From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Aug 16 2001 - 12:58:12 MDT
I had said, "it sounds like the last gasps of those who don't
want to admit that once we know how to fly, the blood of
billions will be on our hands for not doing it sooner,"
citing agreement with Robin.
Hal commented:
> [Note, I don't think this is an accurate paraphrase of Robin's posting.]
You may be right Hal, its my interpretation of Robin's
conclusion and contents of the articles. I'm sitting here
wrestling with about 20 pages that in my mind shows a very
clear path (whether others will see it will be interesting)
so for me reading the Scientific American articles
feels like looking in a rear view mirror -- you can
see where you just came from. All I can see in
my rear view mirror is a couple of people leaning
against a bus asserting that it isn't going to accelerate
to catch up with me.
The interesting thing I'm concluding is that, at least on
the path I envision, computing power limitations do limit
the rate you can ramp nanotechnology development. So,
while we might have accelerated it somewhat, I don't
think you could have begun to tackle the problem
back in '86 or even '81 when Eric first started saying
"this is doable". So when the final accounting gets
done, it may not be the "blood of billions" but merely
the "blood of tens-to-hundreds of millions" we will
have to explain.
Robin, sorry if I misrepresented your comment.
Robert
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