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Economic Analysis of the Nanotech Future
nweaver writes "Economic Historian and Berkeley Professor Brad DeLong has created an analysis on his Web Log on the economic implications of Nanotechnology. His observations are based on what previously happened with the Industrial Revolution (and other economic shifts in general) and using this to speculate what Nanotech will do to the economy: who wins (technical/knowledge workers), who loses (manufacturing), and what changes (costs of products)."
If, in the future, copying physical objects is nearly as easy as copying information on a computer, will corporations lobby to pass laws that make it illegal to do so? In other words, will I be arrested one day for making a copy of my friend's Ferrari?
i have worked a bit in the field of nano-decorated surfaces. it is impressive that one can make little nano-sizes arrays of magnetic dots on some substrate . this as so small, that one can view them as single particles which switch homogenously. hence you can study the interactions of little magnetic particles in arrays and do experiments which are very close to theoretical models, such as the Ising model. why should you care? because this nano-patterns seem to be interesting for exchange biased systems. and these seem to be interesting for the recording media industry. but why should you care... this is too geeky anyways. this guy (AKA Prof. Kai Liu) at UC Davis does some interesting research with nanostructures... cool pics and some explanations...
If you want to know more 'bout this nanotechnology that everyone's talking about: Institute of Nanotechnology and National Nanotechnology Initiative
Could we be on the road to a post-scarcity society in the future where nobody is without the basic human necessities and most work is done for recreation or hobby purposes only? Could be, yet for some reason I think our nation's current Corporatocracy wouldn't look kindly on such blatant "communism."
It was a decent article, but if it was included in discussion from yesterday I wouldn't mod it past a +4 Insightful (but someone would), it kinda feels like a long somewhat rambling slashdot post. His conclusion (almost out of the middle of nowhere) was that we need to "improve" education in this country, but no details on what needs to be done. Thrown in is this comment (which would surely get a reply on SlashPolitics): "America is, after all, the only society that does not define its citizens substantially in ethnic terms.". Yea, I wave my flag around a little too much for some, but even I know that is certainly not true, and maybe even a little bit of flame bait (kinda like this comment).
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
...are very very tiny.
will have to become far more important if people are to hold onto any profit margin, surely. If I can "read out" the program to create "the crown jewels", or download it from the net, and replicate it down to the atomic level - what's the difference...
I guess the only fundamental problem is: what manufacturer of nano-bots is ever going to let the bots re-create themselves ? If they do, they'll spread like wildfire, and all manufacturing everywhere will become more like programming...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
I think that the idea of artificially enhancing ourselves with technology is the right approach, but the BORG technique of implanting high-tech computerized devices seems the wrong approach. Basically, this would open up our very bodies to hackers. By now we should all be aware how very difficult a problem computer security is. Personally I feel that computers and networks can never be made secure, and thus we should stop trying. Just imagine the inevitable result when some black-hat cracker breaks through the encryption protecting your enhanced liver, and proceeds to turn it into 'reverse', whereby it spews toxins into your bloodstream? Compound this with the fact that probably our bodies will be running Microsoft operating systems, and you see why this is the wrong approach.
The correct way to enhance ourselves is the technique outlined by Science Fiction Author Larry Niven. In variou Niven novels and short stories, the characters can live for hundreds of years by means of organ banks. If you lose an arm, use nanotechnology to put on a new arm. Of course, this will require two developments: improved nanotechnology, and the development of organ banks for all body parts. Probably this will lead to the death penalty becoming the standard punishmnent for every minor crime, so as to keep the organ banks full of fresh organs, allowing rich people to live forever at the expense of everybody else.
I hope this happens within my lifetime, as it is a Utopian scenario indeed.
Google Toolbar is SPYWARE!
Check the Nanotechnoligy Engineering Research Organization for some interesting follow-up info.
