensons Diamond age, Bill Joy's Why the future doesn't need us and Eric Drexlers Engines of creation, all very interesting reads.
That said (I know I'm going to get flamed for this), IMHO this a rather abundant Ask /. question. We've had plenty of discussions on nanotech here, and I can't see why this one would provide anything new (since it's a question, and not an article about something nanotech advance). And it's not like it's difficult to find resources on nanotech on the net (or even on /.) either.
However, that's just the thoughts that most recently penetrated my mind, and I may very well be wrong. Comments anyone?
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
I don't think there's any rational way for a human being to answer your questions, but here's a place to start: www.transhumanist.org. I believe that creating true nanotechnology will be a singular event - no one can predict what will happen as a result of the event; predictions published before the event will seem silly to those who are around after the event has had its effect. Nanotech certainly has the potential for revolutionizing everything, but there's no way to predict the effects.
Don't forget to include slashdot in your citations page...
I can already hear the, "Do your own fsking research!" flames... However, I think it is a good topic for discussion.
There was an excellent article in the April 2000 issue of WIRED magazine about this, written by Bill Joy.
I have to admit that I whole heartedly agreed with the passage, "The New Luddite Challenge", and was more than a little freaked out to find that such unsettling words of wisdom were coming from the Unabomber Manifesto.
Also, there are good references to follow in the footnotes.
Good luck with your assignment.
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"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
That said, you can find some nanotech links here:
* The Open Directory Project has a number of great links here, including a link to the important Foresight Institute.
* And, of course, there is Ralph Merkle's page.
Good luck. I wish /. had some rule that we would only offer assistance to students who let us read their finished products.
A. Keiper
Washington, D.C.
That got me thinking. In Roswell, various people claimed to have seen strange aluminum-like material which shaped itself to the countours of the surface it was on. Could it be that this was actually nanotech technology? Just a thought.
Forget about the paper. Go outside, have fun, hang out with people. Make up some thing for your paper, life is too short to waste your time on this. The fact that you are reading slashdot, and asking questions, tells me that there is a good chance you'll get into a good school already. Do research on things you really want to know, you won't care what you wrote a month from now...
Recently I have noticed that all "Ask Slashdot:" columns are about "I am going to write this paper about and I was wondering if <some stupid question>". Damn, do you fscking research yourself! Enough of this crap already! "Ask slashdot" was an interesting column for discussions on interesting technical topics, etc now it is becoming "Help me to do my homework coliumn". My $0.02
...try saying it's interesting, but not necessarily a big deal.
I'm a nanosceptic. As interesting as this sort of technology is, I don't think it is quite the miracle cure for everything or a source of world-ending destruction. Too many things have billed themselves that way in the past and haven't lived up to their promises.
First of all, read Bill Joy's article on Wired, and some of the follow up articles, like the ones at Salon.com. I heard him speak at a symposium at Stanford a couple weeks ago. If a transcript is on the web read it too. You look a lot better on these essays if you at least read the public press on the subject.
Right now, the public press is all there is. Very little research in nanotechnology as such makes it into the journals. The field is awfully young.
Now, doomsayers and optimists alike see nanotech as way of handling large problems by using self-replicating machines to, for example, convert chemicals into more useful or less toxic ones, or to cure diseases like cancer by simply attacking the cancer directly and non-invasively. The doomsayers also warn of nano-infections killing millions and turning ecosystems into sludge.
However, nature hes been throwing the worst it has to offer in self-replicating nanotechnology at living organisms for billions of years, and most of the time we live through it. I am sceptical that humans will build machines as resilient as those nature provides anytime soon.
This doesn't eliminate medical potential - we might flood a body with short-lived machines designed to hunt down a cancer to do some other specific work, and let them run until the immune system kills them. I just don't think we'll see artificial diseases killing people off - human immune systems are much too good for that and the real world is a very caustic, destructive place for tiny machines. I suspect the average toxic waste dump is also going to be a poor place to deploy nanotech.
Biotech is much more useful and dangerous in that respect, since nature has already done most of the work of constructing self-replicating machines that can survive in nature.
I'm not convinced that any of the recent advances in nanotech lead to self-replication at all. Remember, we can't even build reliably self-replicating machines at any scale. Why miniaturisation should make this easier is something I don't understand.
Nanotech has a lot of potential for manufacturing, no doubt about that, but household replicators strike me as a bit far-fetched, although perhaps not impossible. The most immediate benefit I expect to see is the construction of largely unspecialised factories that are able to retool to a new product or new specifications in a matter of days or even hours. This is a trend already underway, but I think nanotech could make it a lot easier.
The result might be a manufactuing process not unlike the software design process. Someone makes a design, tests it in a computer, weeds out the bugs, and distant factories are able to assemble the product from nothing but the plans. Perhaps it's time to discuss open source industrial design? GNU four-slice toaster v6.2? Weirder things have happened.
Another major area for realistic progress is brain research. At present, a lot of neurological research depends on a small number of patients with a form of epilepsy that can only be cured by opening the skull and operating directly on the brain while the patient is awake. With nanotechnology, we could do even more direct and small scale research on the brain without ever having to open the skull at all.
But, I'm sceptical of claims of doom and claims that nanotech can solve all our problems. There are no ultimate solutions.
If you are going to attack this problem, you need to distinguish between different levels of technology that could all properly be called "nanotech".
/.); small nanoparticles that can be used to carry drugs to particular parts of the body and release them where it is appropriate (don't have the reference, sorry). Most of these technologies fall under the heading of self-assembling nanotech. I.e. You figure out that a certain set of compounds under the proper conditions will spontaneously arrange themselves in some useful fashion. This is legitimately nanotech, but is a far cry from autonomous, self-replicating nanobots.
There are technolgies under development now, which will be commercial in 3-10 years, which could easily be considered "nanotech". For example: nanosized magnetic core memory (recently on
Another level of development will be marked by the use of nanomachines to assemble bulk materials. At the simplest level, such a machine would act as a filter: pour in slurried ore, and it spits out streams of refined metal. At greater levels of complexity, you can produce things like wood, meat, cloth, etc. This requires a high degree of fine control, but it is relatively simple because you're just building the same "cell" over and over and over.
