From: The Low Golden Willow (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 26 1997 - 11:28:28 MDT
On Aug 26, 12:25pm, "Nicholas Bostrom" wrote:
} Anders Sandberg writes:
}> isotope it was). There is around 2 grams uranium / tonne in the crust of the
} > earth, of which 0.72% is U235, so to get 10 kg you need to process around
} > 7000 tonnes of crust. I'm not sure how much energy is required to reduce
} > the UO2 to pure U, but it is a noticeable amount (are there a chemist
} Even so, the nanites could cover continents with construction sites
} so you couldn't bomd them all out. Dynamite should be much easier and
} serve just as well.
What the hell are these nanites living on?! Their very life requires
energy, not to mention, as Anders noted, the cost of trying to
concentrate extremely diffuse and oxygen-bonded uranium. Solar
collection will take lots of area, be noticeable, and be exposed. Shade
it, dust it, bomb it. Oh, not to mention the probable heat emissions
from all this activity. We're talking very unstealthy things here.
And they're not living off of rock. It's hard to get lower energy
states than found in a lot of rock without using nuclear processes.
That's why aluminum mining is so expensive.
} Yes, if it is the first nanite infection, there would be no
} competition to compete with! (Biological organisms compete in a lower
} division.)
I challenge this "lower division" assumption. Antibodies can't gum up
the works of nanites; phagocytic cells can't enclose and dissolve them?
Hydrogren peroxide and free radicals are popular weapons. Oxidizing
chemicals vs. small pieces of pure carbon; I bet on the white blood cell.
Remember, life is nanotechnology. The design is obscure and it's all
wet. Defensively, the latter is not necessarily a disadvantage.
} > > It is easier to destroy than create!
Yes. So, is it easier to create nanites in a hostile environment, or
destroy them?
And is the energy state of diamondoid material higher than that of
organic material? Probably, in which case this gray goo plague needs
constant input or can only grow by processing lots of material -- which
means that it grows very slowly.
} Well, if the organism is in a free environment, then the plague would
} attack all parts of the skin simultaneously. The whole skin would
} thus have to be shed. The plague would immediately attack again, and
Wait, diamond nanites are attacking diamond skin? If there's so much
energy for the plague to live on, obviously your outer defense shouldn't
be a hard shell, it should be a friendly counter-plague, like the
friendly flora living on our mucous membranes.
} soon the organism would run out of resources. Alternatively, the
} plague could build explosives and blast your organism. So it seems
Damn complex plague, building explosives in a coordinated manner. You
sure it doesn't have internal communiation lines that can be attacked?
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
"The analysis of strategic behavior is an extraordinarily difficult
problem. John von Neumann, arguably one of the smartest men of this
century, created a whole new branch of mathematics in the process of
failing to solve it." -- DDFR, _Hidden Order_
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