This is also analogous to the technological revolution, because a much higher number of workers were left unemployed by the increase in productivity than moved to the cities and became factory workers -- witness the enormous social turmoil at the turn of the century. The relatively higher American education levels probably had a much greater impact in the service sector than manufacturing 50-100 years ago. Although level of education has picked up somewhat in the last decade or so (concurrent with America's resurgent dominance in non-military technology), compared to other industrialized countries American education below the college level simply sucks.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Since education solves so many problem's concentration on education is not a good argument. Next since he mentions specialized skills there is also a huge retraining problem even for "educated" workers as the technology shifts. Finally I think most people looking at nano-tech miss the most important factor. With it "intelligent" computers are possible. The impact of intelligent machines must be included in any analysis and probably represent and even bigger "shift" than nanotech itself. On that note there is no reason for the training of the human brain to remain stuck in methods developed thousands of years ago. Agian with nanotech and smart computers there is no reason we could not "upload" new skills as needed. Forget about nanotech think about the impact smart machines and programmable humans. Nanotech is just enabling technology.
I found the commentary following Delong's essay to be as worthwhile as the original text. Stephenson's The Diamond Age plays out some of these ideas in more detail, for those interested in possible ramifications of nanotech. /. readership who haven't already may enjoy that as well. (I did.)
That fraction of the
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
Just think about this for a second: Alan Turing created his famous test in... what? The 1930s? The 1950s? How many computers have you seen that could pass the test? Simple answer: none.
How many computers have you seen that actually could perform what HAL performed in "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Simple answer: none.
Scientists have been talking about NanoTech for what? Twenty+ years? Have you already seen an application of NanoTech in real life? Where are the real-life NanoTech billionaires? Where is the Bill Gates of nanotech?
I believe that nanotech, just like AI and superconductivity, is a pipe dream. This is simply because solving the technical/scientific problems are simply too large for our current technology.
Don't misunderstand me: nanotech can be useful. Dumb computers are useful right now. Things like micro-mechanical machines may be useful. Limited, one-task-only, expert system can be useful. But real intelligence? Real nanotech? I don't think so.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Hey, its from the article so its ontopic!
" One of the chief things that has made America great, after all, is that we are the only country in which enthnicity is not closely linked to nationhood. "
Only? What about Canada? What about Brazil? And I'm sure that others can provide better counter-examples.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I for one welcome our new nanobot overlords!
This reminds me of _Dilbert Future_ where, among other points, Adams says that those Star Trek skin healing devices will never exist because we'd all be sealing each others anuses as practical jokes. Another point he makes: would you trust your coworkers to operate the transporter controls?
Once you read the article, you see there's surprisingly little insight at all, really. The only conjecture on the nanotechnology-driven economy is that there will likely be a scarcity of workers with the necessary skillset, enabling them to earn major $$$ unless the pool of talent increases through either domestic or international education and training.
I would also argue that much of his point regarding the displacement of current workers is well underway. Miniature, communicative sensors already enable industrial equipment to constantly optimize its own performance, reducing the need for manual maintenance and repair work. Warehouse technology is already available to minimize the number of workers needed to move product, especially with the coming of RFID.
In short, I think the more interesting area for discussion lies in which types of products are likely to be displaced by oncoming nanotech, and which are likely to become more in demand (such as the rise in the price of titanium, driven by a wave of Tiger Woods-inspired golf newbies). Hopefully we'll see some followup on those points...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Nanotechnology can be really good, but I still find it kinda scary.
God I'm cynical...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The fact that America, like every other developed economy, is going to have to rely more and more on a highly educated workforce is not a particularly novel forecast, but is a good topic for hand wringing. On the other hand, the implications of better and cheaper materials for manufacturing might produce a more optimistic view as it rolls through the manufacuting sector, lowering costs, creating jobs etc. Indeed, to the extent that manufacturing using these materials requires skills beyond those found in the third world, it might lead to new manufacturing jobs (or, of course, it might not, this is all complete speculation after all)
Oh, and on that note I'm surprised that no one has yet commented on the boldness of this economic forecast going as far out as this when the record of economists getting it right one or two quarters down the road is mixed (for example the IT recovery that has been a rolling two quarters away since 2000).