Moving beyond that, you enter the age of the general assember, and the nanite robot. This is the sort of nanotech people write SF about, and that gives Bill Joy the screaming heebie-jeebies. There are several stages within this level of development.
Initially, probably, general assemblers will be huge, not very efficient, hard to build, and limitted in capability (i.e. they can't build something as complex as another one of themselves). They will only be available to corporations and governments. At this point, you have the potential to produce product very cheaply and sell it for whatever the market will bear. Which means that it may be quite a while before we move beyond this step, because in this phase, big business holds all the cards and the consumers just have to line up and take what they get. Fortunately, there are avenues for research that aren't focussed on profit, and there are profit-oriented research centers that will continue to push the envelope for the sake of getting an edge on the competition. But I suspect there will be a very strong push to keep things more or less at this level, and keep the assemblers under the control of a monied elite. Yes, this worries me.
The resistance is because, in the next phase, general assemblers are smaller, cheaper, more available, and more capable (and capable of reproducing themselves, probably). At this point, there is the potential to develop a pure information economy, because you can make anything you want using just raw materials, electricity (and probably not much of that), an assembler, and a design. You could even have a totally open-source economy. The economics of scarcity and profit go to hell in a handbasket. But you also introduce the very real possibility that any reasonably bright and deranged person can design a nanoplauge to wipe out humanity (the grey goo and the Unabomber problems).
There is also a shift that will occur when it is possible to build self-reproducing nanites. This is somewhat, though not completely, decoupled from assembler technology, so it's hard to say when it occurs. This level of technology is what really heralds the danger that Bill Joy was freaking out over. Without self-reproducing nanites, nanotech is still dangerous, but it's not world-breaking.
Each of these technologies is going to have a whole set of reprocussions and ramifications. You may find that it is hard to survey the entire future history of the development of this technology without winding up writing a book. So you may want to focus on a particular level of development. Also, trying to predict what's going to happen once general assemblers are available, even primitive ones, is basically prophesy and therefore probably bullshit. (Everything I've said that could be construed as a prediction should be read as if it was prefaced with a huge honking disclaimer. I don't pretend to be a seer; these are just my guesses.)
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
What is the world coming to when Hemos isn't the one who posts an article about nanotechnology? The social implications of nanotech are quite simple -- Hemos will get along with the rest of the dudes at the Holland geek compound if he has little nanobots rolling around do his share of the chores...
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E2 IN2 IE?
Ray Kurzweil's book "The Age of Spiritual Machines---When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence" is an interesting read. He does talk quite a bit about nanotechnology. You can find chapter six of this work online at the book's website: http://www.penguinputnam.com/kurzweil/index.htm This site also has a nice links section. You could also read the article by Bill Joy on wired.com that was inspired in large part by this book: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html Mitre corp's website on nanoelectronics and nanocomputing is also worthy of your attention: http://www.mitre.org/centers/wc3/nanotech/index.ht ml Have fun.
Im a sociology major and I graduate in May. I've been working on a novella covering this topic exactly. (although recently ive been quite lazy in those regards)
First and foremost you must realize that social change is gradual. The ultimate ends to nanotechnology is the ability for anyone to have anything they want at the push of a button. But that wont happen for a long.. long time. Using today as an example, it should already be possible to access any song with a click of a mouse (or a few clicks) but basic marxist theory states that the people in power want to stay in power and will fight for that power to the bitter end. They actually reconstruct society in order for the people not in power to think they have opportunities to advance, but the opportunities for these people to excel are next to nothing. (spare me the story of your great grandfather working in a coal mine, those are outliers usually based on luck.)
So when nanotechnology comes into play, look for billions of dollars being spent to -fight- the introduction of this technology to the general public (similar to the RIAA's spending now). Once the ability to reconstruct matter efficiently and effectivly gets in the hands of the people, there is no -need- for a true power structure anymore, and that scares alot of people.
There would be no need for a governmental system beyond regulating abuse of nanotech (but then again, who cares about that when i can make a cheeseburger out of a rock? Or have natalie portman walk out of my wall for a quick shag.) Puritan morals would be, well, crushed. With everyone being able to recieve instant gratification, we must look towards the other human abilities.
I imagine you would see the division of society into a few categories.. Artists, Explorers, Scientists and Nanobums.
Artists figure out new things to create with nanotech. Explorers travel the universe, as humans are now immortal. Scientists continue thier pursuit. And nanobums live in utter physical extacy or just have fun.
I think there would be alot more nanobums then any other group
I want to again stress that to reach this form of society will take centuries, even after efficient nanotech is invented.
Keep in mind the above are merely the opinion of a sociology student, and are based on my applications of basic sociological theory with a few assumptions on what super-advanced nanotech will be able to do. I dont consider myself an expert in either field, I just find them fascinating.. I wish you the best of luck and feel free to plagerize my ideas.
no
The social implications of nanotech are huge, in essence all of those weekly world news headlines like the virus that will blow up your pc will come true.
/. wasn't "please write my paper?" This kid thinks enough of all of you to ask you an interesting question and all he want's to know is where to start and what you all might think, Yeah he can search google, but some people like human input, I can understand the trollin AC's who screw with everyone, but if you are logged in and take the fact that this is an intellectual community seriously then effin well act like an intelligent person and celebrate the fact that we live in an age where we can remotely exchange ideas about the possibilities of the future. Sorry but I really like /. and I really don't like it when people tell someone to write their own paper. It's not like he's asking for insight into the industrial revolution or the freakin cotton gin, there aren't a million books out there. grrrrr...
If I where you I would break the essay into nanotech that is at least feasable from our current level of technology, (ie not actually nanoscale but just really really small) such as biotelemetry trackers and aorta scrubbing robots that help us eat more bacon.
And then go into the more speculative nanotech like machines that can essentially build anything from the ground up. Which would basically destroy the whole power structure in the world today, as suddenly anyone could have anything and we could all just lay around and CAD up giant purple mecha and have them fight it out instead of voting for leaders and whatnot...
BUT here is my general question, what wrong with all you cranky jerks that don't want some kid to ask questions? The ask
I personally haven't a clue where nanotech is going to lead us, or if it turns out to be real viable or not (at least in our lifetimes.) Sure, I have grand visions of tiny robots that can clean our arterial walls and clean up oil spills, but hey, who knows, right?
