From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Nov 09 2002 - 23:32:18 MST
Robert Bradbury made a number of points, all very good.
"I too once thought that I should have my own macro-assembler and
heaven help anyone who gets in the way of my getting one. The problem
with that is that there are a lot of people out there that I do not trust
with the same "right".
Given your previous points (about wealth distribution), it isn't
the "assembler" that people need to have -- its inexpensive access
to the products produced by the assembler they need to have. My
current position is that I would prefer to see (a) either goods distributed
from assemblers controlled by government institutions; or (b) assemblers
designed in such ways that they cannot be disassembled and will only
assemble "certified" designs."
Avatar: I personally prefer the latter (b), more than (a), although both
will probably be needed. However, a secondary and very important thing is
that no citizen (even the worst "criminal") should be excluded from a
reasonable slab of the outcome (i.e. unfair resource denial)[I prefer to
institute protective shielding generally rather than continue with notions
of "punishment"], they should be allowed free design input and no dichotomy
should be allowed to develope for currently 'wealthy' people, i.e. resource
distribution should be on principles such as project need and demonstrated
(democratic) support votes, not wealth "inherited" in the wholly mortal era
and developed through pre-nanotech semi-automated monetary systems.
I wrote previously: Think about this: the software for most goods (i.e.
information which can be loaded into an assembler) we use will be all
finished very very quickly.
Robert: "You are naive if you think that. A single nanobot design has
more than 1000 times as many atoms in it as there are parts in a 767.
While space-filling designs will probably be relatively simple (e.g.
car frames). But sophisticated designs like nanobots will take a significant
amount of work by large engineering teams."
Okay, I was referring to simple macrolevel objects like a cellulose based
table or a twentieth century mountain bike. Macrobots along the lines of
current robotics should be relatively simple too. Macrobots constructed of
nanobots and mixed systems are correctly as you say more difficult as would
anything involving molecular programming/"intelligence".
You are right in saying it may take a while to tweak out the entire system -
I'd guess 350 years or so. But that is an instant compared to the future.
The reality is that many things and particular levels may remain stable for
billions of years, not just millions. Which kinda makes sense.
Vis a vis computer slowdown, I think things like quantum computing will make
a big difference. I guess we find out soon enough, since everyone from
Drexler to Tipler have made assumptions and predictions about computers
which feature the years 2003, 2005, 2010 etc. quite heavily.
Towards Ascension!
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