From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net> wrote,
> I presume that one of Zubrins frustrations with the 'nano-santa' premise
> is that it breeds an atmosphere of complacency, where anything hard to
> do now in space will be put off until the nanites can do it for us. Such
> an attitude can derail and end manned exploration once and for all, for
> starters. What this attitude will lead to in the future as well is for
> it to devolve from acceptance of using robot probes, to merely
> acceptance of remote observation by telescope, as people get more fat
> and happy on their couches.
I agree with this totally, Mike! I am often frustrated with the attitude
that we don't have to work for the future, that it will just happen. I also
disagree with the idea that energy and work will be free in the future, and
that we will have nanites doing all work for us. This argument has been
made for industrialization, electricity, atomic power, computers, etc.
All nanites will do is turn everybody into nanite designers who work all
week producing nanobot designs. We will have to assimilate whole planets
per day, or we lose our X-mas bonus. We will have to amass whole
solar-systems full of computonium just to be able to run the latest
entertainment software. We will not be compatible with everyone else on the
Universal Net, unless we upgrade our systems every 3.5 solar days. We
probably will work all our lives to get enough money to retire to that
self-budding baby-universe to escape the Heat Death of this rat-race
universe.
We already are "free" from work. I can live by 1800's standards off a
garden on my land (since I'm a veggie). I don't need to travel far, and can
walk around town. But I want a car, a satellite dish, Internet access,
travel capability around the U.S., telephones, a laptop, etc. As our
"freedom" grows, so does our wants. We just set our sights a little higher,
and spend all our resources toward the next level.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:35:23 MDT