I've finally got around to changing my sig
If information technology caused a sharp upward leap in the skill- and education requirements of the labor force that has caused a large chunk of our upward leap in income inequality, is not nanotechnology likely to do the same? And is not the pace of economic growth--the spread and use of nanotechnology-generated materials--likely to be constrained by a shortage of the highly educated and skilled materials technicians and programmers that we will need?
I believe that the answer is no
Most people in the IT industry have the job of creating custom solutions for specific customers. The tasks range from the very difficult to the very simple, and therefore the IT industry can employ a work force with a very diverse skill level.
In this respect the so called nano tech industry is very different. The development of a high tech product is very expensive, snd therefore each company has to focus on a small set of products. On the other hand they can sell each product to a wide range of customers. This calls for a small but specialized work force.In conclusion nano tech will not employ the same number of workers with lesser skill.
cowards.
to all editors: feel free to label this response as troll. i just get annoyed by posts which
a) have absolutely no content and are completely unfunded and
b) morons who do not know jack shit about someting.
finally, i would have expected more cojones than an anonymous post. slashdot: do us all a favor and delete comments from the anti-slashdot morons. freedom of speech? where? in the internet? ha!
I woudln't expect to see assemblers within my lifetime, but if you'd asked me 15 years if I expected to see a computer that could fit completely in my lap with a gigabyte of RAM within my lifetime I'd have laughed at you.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think that Slashdot should have a +1 Politics, and a -1 Flame-politics moderation choices. That way those that are truely interested in political discussions of every technological idea can moderate them as such, and those that don't can set their preferences accordingly. It might be interesting to see really where the "group think" really is, at least for those interested in politics. As far as just keeping politics off of Slashdot, you whould have an easier time getting rid of the Trolls.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I previously asked this question (as anonymus coward); How are you supposed to power these things? And got some very good answers. You can't have them lugging around with batteries (they wouldn't be very nano, wouldn't last long and you'll just have to pray that they can find their way back to the loading station to recharge successfully). Submerging them in fuel already has it's own term, "grey goo", at that scale imperfectons will cause "mutations" that just might go amok; How would you monitor that? Nanotech only seem to be usable when either connected to a larger machine and thus not really nanotech only machinery with some very small pieces, or small scale controled, one off experiments not industrialised mass production.
(You'll just have to search for the original thread by yourself, great karma whoring op, and yeah, big thanks to all those who provided great answers, i really wondered about that one)
-Don't trust smart paint!
"America is, after all, the only society that does not define its citizens substantially in ethnic terms."
I would also suggest folks look at the Nanotechnology timeline Sean Morgan did. Best estimates are this will unfold the next 20 years or so. The nice thing about Morgan's work is that he talks about some of the incremental advancements between now and then.
If you can assemble matter from stuff, you can also disassemble it, so keeping things clean and free of dangerous bacteria should be pretty straight forward. Then when we invade some alien planet because of their Weapons of Mass Destruction, their germs will make shaving cream shoot out from our eye sockets, because our immune systems no longer know how to deal with germs.
That still leaves a few godforsaken rules though, like school teachers. I'm led to believe that some people actually enjoy doing that, and those people haven't been incarcerated for their own safety for some reason, so maybe it'll be OK.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
in a society without scarcity the better idea newer wins.
you can apply this to probably any venue of life.
you can apply this to a lot a managers now. many managers are only good at one thing: the corporate power circus.
they don't need to be the best when it comes to manufacturing, since we today already have enough resources to permit waste. they're good at elbowing. why isn't this behavoir even worse? because results ultimately still count. and results depend on scarce resources and their efficient allocation.
as soon as this changes the economy is going to start filling up with nutcases and crackpots claiming to be as good at whatever as the serious people.
you can apply this concept to any field where results aren't quite measurable and resources aren't scarce.
example: religion, cults and esoterics.
too religious/spritual?
2nd example: how about the qualitity of programming in closed source projects, eh?
