From: YakWaxx@aol.com
Date: Wed Sep 03 1997 - 16:11:38 MDT
Nicholas Bostrom <bostrom@mail.ndirect.co.uk> wrote:
> 1. Provided that technological research continues, nanotechnology will
> eventually be developed.
I would cross my fingers if luck wasn't irrational.. what the hell, I'll do
it anyway.
> 2. An immune system wouldn't work unless it was global.
>
> 3. In the absence of a global immune system, if everybody could make
> their own nanotech machines then all life on earth would soon become
> extinct.
Everyone making their own nanotech machines *is* the global (using global in
terms of distributed) immune system. Anything else would be a central immune
system, and we don't want that, do we?
> 4. In the absence of ethical motives, the benefits would outweigh the
> costs for a nanotech power that chose to eliminate the competition or
> prevent it from arising, provided it had the ability to do so.
Competition is of paramount importance to progress. It's likely that the
people making the most out of nanotech won't be the same people who invented
it - scientists aren't very good at selling things (and I don't care how
great it is.. if it doesn't have a brand name it's history).
--Wax
I have a quantum computer, it only works when consciously observed.
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