:)
Anyway, I think if you want a good piece of sci-fi that outlines some of the enchanting possibilities that may lay before us with nanotechnology, I'd really recommend giving The Diamond Age a good lookover.
Ever why it's called nanotechnology, by the way? Isn't taking "billionths" and sticking it in front of -technology kind of arbitrary?
Excuse me, when did /. become another forum for lazy students to post messages asking others to do their homework for them? I've been seeing these sorts of messages on Usenet since 1988 and the usual response would be: get your lazy butt to a library and when you've actually done some research come back and ask specific pertinent questions and we'll be glad to talk.
This book may discuss some of the topics that you're interested in:
Nano: The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology
by Edward Regis and Mark Chimsky (ed.)
Little, Brown and Co. copyright 1996
ISBN: 0316738522
Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation
by K. Eric Drexler
John Wiley & Sons, 1992
Nanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance
B.C. Crandall (ed.)
MIT Press, 1996
Drexler's name comes up frequently in the field. I recommend going to your local library, or local University library and doing a search there. The purpose of assignments like this on are frequently to encourage students to develop their own research skills. Consider developing these skills, I've found them to be of immense value during the course of my academic career.
To email me,subtract my nick from my email address, starting with the second character. (hint: adto.uiuc.edu is wrong)
nanotech is the ultimate culmination of the industrial revolution and the comming information age combined. EG - That instead of ordering that new auto part from the dealer - you will be able to buy some cheap raw materials and micro assemble it at home. If you want that latest processor, fine just download the specs, and nano assembly program and assemble it with your nanobots of various types bought for pennies on the dollar per pound. The same is true with pharmacuticals, and all sorts of other chemichals.
this will cause quite a stir because it will be a pull away from the large scale factories that we think of anytime we think of the production of physical goods - and it will make centralized controll of patents or forceing your way into markets because of cost of scale impossible. This pull will be gradual at first and then harsh later on. It will be from large companies, to mid size companies, to small companies to individuals.
if you wanted to build a house, you might dump 10 tons of wood pulp in the yard, download "house" specs, and dump a bucket of nanobots in the yard. After that it would be automatic. (possibly with the addition of some type of fuel or power source)
if you found you had colon cancer, you might download the colon cancer spec, and inject 10cc's of nanosolution in your blood stream. Or perhaps your spine was ripped to shreads in an auto accident and you need it to be carefully cleaned up and reassembled.
nanotech may also bring warfare to a new level - allowing micro nuclear assembly on a grand scale, or targeted nano dust attacks.
it would also possibly be a boon to space activity. it could be cheaply shot into orbit and self repair/arragne into sattelites, space stations, etc with much more impact resistance and fault tolerance.
just some thinghts. david
BTW, what's up with only 18 pages? Mine was thirty pages typed in 1982, so no PC to do nice editing, had to use white-out or start the whole page over again... AND WE LIKED IT, WE LIKED IT.
The first and foremost thing to consider is that nanotech will totally redefine the meaning material wealth. Given that advanced nanotech will allow you to make highly-accurate (I will not say "perfect" because inevitably someone will get nit-picky about semantics) copies of already-existing objects in minimal amounts of time (assuming self-replicating assemblers). What is the value of a starship when you can build it out of materials found in everyday dirt? What is the value of the Mona Lisa if everyone owns a copy that is so precise that the original is indistinguishable? The value is tied to the raw materials. As a result of the devaluation of manufactured objects, personal effects become much more disposable. Need new shoes? Break down the old pair and rebuild them from scratch. New a new car? Throw a ton of aluminum soda cans, the remains of a 1991 Honda Civic, and some old GI Joes, and voila. New car. While this will play havoc with the economy, it may or may not destroy a cash-based system. It is easy to see where an open-source nanotech system would allow anyone with the basic assemblers to build more advanced ones and bootstrap themselves into a full-scale nanoforge. However, for the first few decades, that seems to be pretty unlikely. Nanotech will probably be treated like nuclear weapons -- very tightly controlled. Nanotech is going to change everything. It will not allow conversion of lead to gold, or radioactive materials into lead (as some other poster hinted at), but it will radically change the way life is conducted. That asteroid belt will start looking a lot more useful.
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Best contemporary novelist: Neal Stephenson, hands down. One of his novels is teeming with nanotechnology. The Diamond Age (Link to Amazon). Read it. It is magically delicious.
Powerbook G4/1.5GHz 12", Toshiba Satellite 1135-S1554
Your paper should be your own work, and yes, that includes searching libraries and internet for papers that are relevant for the topic. The ability to read books and research journals, and to utilize the important and interesting ones is one of the factors colleges look for when reading your paper. Leveraging hundreds or thousands of people to do your research for you is ridiculous and immoral.
How hard is highschool? He isn't doing a doctorial thesis.
I don't know where this kid is or where you went to highschool, but they don't expect THAT much from grade 12. If he "re-presents" simple information, its a C+. If he "adopts" an original idea, he gets an B+. Highschool papers are not something amazing insightful. Read one if you have access.
Suppose he is really honest about asking slashdot. Some other kid out there reading this will see the shear number of people helping and the next time he has to write a paper...
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Alright all of the people out there saying that he/she should "do your own f-ing research" have problems. Think about it this way, if u knew someone that already knew something about the subject would u not ask? I don't see how that is any different from this case. He/she is just using the full extent of their resources. I don't think they're are relying fully on this post either. Besides, at least they're being truthful and say it's for a report they could've just said they were wondering about what nanotech would be like later or something to that extent. Where is your common sense, I mean, I'm guessing most of the people on this are IT people. Don't bitch at the person just because they are trying to use people that have already learned about that stuff before for a resouce.
Look back to the invention of flight. Back at the time that they were theorizing about whether heavier-than-air craft were feasible, I am quite certain that they were not successfully predicting today's "hub and spoke" airline economy. And they wouldn't have predicted the "cramming of passengers into microscopic seats" nor the most recent trend towards expanding legroom.
In short, any theories at this point are likely to be as fictional as the predictions back in the 1950s that everyone would be flying "jet cars" and helicopters to work.
This has the attractive result that you can be quite creative about the results you look for, with no one to gainsay your claims.