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
As always with new technology threatening old business models expect the formation of Macroscale Manufacturers Association of America. They will furiously fight against communist nanotechnology allowing people to make unauthorised devices etc.
rrw
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Rush right over and learn about automation reducing costs and demand for labor. What insights! As for nanotechnology, DeLong seems to offer nothing more useful than a shrug.
If we want to foresee what might happen when the effortless duplication of matter becomes ubiquitous, why not look at a similar situation right now? With computers we can infinitely, and at pretty much no cost, reproduce "things", perhaps in a similar manner to what we might be able to do with real things in a few decades. I imagine we might have much the same problems once we are able to duplicate matter as effortlessly as we copy a file: the vast majority wanting the freedom to copy what they want, and the rich minority fighting to hold on to the power they have.
At first glance I read "Economic Analysis of the Nanotech Failure". I'm not sure if it was trying to say Nanotech is going nowhere, or that the grey goop effect will make pollution look like a spot on one's trousers by comparison.
For my part, I'm not really thrilled by Nanotechnology. It's like being thrilled by quantumn mechanics. Sure it's neat, but unless you are a researcher it's not going to be used in anything you buy, build, or are likely to use. Oooo, it will make already small computer chips smaller. Whoopie. The size of a computing device is currently limited by the size of the battery, power supply, or human interface device.
As far as medical uses, the nanotechnology itself is useless without some way of coordinating the activity of millions of simple robots. That technology isn't nanotechnology. I call the ability to harness millions of independent units "Taonology", and it's first application will be social engineering.
(Checking time-traveler's guide to 2003 to make sure it's been invented.) Scratch that. But when it happens, act surprised.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
..addressed in the article:
20th century, gaps shrank, then widened again in 21st..
That is simply because of globalization, not nanotech or other things. We have now integrated first world economies with third world ones, so the result, is an economy somewhere in the middle.
Skilled people get paid (comparatively) far more than those without skills, so we get something between the US of the 1960s and the China of today, disparity wise, which is what has happened now.
Eventually (probably after we are all retired), when the 3rd world catches up with the first world, low level laborers wages will then push up, bands will narrow just as they did in the 20th century in the USA before the US economy got integrated with everything else like it has the last few years.
Then the problem will go away. But then that will be in 50..75 years, so for this generation, whether we are factory workers or IT programmers, yes we are fS&cked. Our grandchildren though, should be OK..
they don't need to be the best when it comes to manufacturing, since we today already have enough resources to permit waste.
You obviously don't work in manufacturing. Waste is relative. You may theoretically be able to 'waste' 20% of something (number for the sake of argument), but if your competition is only wasting 5%, he's going to drive you out of business. Now you don't have the opportunity to waste.
(Capitalism promotes unheard of levels of efficiency. The Native Americans, frequently cited for using "the whole buffalo" vs. the wastage of the settlers, have nothing on modern capitalist societies. But this is a sidenote.)
As for the rest of your post, it's nearly incoherent. "Quality of programming" does more to disprove your point; in commercial programming where ideas are scarce, ideas aren't evaluated at all. In Open Source where the ideas are abundent, the better idea eventually wins. Only in the society without scarcity does the better idea ewer[sic] win.
Unfortunately, yes. There are a few sectors of the economy that cannot be eliminated by getting rid of the need for specialized manufacturing plants:
1) Energy and raw materials production
2) Services, Including:
a) Legal
b) Education
c) Sanitation
d) Entertainment & Comfort
e) Real Estate & Property
3) Intellectual property-driven businesses
This is not an all-inclusive list. Manufacturing and (theoretically) agriculture could be gotten rid of, but in both cases the current trend in strengthening IP indicates that in the future we will almost certainly have to license designs for use. Unless care is taken to make sure that IP enters the public domain, IP will become the new real estate -- in a serf/fiefdom sort of way. All common goods will require licensing of IP which will increasingly be held by certain wealthy families or ever-living corporations. Economic progress may permanently be tilted towards a have and have-not class divide. We'll see. It could turn out for the best, but the current trend in the wake of the internet for the law to chain-down its potential to freely distribute IP indicates that it probably won't.
