Re: Nanotech promotion and post-government feasibility

Joseph Sterlynne (vxs@mailandnews.com)
Mon, 6 Sep 1999 14:22:42 -0600

> Jeff Davis <jdavis@socketscience.com>
>> Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)

>> It seems the role of government gets very small.

>If nanotech is globally ubiquitous in the home consumer version (as
>contrasted with the, in my view unlikely, weapons-capable version), so that
>everyone makes their own power, food, clothing, housing, clean water, etc,
>then why does anyone go to work?

This is an old question but: why would you assume that the people who currently wield a certain amount of power (due to wealth, military force, political position, et cetera) will simply allow something like nanotech to end up as such a ubiquitous, reliable, and useful consumer device? Nanotech is not exactly electricity, despite the power of the latter.

We might ask, though, if it would matter if those individuals have their own matter compilers. But we end up back at the assumption that nanotech will offer us more than what has been assumed here, more than household matter compilers. Someone a while back remarked at the number of corporate CEOs in fiction who upload. We've been wondering how the public will react to transhumanist ideas and new technology. We have to make sure that we will be able to react.

>Nanotech abundance is the culmination of everything mankind has worked for
>since the first proto-human hefted a rock. Once the word gets out to the
>huddled masses yearning to breathe free, its achievement is unstoppable.

Unless we actively make the changes humans will just continue hefting those rocks against each other, even if they are diamonds.