From: altamira (altamira@ecpi.com)
Date: Tue Jul 11 2000 - 17:06:09 MDT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.com
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.com]On Behalf Of Paul Hughes
>
> Its quite possible the assembler won't be for sale, at least not to the
> general public. Large companies who can afford a 10-50 billion dollar
> price tag, may likely obtain licensing rights for its use, but that's a
> far cry from the average joe owning it. Basically the first company to
> develop the assembler, lets say Zyvex, has the potential to completely
> dominate the economy from that point forward.
>
> To be honest, I'd rather not have nanotechnology, then have it under the
> complete control of a corporation or two, but be unavailable to me
> except the goods produced by it. (And likely not the best ones possible,
> so to guarantee people having to make repeat purchases.)
The greatest danger I see isn't that one corporation might control the
method of production. After all, in a free economy, if the corporation
produced inferior products than are already available at the same or higher
prices, purchasers could go elsewhere.
My concern would be that the holder of the technology would use it to make
destructive devices of one sort or another that would result in the
subjugation of the rest of the planet. As I was writing this, I thought,
"Yeah, but why would someone want to do this?" But I answered my question
by remembering all the times this sort of thing has been done already. For
some people, the lust for power over other people seems to be the primary
motivator. The lust for power would seem to prevail in some individuals,
even if gaining the power means the destruction of the foundations of life
itself.
Bonnie
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