Other technologies may make some of the above-listed sectors of the economy obsolete. Severe advances in artificial intelligence could eliminate all of the above-listed services except physical waste disposal, and future IP could be created by advanced AI servitors, leaving only energy and raw material production as viable economic bottlenecks. Advanced AI is more likely to render money obsolete by rendering nearly 90% of our current jobs irrelevant.
Unfortunately, this future "utopia" makes the vast majority of humanity redundant and useless. Only the owners of energy, materials, and IP-generating companies and people capable of accomplishing the few intellectual tasks that AIs cannot will be of any economic value in this future where anything can be manufactured at a whim and machines handle all drudgework. Uneducated, blue-collar workers could be made obsolete, which would utterly destroy the economy as we know it. Those intellectual and economic "have-nots" will be left with nothing worthwhile with which to earn a living.
There would be no more janitors, no more people in retail, no more farmers, and no more mailmen. There would be no more gas station attendants, no more hotel clerks, no more parking lot attendants, and no more real estate agents. With sufficiently advanced technology, there would be no more programmers, no more musicians, no more lawyers, no more surgeons, nor even any human robot repairmen.
If humanity as we know it is still alive, this "Utopia" will have to result in one of two things -- a Star Trek-like, socialist, pampered, moneyless world where people don't have to work to live the easy life or a brutal revolution and new Luddite dark age if those with power and wealth do not wish to move away from the capitalist system which has served us so well at this point. Not everyone can be a PhD. Not everyone can be a rich business owner by the time the shift comes (which I estimate at current rates to be possible within 20-40 years of the invention of true AI).
I think that the latter scenario is far more likely than the former. The Unskilled Masses will not be forced into homeless, jobless poverty without a struggle, and the Wealthy Elite will not give up their advantages without a struggle. Nanotech and AI are the seeds of a revolution, and if they don't wipe out humanity purely by their misuse, then we will have to find a way to surive our own obsolescene.
But I digress...
Humanity will need money for a while yet. Nanotech won't end that on its own. AI might, but nanotech will not. There are still too many things for humans to do for a living.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Money will not disappear. Assuming that we could build anything, there are still things that keep everything from becoming free. First, all these items probably will be generated from a design that will have to engineered. The new model cars or game consoles will have to be designed and engineered. The pattern fed into a computer and then created. Such pattens will be copyrighted and trademarked. No doubt, there will be similar IP issues as there are today with downloading and conterfiters. Even if items could be replicated from an original without hurting the original lile in dowloading, it will take a decent amount of energy. If you make a banana, that banana will have nutritional value that will be stored energy. that energy has to come from somewhere and it will probably cost soemthign and that money will probalby go back to the the peopel who control the energy corporations. probably the same people who own the oil companies today. Even if there is near limitless energy, unlike downloading today, you still need raw materials. you can't make a set of headphones with gold plated contacts without the gold. Even materials such as copper, aluminium or steel have some scarcity and intrinsic value. I would not doubt if manufacturers started using rare earth elements in their cars and consumer goods just so such items could not be copied directly, a sort of futuristic copy protection. Even given that such technology is possible, it's not for sure that such technology wold be economicaly viable. It may take less manpower and energy to make things the old fashioned way than to use nanotech. A banana tree is already a nanotech machine and we simply might not be able to do it cheaper with a swarm of nanobots. theoretically, we could come up with a Ferrari seed that would grow a Ferrari but that assumes that the proper elements are present in the proper form to be turned into a car. Getting those elements into proper form may be a major issue itself, and by time nanotech has advanced that far, there will probably be other technologies and issues shaping the world more.
How do you reconcile this with the rest of the scarcity-based economy? When the producers of replicable content still need limited resources, problems emerge and the only solution is inelegant legislation that is ultimately unenforceable.
I think we can just now see the end of profit on the horizon. It will probably not arrive in our lifetimes. Still, technology does not seem to be opening any more markets -- it's making it easier for us to spend less money. Low-tech industries will probably prosper as material goods value relative to IP increases.
