Re: Nuke Weapon Mishaps--was Bill Joy on the CBS evening news

From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Sun Jan 07 2001 - 06:05:59 MST


John Marlow wrote:
>
> Well to begin with, you specify nannites which work
> only in vacuum. Living "products" we might wish to

1) it's nanites, not nannites, if you want to use the vernacular
2) vacuum starts about 100 km over your head, and it doesn't stop
   for a great long while. Infecting the solar system with
   an artificial lifeform which thrives in vacuum doesn't look
   like a very smart thing to do. "vacuum flowers" this is not.

> construct cannot survive in a vacuum. Likewise, it
> would be difficult to constrct, say, skyscrapers in a
> vacuum.
>
> And if the past is any indication, the bulk of the
> funding will be for weapons research--and their goal
> is, as you acknowledge, "wild" disassemblers.

Actually, making dust-grain sized machines which selectively
kill people (ingestion/inhalation, looking for primate-specific
immune features, then engaging the kill program) would be much
safer and easier.



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