You could bias towards the "cyberpunk" approach that Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" suggests, or to the "artistic" approach of Greg Bear's "Blood Music."
These, and other, works can represent useful inspiration for your own Science Fiction story, which is effectively what any theorizing about the effects of nanotech represent.
I'd suggest considering several sides to it, in terms of actions and reactions in:
A useful exercise would be to take each of the areas of society that you plan to examine, and apply McLuhan's Laws of Media to generate some relevant Tetrads.
That is, look at how nanotech affects the given system component in four ways:
Play the "Tetrad Game" a dozen times, and render those tetrads into a systematic "story," and you should get an interesting result.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
While I don't know if I agree with the site or not, it is definitely an entertaining read about the hypothetical possibilities of the current research - they are basically saying how we're all going to be happy in the future due in part to nanotechnology, and how Huxley was very very wrong. Check it out - here and here. Enjoy.
You had better exactly reference and give credit to every idea you mooch off of this site.
Have you asked very many of your colleagues in class to give you some info on this? No? Well why is that different from asking slashdot?
Slashdot is not a search engine that prowls geek's minds. Slashdot is not a forum for doing people's homework.
If you had broached this subject with a little more thought, perhaps I wouldn't have been so irritated (not that it matters to you). You should have just brought up a topic for general discussion, and used that discussion for enlightenment.
I certainly am most impressed that you are writing an 18-plus-page paper. Or maybe that is Slashdot writing it?
--Scott
Nobody will stay in safety, any mosquitoe or coucrouch could be equipped with camera and transmitter and being extremly cheap in production may appear anywhere and anytime sent by "big brouther". I would not live in such a world...
Of course any time you deal with such a powerful technology it will change everything and because of that any predictions we make will not be anywhere close to covering all the possibilites and of course no matter how correct or not we might be everyone will tend to see it as sci fi. As us geeks know, anything that we can imagine can eventually be. Some people ask why, we ask why not. Okay.. on to my opinion.. I think The Diamond Age is a great book that covers the second and third stages of nanotech. We are of course in the first stage now, a stage you might call the rock axe stage where we do everything the hard way and haven't really figured it all out yet. The next major stage I would agree will be the feed stage where nanotech will be tightly controlled by those in power and we'll see a painful transition period as we adjust as a species to having the power of god in our hands. The seed stage will be a large leap forward as it will decentralize nanotech and again this will very likely cause large social changes although I don't believe it'll be nearly as painful as the change to the feed stage. Unlike Stephenson I think the seed stage will follow shortly after the feed stage and that for a large part the two will overlap. You'll have the average person that will probably use the feed.. the M$ and AOL type people.. then you'll have the garage hackers like many of us that will be using seed technology to change the world. I expect to see the open source movement take a huge leap in this area as physical matter is reduced to software. How this will effect property laws might make our current fighting over IP laws seem like a tiny warning shot. Then as time passes we'll slowly evolve into a post-human era. It is only a matter of time before it is done. As people get sick or hurt they will want nanotech medicines and nanotech replacement organs. Combine that with our desire to always be wired and the extra computing power and exact research tools we have at our disposal and eventually we'll even have replacement brains and brain add-on's (Slashdot direct to your brain!) and that will essentially make us immortal and no longer forced to be human. This will probably go several ways as people try to come to grips with the fact they are no longer human and experiment with it. I expect eventually you'll have two sides, those who want to reject the post-human experience and those who want to make use of it. Those who reject it will most likely remain human and possibly revert to a somewhat less advanced culture. Those who accept it I think will eventually form bodies that are not very connected with what we consider the real world and that are almost impervious to damage. Possibly you could imagine us reducing out bodies to a utility cloud of smart processors that could form our brain and when called upon to do so could take on most given physical forms. That makes us shapeshifters, or better as we don't need to take on any form at all. Also take the human trend to want to communicate more. I suspect we'll form a sort of dynamic virtual world that we can paint as we want either alone or in groups. For an example try renting What Dreams May Come w/ Robin Williams. We'll probably evolve this reality to be at least as important to us as our own physical reality. Most likely by this point many of us hacker types will have been intergrating more and more with our tools and we'll have new brain centers added that'll give us an intuitive grasp over nano-engineering and we'll have some sort of matter compiler built into our bodies so that we can create physical objects by will alone. Myself I'd expect to see something along the lines of being oble to absorb raw materials into our body and converting them into small utility cloud type pieces that we'll be able to order to take whatever form we want and if we so desire to keep that form after we are done with them. So if you wanted to create a table you might absorb some already existing object and then think about the table you wanted and it'd simply take form. Of course this stage will utterly destroy any concept we can have of property ownership as property will be reduced down to being nothing more than dreams. For the most part I imagine the post-humans will be a non-violent race as we'll have such tight control over our own minds that we'll be able to easily tune out negative emotions as desired. Also since property will have so little meaning to us we'll have little greed and as we have almost no way of being seriously hurt or killed we'll have no major fears which as everyone who watches Star Wars knows is the root of all evil. Animal instincts and all that will no longer play a large part in our society. To the mortals post-humans will probably seem like spirits, gods, or plants. Well there is my slightly odd but hopefulyl interesting guess at the future w/ nanotech. :)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Nanotechnology stands to benfit humanity in countless amazing and countless woophee doo ways. One of the most amazing and beneficial way it affects us is its easy ability to send a bunch of the nanobots up to the ozone and repair it by seperating that extra oxygen from the CFC and putting it back together with standard oxygen molecules. It would also carry back down the CFCs and dismember them as well. However if you read last nights article about making nanites to be injected into the body, if they hooked those up to the internet some l33t hax0r could use the ping of death to kill you. To think all this time it only damaged intellectual property. Those are one of the ways it could backfire. Nanotechnology could be a formidable warfare technology as well especially against countries w/o the technology. It has its good and bad applied uses.
Many of you are recommending that the knowledge seeker go to his local library to do research on nanotech.
/. to further his education.
Has it occured to you people that maybe he doesn't have a good library to go to? Libraries tend to be pretty poorly funded in the US, and and pretty likely to suffer a serious dearth of information on theoretical sciences like nanotechnology. There aren't many good books on it to begin with, and they would likely be considered to obscure by library purchasers who feel the push to keep the shelves well stocked with numerous copies of old Stephen King novels for people too cheap to go blow five bucks on a paperback as opposed to providing people with an environment for scientific research.