Perhaps the arrival of nanotech and free energy could rebalance this. I think we may see a reemergence of the middle class in the meantime, as manufacturing becomes much more valuable.
How is this post "Flamebait?" Just curious. I know baseless Microsoft bashing is silly and intellectually lazy (considering the last Microsoft breach was 2000 of October in light of GNOME, GNU, Debian, FSF, and Gentoo's little fiascos), but the rest of the post was well-written.
Karma Bonus unchecked accordingly.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Wow. This guy's blog was the first mentioned in a Wallstreet Journal article today. This blog and several others were mentioned.
....
My comment is...
How is analysing nanotechnology's economic consequences any different than what miniaturization has done over the past 30 years.
-----
The really funny thing to me is that these economists seem to think there is a problem to be solved. It's as if they believe their job is to solve the problem: "How do we assure equality with all the changes going on"?
Really man, this isn't a problem. The solution to that problem is simple... Freedom.
I have two basic theories that stand up way better:
1. You take an education, it doesn't come to you for free.
2. Education is everything.
3. ?
4. Profit
A hundred years ago, if you were poor (on average), you were hungry, had no indoor plumbing (never mind electricity), and maybe owned a horse. Today, if you are poor (on average), you have a car, air conditioning, electricity, indoor plumbing, television, and you are overweight. I'm not trying to insult anyone, but that's the health statistic.
My insight about the economics of nanotechnology is that it could create an incredible concentration of wealth, while at the same time defining poor so stratospherically high (owning only two Ferraris rather than twenty because you have no place to put them) that it becomes irrelevant.
Other important points: (note, value != price)
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
will have to become far more important if people are to hold onto any profit margin, surely. If I can "read out" the program to create "the crown jewels", or download it from the net, and replicate it down to the atomic level - what's the difference...
That's the whole problem. Just like when the Lord/Surf system became irrelavent during the industrial revolution - instead of giving it up, people tried to force it. It was a major force behind the civil war in the US and two world wars.
In the US one would have thought that mechanized machines would reduce the need for slavery ... ofer a way out. But instead they did just the opposite, expanded their plantations to be 100 times larger because their slaves could do 100 times more with machines like the cottongin. That was their idea of the industrial revolution.
We have a similar problem with copyrights today. Heck, the burden required by them might have been bearable 20 years ago when the biggest issues were cassette tapes and xerox machines, but now they want to choke off half the economey and all the internet in the name of copyrights. Like the plantation masters during the industrial revolution, their idea of the information age is warped. Copyrights are gonna half to go.
In the nano age, patents are just gonna half to go too. The only question is will they go the hard way or the easy way. God help us.
When you go to the Gap and buy a sweater, what are you paying for?
- Raw materials. Cotton, lycra, wool. These have to be harvested/mined/synthesized.
- Manufacturing. Conversion of raw materials into a finished product.
- Infrastructure. Transportation, retail outlets, corporate administration.
- Design. Somebody has to have an idea, and sketch out a way of producing a sweater from it.
- Energy. This is implicit in all the other components.
Nanotech would eliminate item #2 completely. With "replicator"-style devices at first in every retail outlet, and eventually in every home, the manufacturing industry disappears completely. Need to build cars? Take a nano-construction device to the location of your retail outlet, let it build a large enough copy of itself to build cars in, and start building cars.Nanotech would reduce, though not eliminate, item #3. Administration is still necessary, but transportation infrastructure goes away. You don't need FedEx when ThinkGeek just sends you the "pattern" for the newest LED-encrusted timewaster.
Raw materials is another industry which is eliminated by nanotech. The only inputs you need are seawater and air, and the products output are atoms of various types. You don't need to buy cotton for a sweater when carbon nanotubes are simpler to build, lighter, and stronger.
Energy could be produced by several Manhattan-sized solar platforms in orbit. Again, all you need to do is send up some nano-bots and rocks, and the job is done.
What's left for humans to do? It could be argued (ala Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age) that the only thing that the machines can't do is think, so human thought becomes a scarce, and therefore pricable, property. Corporate administration, engineering, politics.
