From: Zeb Haradon (zharadon@inconnect.com)
Date: Tue Jan 18 2000 - 08:54:19 MST
-----Original Message-----
From: john grigg <starman125@hotmail.com>
To: extropians-digest@extropy.org <extropians-digest@extropy.org>
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2000 1:39 AM
Subject: will the government allow the public direct access to nanotech??
>To have a world of mature nanotech with nanoassemblers in every home is a
>dream of mine. But I wonder if the government would allow the public
direct
>access to nano assemblers? In the cause of preventing terrorism as well as
>accidents I could see the governments of the world only allowing direct
>access to nano to government and corporate entities. The ulterior motive
>would be to maintain their strong control over society.
>
>Or would capitalism and corporate greed be the reason for a nanoassembler
in
>every home? And even if so, would these be close to the "anything boxes"
>we hope for? I would like to think that in the world we are brought back
>into (cryonic reanimation) there will be home models that can build houses
>and vehicles.
>
>Any thoughts?
>
>
>sincerely,
>
>John Grigg
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
The government will absolutely not allow the public access to nanotech,
biotech, or any matter controlling technology. I thought of bringing this up
in the drug thread.. there's work being done right now in geneticly
engineering goats to produce valuable drugs in their milk. If this
technology dropped to the price where anyone could do it for a few thousand
dollars, it wouldn't be long before someone caught on to the idea of
engineering goats to produce morphine in their milk as well, or other
variations on this theme (I've had this idea for a while, in the form of
engineering bees so that rather then stinger venom, they produce THC,
morphine, cocaine, or whatever, which they inject into someone upon
stinging). From what I understand, this would be technically possible today,
by inserting the proper genes from the poppy, the coca plant, or the
marijuana plant into the proper place in the bee genome.
Nanotech would make drug access even easier. I think a good early nanotech
product would be a mug which contains nanotech, and a port to connect to the
internet. You plug it in, download instructions for making various drinks,
fill the cup with water, and it sucks the rest of the ingredients out of the
air to make you a cup of whatever you want. It wouldn't be long before
people came up with instructions for making various drugs, or other illegal
items.
The solution, I hope but doubt, is for people to break free of the mindset
that other people have to let them do things. If everyone (or a very high
percentage of the population) looked upon government seizure of their
property (legal or illegal) just as they looked upon any other thug doing
the same thing, we wouldn't have the farce of government that we do.
I think, and hope, that the solution will actually come about through space
colonization. The first people to live on mars or the moon (after a possible
small government scientific presence) will probably be extropian-minded. Up
there, it won't much matter what an earthly government allows or doesn't
allow. I forsee a possible situation where the most intelligent people leave
earth, and governments set up a legislative "berlin wall" to keep them
there, while getting more and more restrictive of personal liberty. Like its
namesake, it will eventually be ripped down, but only after a long dark
period.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon
My personal website:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix/
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
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