Also be sure to think about the quality of search tools in puplic libraries. It is most likely that subjects like nanotech would be best researched in scientific magizines and journals that are not likely well categorized in the kind of search databases public libraries use, which are often terribly generic and designed more for use by young children who only need to know which set of encylcopedias to look in.
For reasearch on nanotech, the web is quite likely the best reference out there, and shame on you for attacking someone for trying to take advantage of an incredible tool like
An interesting book that touches on the whole nanotech social implication thing is The Age of Spiritual Machines, by Ray Kurzweil. It unfortunately suffers from the same problem that most of the pop nanotech books suffer from. It assumes that nano tech will work and it will be one of the most powerful things that mankind has ever created. Still an interesting read, although nowhere near as good as his "Age of Intelligent Machines". It does have the benefit of dealing with more of the social aspects of the technology, as opposed to the technical aspects, and not having to have an exciting story the way the Diamond Age does. It does have some ballsly assumptions that you should take with a grain of salt, such as a computer with the power of the human brain for $1000 by 2019, and his assertion that moore's law is a law of nature. Still not a bad read, and its not too deep for a high school project.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
You had better exactly reference and give credit to every idea you mooch off of this site. Have you asked very many of your colleagues in class to give you some info on this? No? Well why is that different from asking slashdot? Slashdot is not a search engine that prowls geek's minds. Slashdot is not a forum for doing people's homework. If you had broached this subject with a little more thought, perhaps I wouldn't have been so irritated (not that it matters to you). You should have just brought up a topic for general discussion, and used that discussion for enlightenment. I certainly am most impressed that you are writing an 18-plus-page paper. Or maybe that is Slashdot writing it? --Scott
I am curious - your post represents a typical AC (and yes, I know there are insightful AC's out there). You have the sarcasm, the loudness, the swearing - and no point, other than provoking others...
What I want to know is (from your perspective), why?
Why waste the time posting such a thing? Just to see if people like me will respond? I am just curious at the thought processes of such AC's. I mean, I could say something crass, like "Take some lithium, and chill" - but it is obvious that such a posting would have little or no effect, and might actually excaberate the problem. Plus, I don't think posting such a thing would be proper, anyhow - because I don't think you actually need lithium - you have some other reason for the outburst.
So please, you - or another AC - tell me what that reason is, ok?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
If slashdot begins to discriminate against questions starting with, "I'm doing acedemic research in foo," students can probably just lie and say, "Reading slashdot has peaked my interest in foo, and I was wondering..."
Besides, having a collection of messages containing mostly links and opinions is hardly having your work done for you. (Asking /. may require more work, after you filter the signal from the noise.)
If a question promotes interesting discussion, I have no problem with someone using it as a stepping stone for other work.
I wish I could remember who said, "Stealing the work of one person is plagerism, stealing the work of many people is research."
One thing is for certain about the future of nanotechnology: everything will be smaller.
In order to properly 'research' his topic, the lad would need to go and engineer it from the ground up. He's not allowed to ask people where he might find relevant information; he's not allowed to ask *for* relevant information; he's not allowed to ask for opinons. Doesn't that mean that if he goes to a library, and reads an article on Nanotech, that he's "leeching" and "not doing his own work" and "the author of the article should be admitted to the college, and not the guy using the article for information?" Pathetic. I, speaking as one who has taken job interviews, and gave job interviews, and I would think most colleges, would rather see that the guy can go out and find information that already exists, rather than re-invent the wheel. I'd then want to see him apply the knowledge so gained. *Then* and only then, would I be concerned with him inventing the wheel from scratch. After all, by this definition, OSS is wrong, as it's leeching off somebody elses work. OOP is wrong; don't reuse those objects! Create new ones! Otherwise you're leeching! End of rant.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
However, I certainly agree that the tendancy for students to try to get "the Internet" to do their research for them is extremely annoying.
- The newsgroup comp.lang.lisp tends to get hit hard by this; there's an almost-weekly attempt for students to get answers to what are obviously homework assignments that they have put off.
- I get a few emails a month that show that students are trying to satisfy research requirements by reading my web page on relational databases, and then figure that I am the obvious "consulting resource" to answer their assignments for them.
- There was one entertaining occasion when a considerable chunk of a class of accounting students asked my opinion on what Linux-based software package Corel should adopt, and why.
My reaction to many of these things is to tell the would-be non-researcher that their mission, if they choose to accept it, is to Go To The Library.I learned my research skills, which have mapped not too badly onto new media such as the web, by virtue of spending many hours in university libraries tenaciously searching for books and papers and references between them.
If I use "my powers of research" to help the new students too very much, they won't bother learning those sorts of skills, and the next time media changes, they may not develop the tenaciousness to be able to fight their way through to grasping the next new thing.
I'm happy to suggest some references, particularly those that are a little unusual so as to promote a wider array of insights. Thus, Marshall and Eric McLuhan's "Laws of Media" represent a probably-unexpected useful way of grappling with analyzing effects of changing technology, and I'm happy to cite that as an approach.
But to write peoples' research reports for them is quite another thing. It is not merely immoral for them, as students.
It is also immoral for those that do the writing, as they discourage students from becoming competent researchers. And in an increasingly information-oriented economy, that is a horrible way to handicap them.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Non-recorded information is the #1 resource on the Net. Slashdot lives on this resource. I'm assuming that this student will also do some research online and in the library but the amount of information held in our collective mind that we have never written down is far more vast than all the recorded works made throughout all of our history. By asking this student is able to tap this collective to get new ideas, facts, and directions for his research. More than likely if he is seriously interested in this topic he'll meet some people with like interests which he can keep in contact with over the years. The next time a student wonders about this topic they'll be able to come here and look and see all this new previously unrecorded information and also gain from that. Sure the majority is probably spam like these people whining that students shouldn't ask for help but Slashdot's moderation system helps somewhat to pick out the best grains of information in such a discussion. Information wants to be free, don't take it from others but rather give away that which you have.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Well, my personal take on the social implications that come with the advancement of technology, in this case nanotechnology, is that as oppossed to (Oh, I dunno..) religion which attempts to explain and "lock" the definition of what it means to be human, technology allows us to expose and whittle away that definition until we have realized that there is no clear definition between human and non-human on a physical level, but rather on a meta-physical level.