Hamster
Does this guy by any chance write speeches for politicians for a living? His entire diatribe can be summed up in about five sentences. And even those provide no new insights. He merely pedantically states what is common knowledge (when a new technology comes out there's a labour realignment -- DUH).
I like your post, and tend to agree with most of it, but about that "Better Idea eventually Wins" part, until BSD users all agree on VI vrs. EMACs seems to be one very long "eventually"
Who is John Cabal?
i just get annoyed by posts which
a) have absolutely no content and are completely unfunded
So anti-slash now provides funding for trolls? That is so cool. And by cool I mean totally sweet.
Did anybody else read that as
"on the erotic implications of Nanotechnology"
Maybe this is a sign I need to stop looking to technology to satisfy my sexual needs.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Ever wonder where your flying car is? Imagine the scale of destruction caused by current traffic in a 3D airspace. People smart enough to see the solution, will also see the impact of their contribution (pun intended). This is especially true for potentially dangerous technologies like nano-assemblers. As paranoid and critical some people can become, others are just as clever and creative. No matter how difficult the technology seems to build (see computer design in the 1970's), the demand will be met eventually. ;)
;) ;?)
Economics is the science of allocating the most efficient use of resources to obtain the maximum satisfaction of the consumer. The system has never led to a fair distribution method. Unfortunately, the free market system is the best system people have had so far. The idea of resource control and enforcement is not new though:
In the beginning: People with spears and horses ruled the land.
(and there were whores, soldiers, and slaves)
In roman times: People with swords and ships ruled the trade routes.
(and there were whores, soldiers, and slaves)
In recent times: People with canons and sailing ships ruled the oceans.
(and there were whores, soldiers, and slaves)
Today? People with nukes and airplanes rule policy.
and there are desperate poor people without economic or political influence in democracy. The ideal classless society still has classes?
See the pattern yet? Did the slaves know they were slaves? Did they change things? =)
Will philanthropy outweigh the ailing education system and demand deficient labor? Never, educated people are harder to sell cigarettes and political ideals, but not impossible
Are we that much different? No.
Do you live a better quality of life than your parents did? Statistically speaking, probably not.
Have we evolved our ethics along with technology? No. See handgun conflict resolution.
Does a PHD make someone morally agreeable? No. See the H-bomb
What are the philosophical differences between educated people and intelligent people? None, they are people with differing perspectives of equal quality.
On an aggregate scale people lie, cheat, and steal. It's in our nature. And it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
Will you get assistance building such devices? Hmmmmmmm. =)
Unlikely, the design will most likely be discovered by:
1.) dumb luck. (by a moron)
2.) Being stolen or sold. (by a moron)
cheers
The President signing the National NanoTech Bill
will create thousands of new Companies and tens
of thousands of new Jobs in this Future $ 1
trillion dollar fledgling industry.
We humans, for some strange reason, seem to think that if it is complex, then it must come from complex processes. Nanotechnology is no exception.
We seem to think that in order to make a nanoassembler, it must be some complex assemblage akin to an atomic level robot with AI intelligence or something (at the very least, a rod processing computer), when so much staring at us in the face tells us that such things simply aren't so.
Many of you may roll your eyes, but I honestly believe that Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" will prove to be a pivotal book in the history of mankind. To the naysayers who cry "plagerism", I respond with "Read the damn book!" - if you had, you would realize that it seems like every other page the author is saying something about those which came before him: the author is in wonderment at the work done prior to his, and why the pieces weren't put together until he gathered it all up and tried it out.
In essence, the book boils down to a theory that is basically saying that all of the universe (matter, processes, life - everything) can be reduced down to a simple one dimensional cellular automata ruleset of 5 or 6 rules - that complexity arises from simple algorithms.
I believe that the fundamentals of this theory hold the keys to many of the "hard problems" we humans have been trying to implement. I believe a combination of NKS, network theory (as described in up-to-date detail in Albert- Laszlo Barabasi's book "Linked"), and emergence/complexity theory could help to solve many of the problems in nanotechnolgy and artificial intelligence we have been struggling with for so long.
