The Law of Disassembly

An anonymous reader writes "Smalltimes has a story by Douglas Mulhall, author of Our Molecular Future, which discusses molecular nanotechnology (MNT) disassembly, and argues for what he calls the 'Law of Disassembly,' that 'every MNT product must be disassemblable by at least one [of several possible methods].' The article ends with some good suggestions for raising awareness of this important issue. Gratuitous quote: This is disturbingly reminiscent of "nuclear power will give us clean limitless energy, and don't worry, we'll deal with the byproducts later because we'll have the tools by then.""

Comments

Inevitable Evolution of Explosive Growth

[G4from128k]

Absolutely any thing that can self-replicate will be subject to the laws of evolution. So if some supposedly self-limiting replicator has any variants that can replicate faster (and pass on that variation), then that variant will become more prevalent. With each succeeding faster variant comes the potential for run-away population growth (to the limit of available resources). And any variant that can consume alternative resources (having consumed the initial set of resources ) will also become more populous. The result is the gray goo disaster that people fear.

Attempts to build in self-limiting features (replication delay clocks, kill switches, error-correcting DNA ROMs, special only-replicates with a special nutrient, etc.) will only present an obstacle to evolution, not an insurmountable barrier. You can add 9s to the probablity that gray goo won't happen, but you can never get to 100% if self-replication is permitted.

That said, you could also create a balanced nano-organism ecosystem with both predators and prey and boost human/animal/plant immune system to fight off nanoorganism attacks. (There is a reason that bacteria have never taken over the world.)

Re:Clarify

[steveha]

Which is more dangerous: a few kilograms of nuclear waste, packed up in (for example) ceramic blocks; or thousands of kilograms of coal smoke, dispersed into the air we breathe? And by the way, how many people get hurt or killed mining coal (and let's be sure to count "black lung")? (People get hurt and killed mining uranium, too, but you don't need anywhere near as much for a power plant, compared with coal.)

Which is more dangerous: a few kilograms of nuclear waste, or a few kilograms of concentrated weird chemical byproducts from heavy industry?

It would be a good idea to really look at the whole cost/benefit analysis for nuclear power vs. other things we have that don't contain the word "nuclear".

steveha