Now, if you want additional information for your report; I would suggest checking out Bill Joy's article which appeared in the Febuary (I think) issue of Wired and the sci.nanotech usenet group.
As a general note, I think that many of the posters on /. would have been more receptive to your question if they had perceived an attitude of "Hey, I have a genuine interest in the social implications of nanotech, whats your guys take on it?" as oppossed to an attitude of "Aww crap, I gotta write this big report so that some college will think im tha bomb. Quick, tell me everything you know about the social implications of nanotech".
Angelo Torres
...they are too dated... topics like Nanotech are most likely unavailible - unless it's a really good college library.
./ was a very smart idea.
I think asking
People often call our current level of technology, and our current time period, the "Information Age". I think they're a little premature. The information age will come about when information is the only thing worth money (or whatever is used for trade). Right now, information is quickly gaining on the material world in terms of worth, but it still lags. Material goods generally require very expensive production means and fabrication plants that require that thousands and millions of units be sold in order for you, the consumer, to be able to buy it relatively cheaply.
When the information age comes, this will change because it will allow anything to be created as long as you have 1)Some matter (like dirt) 2)Some energy and 3)The information on how to make it. Since 1) and 2) will be essentially free, only 3) has any real value. And it's pure labor - no "resources" are involved.*
How will this happen? Nanotechnology. Once you can arrange matter, on the molecular scale, you can create anything you want from the ground up. And making one is no more expensive than making 1,000,000, so therefore, people will have the ability to make things as they need them.
Once that happens, we will truly be in the Information Age, and frankly, I have no idea what will happen. It could be Utopia. More likely, it will mean the death of the individual, and individual rights, because any individual with this power could easily, and accidentally, destroy the entire world. Bill Joy wasn't overblown, he just concentrated on the wrong technologies - AI and Bio-science aren't nearly as scary as self-replicating nanites with absolutely no natural, or unnatural, "predators". So, to prevent such accidents, individuals will have to give up all privacy to the public.
*I say dirt and energy are free because, while I can imagine a dirt-utility bill, I just don't find it likely, and energy would almost certainly come from solar power from tiny machines that live in the upper atmosphere and deliver energy into our network constantly. Or some such solution.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
If someone invents nanobots that can take care of showering me, like that Jetsons thing, and brushing my teeth automatically I will be thrilled.
That's all.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
As somebody pointed out a few days ago, shouldn't they be learning valuable research skills by going out and finding these sources on their own?
I think Cliff is doing us a service when he posts questions like this. I am personally interested in fields like nanotechnology, but I don't have the time to wade through present day journals to find relevant information on things well outside my field. Some of you work in this field. You can provide me with a general understanding far more easily than wading through three years worth of Deutchland Medical Journal of Collected Nanotechnology Research and other such BS so that I can be "enlightened".
This is really the beauty of Slashdot. It brings together people who know an awful lot about neat fields and people who would like to dabble in said neat fields, but don't know where to start. Hopefully you can provide me with information about nanotech and unidentified planets in galaxies far away, and I will be able to provide you with insight on my field, organic chemistry. By Morficflux asking these questions, I get an opportunity to learn cocktail party information about things that I would otherwise, not be able to discuss. The title of Slashdot is "News for Nerds", but it is also "Stuff that Matters".
My two cents. Up my score or flame on.
Find a copy of "Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition : Science Slightly over the Edge". It's not a difinitive reference, but it has a good nano section that wraps everything into a human/social perspective. It's also an interesting read on a lot of other subjects.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
OK, I pointed this out the other day, but can you name the 2 current commercial uses of Nanotechnology?
Cosmetics and Industrial cutting tools. Both are using fine grained "Nano powders" to get some interesting physical properties (One for UV blocking, one for increased wear properties when sintered into a block)
First we'll see increased use of nanopowders etc for better material science (the forgotten science) to make stronger, better materials. THIS has some near term prospects
As for the stuff you see in SciFi, that's a LONG way off, if ever. The problem with mechanical "things" that are less than 100 uM in at least one axis is:
Energy density - How do you get POWER into it, or store power in it? Add in friction forces (remember, it doesn't scale proportionately), and we're talking centuries
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I wrote a paper for history class 10 years ago called Technology and It's Effect on Society on some of these same topics. It ranges quite far afield, from nanotech to AI and MUDs.
I'd probably structure it a lot differently today, but I'm still interested in many of the same issues.
Later,
James
Sure, flamebaiter, enviro-"wackos" are sure going to be sad if there's ever an effective way to dispose of toxic industrial chemicals, although too bad there STILL won't be any way to safely neutralize arguably the most dangerous by-products our civilization has contrived, ie. nuclear wastes. At least not unless we're eventually going to have machines on a subatomic scale with the power to effect controlled fission or fusion reactions, to stabilize radioactive elements into a more benign form. Not likely. Not without a few "oops"es we maybe can't afford. Added to which, the potential for environmental catastrophes lurking around the whole issue of nanotech is mind-boggling enough that you weren't probably going to convert too many enviro-"wackos" to the cause anyway. Not that there aren't also enormous positive possibilities in the technology as well. And sure, given the even more than ever before explicit carte blanche to play godmonkey with the intimate molecular structure of our surroundings, we'll probably pick all the right changes to make. Cause we're so smart and full of foresight and all. Consult the record of our technological progress to date, if you don't believe me. Why am I wasting my time responding to this, I could be playing freecell. :)
You should read Diamond Age, from Neil Stephenson, a great Sci-fi book in a nanotech world!
Well, you talk about being afraid of the elite being in charge. Good point, but two counterpoints:
1. If the elite so badly want to crush the populace, they can probably do so right now. Of course it's one more way for them to wreak havoc on society if they so choose. Paranoia isn't such a huge deterrent to technology, though. Because it hasn't been since the Industrial revolution.
2. Perhaps the elite SHOULD have control over everything, to prevent that lone deranged person from ever getting his hands on the controls. Open source nanotechnology sounds like an Open source nuclear warhead to me.
