Damien Broderick <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au> Wrote:
>Brutally: who pays,
The money to develop Nanotechnology will come from those who expect to
make even more money by doing so. Having said that keep in mind that what
people really want to do is change the world more than the other fellow, after a
certain point money is just a way of keeping score. I wouldn't worry about people
not investing, call it money or call it something else, success in Nanotechnology
will give you a very high score.
On the moral question there are only two possibilities where money to help the
sick and the poor could come from:
1) From those forced to pay.
2) From those who want to pay.
I'm a fan on the second possibility.
>and why?
They'd pay for the same reason people already give hundreds of billions of
dollars to charities and for tips, because they think it's the right thing to do.
If things become even more prosperous I see no reason this sort of thing
won't increase. Of course, if Eliezer turns out to be correct and the
Singularity happens within the lifetime of his grandparents then this entire
question is moot. Humans debating post Spike social problems is a little
like expecting an ancient Neanderthal to discover and solve the Y2K
computer bug.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:02:09 MDT