This is the next step - figuring out how these three things define our world: in a way, it is a GUT for almost everything, the problem domain it could be applied to is vast. It won't be easy, but it is something that definitely needs more exploring and explorers.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The 19th century expansion of the British Empire's industrial capacity required the forcible opening of Asian and South American markets through military means. Within a couple of generations, Britain had acquired an Empire and was using social engineering, famines, and mass-scaled drug addicted coercion to "rationalize" foreign markets - some into producers, others consumers, others excluded through tariffs and unequal bilateral treaties.
This was the essence of "free trade" - new markets had to be seized for the output of the British factories. This was the eninger that drove Imperialism.
DeLong mention some of the disruption caused to weavers and spinners, but he takes an a priori classic laissez faire position that such transformation was somehow inevitable and happened as a natural consequence of technological proicesses. On the contrary, it was both produced and magnified by incredibly destructive military processes and sociological famine engineering. Tens of millions of people were effectively sacrificed on the altar of "free trade". China, Brazil, and India were reduced from a pre-eminent members of the global economy to balkanized, marginal shells full of starving, impoverished masses and their level of technological and social development reduced to pre-17th Century levels. The "Third World" was invented.
I have no doubt that these new nano technological producers, should they emerge, will similarly use unilateral and multilateral pressures and organizations to forcible eradicate nativist and local resistance to their products and trade.
The interested reader is referred to Mike Davis' impressive Late Victorian Holocausts for further information.
Da Blog
There is lots of talk on the Street about nanotechnology, but are there any legitimate, publicly traded companies working on nanotechnology?
I know of not one good one. Some throw out the word, but only to pad their press releases.
Witold
witold.org
In reading this sort of article it always amazes me how little the value of energy is understood by most americans. Lines like, "the extraordinary educational effort which gave America such a huge edge over other advanced industrial economies in the twentieth century." demonstrate my point. America did not gain an edge by being more educated. We are not by any stretch of the imagination more educated on average than most other industrialized nations. We gained our edge by pioneering the energy to fuel the industrial machines that we use today. The same petroleum is what allows us to research chemistry and nanotech at such a fast pace. These amazing chemicals are all derived from oil in some way or another.
Most importantly what this paper fails to discuss is the economic implications of cheap energy that nanotech seems to promise. After all, in one single day the equivalent of all the energy stored in petroleum on earth hits the surface of this planet in the form of sunlight. Nanotech doesen't threaten workers it threatens the very concept of work.
If we're looking for clues to the education of the future nanotech-wizards, perhaps we should ask where present-day whiz kids in another recent technology, the internet, come from. Is it their amazingly effective schooling? Not very likely - most schools, public or private, are well behind the curve when it comes to teaching kids how to be a computer whiz. The education of a software developer, a web designer, a game programmer, or other varieties of computer whiz kids sometimes includes formal classes, but it usually includes long periods of hobbyist activity, of self-teaching, of learning from other experts, of on-the-job-training. Very little effective training of this sort takes place as part of the official K-12 syllabi. Hence, to train nanotech wizards, we might look to a similar model - freeform, interactive, student-driven. Just a thought.
Your going to need energy and mass to make thing still and those are going to cost something. Only some materials are going to be suitable for building things, those materials will have some sort of value because there IS a limited amount of them. Nantech manufacturing will still require energy which is not out there in limitless forms to use. Until the energy and material barriers are broken nanotech isn't going to overrun everything.
With little twisted springs. Think about it.
Here
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
Here
Wow! what a compelling ranting between Cowards!
At least I, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37rd and greatest president this country ever had is willing to stand up to my statements.
Bush is a moron, but politically pointless, mostly a distraction.
It is mostly Dick who is running the show.
And all you ACs are a bunch of losers!
Why don't you move to Canada?
We are getting ready to invade.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
check out "Exit Strategy" and the "Ecstasy Club" by Douglas Rushkoff.
Both of these books had me turning pages until the end. Really good stuff and multiple settings besides the Magic Kingdom (no offense EFF guy).