Nano, Nano -- Not Mork but Nanotechnology

Sep 4 18:03 UTC 1998

Some think that Nanotechnology will save the world and help terraform 
Mars I have my doubts.  Anyone know?

response 2 of 25:

Sep 7 21:18 UTC 1998

Well, do we *have* nanotechnology, as defined (loosely)?  By this I mean the
actual little machines that can reproduce, etc.

response 4 of 25:

Sep 9 10:55 UTC 1998

Er, make that "don't".  Heh.  Sort of changes my response, doesn't it?

response 6 of 25:

Sep 27 19:57 UTC 1998

I don't either.   It's possible that such tech, if we had it, would make
terraforming Mars easier.  No plan for terraforming mars that I've seen
would be easy or fast.  All would take at least a hundred years, or so.

response 8 of 25:

Oct 5 19:18 UTC 1998

I doubt re-engineering your body would be fast or easy, or cheap, and so 
it would likely be a one-way street, if it happened at all.  Therefore, 
no one could come back from Mars.  That's not acceptible to execs of 
companies paying for these things, so Mars would get terraformed.

response 10 of 25:

Oct 7 02:45 UTC 1998

Re #8, #9:  We already know much of how a human body works, so if
anything I would expect the change back to "normal" (whatever that
will mean, in that world!) would be the easier and cheaper.  To live
on Mars you'd need adaptations to a 7-millibar CO2 atmosphere at
freezing temperatures.  Maybe oxygen storage in special organs, huge
photosynthetic wings, and blood and cytoplasm full of propylene glycol
could do it.  This would let you go and roam Mars like a native.  This
does not even begin to address some of the more radical claims of NT
advocates like Drexler, who believe that a machine with the full power
of a human brain could be built smaller than a cell.  You could have
the choice of roaming on foot or being part of a community of a billion
in a sapient lichen, all on a single rock.  Or any of other myriad
lifestyles that we would not today recognize as human.  Nanotechnology
would make them all possible, and you could expect some people to adopt
some pretty strange ones.  Californians are an existence proof. ;-)
 
Compared to a few thousand or million bodies, the investment in energy
and *time* to terraform an entire planet to near earth-normal conditions
(which is required for a standard humanoid to live in the open) is
immensely larger.  While terraforming Mars may become someone's hobby,
in a world of nanotechnology you'd expect quite a few people to take
the path of least resistance just to be there first.

response 12 of 25:

Oct 16 01:15 UTC 1998

I don't think that the trip "back" would pose any problem.
Even without nanotechnology, we are learning now to grow organs
from cultured tissue cells and an appropriate scaffolding; this
has already yielded functional replacement bladders (muscle and
epithelium) for dogs.  Replacing large amounts of the human body
with grown-to-order parts doesn't appear to require nanotech.
When you add the quantum leap in capability of nanotech, it seems
very unlikely that returning to one's original condition could
be as difficult as the original transformation plus the engineering
required to accomplish it.

response 14 of 25:

Apr 9 15:34 UTC 1999

> you killed the original at the exact 
> instance the 
> new one became sapient, you could claim it was 
> continuity, but I would 
> still argue it wasn't.

Interesting example is in Michael Swanwick's short story Ginungagap
(maybe misspelled, sorry, that's from memory). 

response 16 of 25:

Sep 27 03:07 UTC 1999

Hi everyone. About nonotechnology... Wel when it comes to any type of "brand
new" technology tehre is always a siginificanr group of people who always have
some "realistic" arguments against it.These people can not accept the simple
idea thet the manking is evoluting all the time and nothing can't stop
evolution. When it comes to nanotechnology - this is a way for fast progress.
Imagine nanoitechnological organisms floating in our blood and changing the
DNA of all the cells in a way that will provide uf with 200 years life, no
cancer, etc. People must not be afraid that they will loose there
"originality" for this originality is only a phase of mankind's evolution.
And mankind must evolute for otherwise it will extinkt of bore :). No,
serious.  Using new technologies to change our bodies is a good thing that
will allow us to explore if not the unevers then our own solare system.
Imagine a man on mars that does,t need anykind of life supporting systems.
If not more, this will at least solve the proble of too-much people on the
earth :).

response 18 of 25:

Sep 28 02:16 UTC 1999

#16 sort of reminds me of some early visions of nuclear technology -
electricity too cheap to meter, cancer cured, etc.  Limitations of the
technology, stupid human screw-ups that got people hurt and killed, 
potential malicious misuse, etc. came along pretty quick once the 
technology got out into the real world.

response 20 of 25:

Jan 29 00:57 UTC 2001

Ban you?  Considering that the last activity in this item was about 16
months ago, I think people would give you a medal instead.

I haven't been following the stuff going on with nanotechnology per se;
I've been watching the things that are related more to carbon chemistry
(Buckytubes etc.) and fun with self-assembling structures.  I saw something
about semi-conducting DNA the other day, which holds out the possibility
of transistors which are literally one molecule wide.  The problem for me
is that the field moves too fast to keep track of it.

response 22 of 25:

Jan 29 17:13 UTC 2001

While I doubt that nanotech is "capable of solving most of the problems we
already have" (which are mostly people problems), I have no doubt that it
will lead to marvelous devices. 

But I do not see why we need more people on earth - I think that is, in
fact, our most important problem, which is concerned with the consumption
of resources and the pollution of the earth. The idea that we can cram
more people into our homes is simply irrelevant - first, what kind of life
will that be? Then, it isn't just square footage that is the problem: it
will be food and water and sewage and polluting effluents.  Every
additional person is a *burden* on the ecosphere and our individual
livability. That we are already causing dangerous impacts on resources and
our environment is a good reason for starting to take steps to reduce
population, increase conservation of resources, and reduce waste
generation. 

Besides more marginally needful gadgets, what will be the benefits of
nanotechnology? The major one I can think of is medical instrumentation.
What else might be as useful?

response 24 of 25:

Aug 1 00:33 UTC 2001

(Trying to kick-start the conference?)

That *is* a problem, isn't it?

Someone once told me "If we're lucky, we'll get nanotechnology in
fifty years.  If we're unlucky, we'll get it in ten."  That was
around 1980; I think we're still relatively lucky.  We're going
to have time to develop our understanding of defenses and immune
systems, perhaps soon enough to limit the damage of the inevitable
mistakes and obvious malicious acts.  Before then the technology
will probably be good enough for cheap space travel, and humanity
may well have offshoots beyond the reach of terror weapons.  That
event would make it pointless to set one off; the likelihood goes
way down when you've only got accidents to deal with, not intent.

If not, well... Once, long ago, an invention got loose and it
crapped up the entire world with a corrosive, toxic substance.
It had a very deleterous effect on all life, but we've come to
handle it rather well.  What would we do without oxygen, anyway?