I disagree... What you call "Enviro-wackos" are mostly saying that if we continue the polluting and usage the way that we are we will ruin the Earth and make it unlivable... If they can in fact "perform all sorts of atomic-level rendering of pollutants into safe materials" this would do the opposite. Instead of being bad news, it'd be the great news they're hopeing for, a way to reverse the damage already caused
- "yes but can you hit someone over the head with a rolled up internet?" -Foxtrot
The last time I saw a question on this was the crypto one from about a week ago. It's good to see you've done your research. However, this just proves that the question is more important than the answer.
Your question read like you hadn't done any research yet. You should have stated the stance you were going to take. I know that the submit box is a hard place to do that, but a question that looks like it's got some valid research behind it is less likely to bring out the angry college professors.
Also, I'm not sure about your timing. It may be excellent for you, seeing as there's been two or three "Social implications of nanotech" articles here, but to me it seemed like a rehash - you could have gone to the articles, read them, and rephrased your question to talk about something we missed/didn't cover properly.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Would this paper happen to be the extended essay for the IB Diploma? Just curious, I happen to be an IB student myself.
-Dan
1. If the elite so badly want to crush the populace, they can probably do so right now. Of course it's one more way for them to wreak havoc on society if they so choose. Paranoia isn't such a huge deterrent to technology, though. Because it hasn't been since the Industrial revolution.
The elite does not want to crush the populace. They want to profit off of the populace. Now, I'm a good capitalist and a free-marketeer, and I don't have any problem at all with making a profit. But I have a problem with a group getting (an almost certainly government granted) monopoly on production, and then charging prices that have no relation to the costs of production or anything else.
2. Perhaps the elite SHOULD have control over everything, to prevent that lone deranged person from ever getting his hands on the controls. Open source nanotechnology sounds like an Open source nuclear warhead to me.
Well, first of all, I don't have a great deal of trust for any "ruling class". Granted, they are vested in the system, so the rational (not necessarily moral) ones are going to try to protect it. But they could still produce a crank who could do alot of damage with his privliged access to technology. And I find that scenario really scary, because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it under those circumstances. If I have an assembler of my own, at least I can fight back and protect myself (shades of a Mage War, here).
Secondly, I don't believe any system is totally secure. Assemblers will get out. If we try to protect ourselves by controlling access, then it might take longer, but when it happens it will be covert (thus not subject to oversight) and there will be no safeguard in place to deal with whatever that loony and his assembler produce. I think we need to solve this problem in a fashion that allows for public access to assemblers. No other solution will be robust enough.
I don't know what the solution is in this case. However, it does seem like most of the worst dangers of nanotech are associated to self-replicating critters. If we could control the production of those (how?), that might be enough.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
If you want to read about some real-world research, check this out.
(I don't work there, just listened to a lecture from someone who does)
Stanford Nanofabrication Facility
Really small tech support personel?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hmm. interseting idea occured to me...
Nanotechnology would basically reduce the manufacturing industry to the same state (economically) as the software industry is at today, that is the whole cost id borne in the R&D and making of the first "instance" of an object. After that you have an army of self replicating workers that conjure the new item out of raw material, so your only cost is that of procuring the material (much like getting cds for the burning farm at a software maker's factory).
Even packaging is reduced to the supply of raw materials.
Thin on what that woudl do to the labor markes and economies. Especially if all you have to do to make something is to steal some nanotech, point them at alump of foo program them to make foo into bar and here you go. You just foo-bared the standard economic model.
TMC
The original poster (the high school student), to produce a successful paper, must sort through all the responses and separate the wheat from the chaff, grind the wheat and knead the dough, etc.
Posting a question that garners a good sized response and processing that response can be a effective method of research. The proof will be in the (bread) pudding.
I don't claim such an approach replace the traditional focus on status quo authoritative sources, but augment it. Any educators that object to this style of research should be put out to pasture.
"You gonna get on Slashdot for thaaaat?!?! Kozmo.com's got research."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
This should give you another idea.
Hope this helps.
UltraWarm Regards,
Anuj_Himself
Linux, Vai, Satch and Guitars.. that is the life ICQ# 7357858
William Gibson co opted this phrase from Vernor Vinge - a technological singularity - to use in his recent trilogy. It's a point where some form of technology is so transformative that we cannot imagine beyond it - literally like falling into a black hole.
There was some complaint about the way Gibson ends his recent trilogy, but it's spot on. It's an admission - faced with this technology - there can be no more imagining, only intuition.
Because if the technology ever becomes viable to produce any substance or product endlessly, it changes every rule and boundary our society and culture is based on today. Stephenson had to cheat and force societal constraints on his world in order to discuss nanotech in The Diamond Age.
The truth is, the basic governing element of our species has been the procurement and transformation of resources, since we rose out of a lake in Africa. Remove that, and what do we become?
The implications are that there can be no accurate speculation. Those who live post nanotech live in a different universe than we do.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
don't forgot the research monger, IBM.
/serious/nano/
http://www.research.ibm.com/topics
and
http://www.research.ibm.com/atomic/nano/
I think in this case he missed the most likely path, that of system evolution. I think that if we look we can see plenty of evidence of the fact that when systems form a symbiotic circle they will tend to merge together into a working super-organism rather than destroy each other. I'm not a biologist so this is probably all wrong but at least in my experience with writing AI-type software it works out perfectly. The human for instance is not a single organism but many organisms working together to form the whole. Humans have a lot to gain from a merge with their tools. A lone human without tools is not very strong. Our individual lives are short and for the most part pointless. Nanotech will create a small elite class of those who choose to evolve and the rest will remain human and will be protected by the post-humans more than likely. How this will effect the two societies it is hard to tell. If we try to back down from nanotech we will burn up our resources and fall back into a dark age so we have little choice. There is at least a 50% chance of not destroying ourselves I think. It's to late to put an argument together in any nice format.. maybe eventually I'll bother. IMO it doesn't really matter as the ball is rolling and nobody can stop it. It is vital that those who wish to give freedom reach the technology first. I fear what would happen to the world if the power hungry reach this point first.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
But I have a problem with a group getting (an almost certainly government granted) monopoly on production, and then charging prices that have no relation to the costs of production or anything else.
Well, according to economic theory, the monopolist won't charge the absolutely highest price that the market will bear so it will be lower than what people have been suggesting.
But they could still produce a crank who could do alot of damage with his privliged access to technology.
It's interesting to attempt to draw conclusions between nanite general assemblers with nuclear technology. If we equate the two, then it's very likely that very few will be allowed to have the full solution. Cost due to control would be another barrier for it.
I'm writing some documentation. Would some of you please do it for me?
The original Doctor Dark.
Without nanotech, the post-human era will largely be a cockroach world.
With nanotech, it'd be armies of miniature exo-droids fighting the cockroaches.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Check out Engines of Creation, by Eric Drexler, not-so-much fiction about nanotech. also ray kurzweil's "the age of spiritual machines". if you go to www.technetcast.com >= 04/20, they'll have the webcast of the stanford symposium on "will spiritual robots replace humanity by 2100?".. interesting stuff.. i was there :)
UltraWarm Regards,
Anuj_Himself
Linux, Vai, Satch and Guitars.. that is the life ICQ# 7357858
We all know what it means to assume something...
Open source "assemblers" is a lot like open source operating systems. Which would you rather own, the Microsoft brand assembler or the Linux one? More than likely, the Microsoft one will be expensive as hell but at least it will work... and after you buy a few upgrade packages, and Assembler 5000 comes out you'll have a useable product. I don't understand what the concern is about nanotech "falling into the wrong hands". Its about like worring about when the sun will burn itself, 5 trillion years from now. Don't technogeeks have more pressing concerns such as what are we going to do when we run out of IP addresses, or what happens to freedom of speech if the United Nations puts together a committee to regulate the Internet (which there is talk about already)?
Works for me.. only trouble is, why do you need tech. support when you can have a nanite fix your broken computers for you by rebuilding it?
All of you staying within this thread will be interested to know that between the time the question was first asked till 4/14/00, 3:40 AM PST, I counted at least 18 different urls given for nanotech information, 14 books, 1 usenet group, and at least 6 bad jokes. Not bad considering it only took 30 seconds or so to post the original question to /. Why is it that using someone else's ideas and/or work in academia it's plageurism; whereas in industry, it's called "networking"? I await your criticism or comments. No, Morficflux, don't even ask as I won't give you the list of sources.
Secondly, your insinuation that open source operating systems "don't work" is patently false.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Female Prison Rape in NY
Energy will be able to be obtained cheaply from the sun. Little nanites don't need much energy individually. Think algae.
Climate change may well be able to be dealt with by superengineering projects to cool the atmosphere (although I'm just speculating here). Think refrigerators! ;-)
And as for not destroying biological life, I think we can easily program the nanites to avoid chewing up higher animals - but who cares about microorganisms? They'll still be plenty of them left. (Actually, I'm thinking of solid and liquid-born pollution - air pollution is a little harder, though even there production processes will be effectively non-polluting).
Female Prison Rape in NY
"But I suspect there will be a very strong push to keep things more or less at this level, and keep the assemblers under the control of a monied elite. Yes, this worries me."
The good old Evil Corporation paranoia again and again and again. Microchips can only be produced at billion-dollar plants owned by big bad corporations. Does that worry you ? If so, why ?
If it does, you shouldn't : we can do anything we want with those chips, bad things and *GOOD* things.
All this screaming against big capitalist corporations is really childish. Corporations want to make money, they do this by selling things to people. If people didn't buy, the corporations wouldn't exist. If you think that corporations brain-wash people into buying stuff then blame the people for being dumb, not the corporations.
As usual people prefer to blame a scapegoat than to admit their responsibility for what the world is becoming. People vote with their wallets, at the ballot box, with their feet and that's precisely why the world is the way it is.
Don't blame corporations, blame people.
If people didn't buy, the corporations wouldn't exist. If you think that corporations brain-wash people into buying stuff then blame the people for being dumb, not the corporations.
Oh, the people are the problem, no doubt about it. And if anything is going to change, that change has to start with people. But that includes the people who run the corporations: they have the power to shape society, and I think that saddles them with some level of responsibility. Ultimately, yes, I blame the sheeple for allowing themselves to be led around by the collective nose. But that doesn't mean I'm not disgusted by corporations' active efforts to make people as dumb and materialistic as possible.
And the reason that the scenario I describe disturbs me is this: with nanotech, we could see an end to the economics of scarcity; we could literally create the garden of Eden. Everyone could be rich. But that won't happen, because there are people for whom business success is a game, and money is the scoring system. For such people, being rich is only relevant if someone else is poor.
For a perspective that is relevant to this issue, read "Voyage to Yesteryear" by Paul Hogan. He describes an (admitadely unrealistic) scenario in which the economics of scarcity no longer apply, and then writes a book about how people deal with it.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
Because the nanites keep building AppleIIc's ;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Hi, I am writing a paper on the socio-ethical implications of getting a widely diverse and distributed group of knowledgable people to write a college prep paper for me..."
Ask yourself how easy this would be. All you would need to do:
--Write an intro,
--scan the following threads (less comments such as this),
--throw in a conclusion.
The net would happily write the rest for you, even refute its own postulations.
Why go through all that hard work of doing it yourself...
<on topic> The Diamond Age is a great text concerning life on the cusp between manually developed (Feed) and self propogating (Seed) nano-tech, but I'm not sure how thouroughly it examines life in such an era. Moreso life in Stephenson's phyle/tribe vision. </on topic>
What are you so upset about, cheese_wallet? Someone holding a gun to your head and making you post? I say, let him ask! People respond because they want to. And why not? Slashdot is all about the exchange of ideas. If you have a topic to discuss, then bring it up! But, please, don't whine because someone else did.
wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
Shoot me for BSP, I don't care. The best place to read about social implications of nanotechnology (and brain mapping, and human genome project, and any other technology that you might have read of in Slashdot threads or in Bill Joy's "Wired" article) is in the geeky technothriller "Acts of the Apostles," at http://www.wetmachine.com. (It so happens that I am the protagonist of this novel.)
Ultimate Geek NanoNovel: Acts of the Apostles at www.wetmachine.com Fear the Future! Defrock the Infodruids!
The problem comes when the corporations use the profits from their endeauvors to lobby the government into passing laws that help them control their product, despite a lack of actual scarcity in the product. By limiting our rights under the law, they can ensure good profits for the foreseeable future. See Mass Media Companies : 20th Century, for details on how to proceed.
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