From: hal@finney.org
Date: Fri Aug 27 1999 - 10:29:53 MDT
Robert Bradbury writes, quoting Technotranscendence:
> > And nanotech, itself, will not abolish scarcity.
>
> To assert this you have to qualify it.
>
> Nantechnology as currently envisioned *will* ABOLISH scarcity
> related to the *survival* of all exiting individuals on the
> planet (and most likely all future existing individuals).
> Only if the individuals get sucked into believing that
> they should "control everything" (or mostly everything)
> will they be in a condition of scarcity. The will not
> be in scarcity with regard to their survival, they will
> be in scarcity with regard to the fantasies their imagination
> has created for them.
But just yesterday Robert suggested that it would take five years to
build a mansion using nanotech. That makes mansions sound pretty scarce
to me. I don't need to "control everything" to want my house built
faster than that! Bill Gates didn't have to wait five years to get his
house built today (once construction started), and he didn't even have
nanotech.
Eugene pointed out that Robert's figures were worst-case, assuming that
the mansion was built out of solid sapphire, perhaps an unnecessarily
elegant building material. He suggested that using more conventional
materials (plastics? with similar qualities to wood, etc.) would be
perfectly adequate for a beautiful home every bit as nice as Gates'.
BTW, if you are wondering why Robert picked sapphire rather than diamond,
look at http://www.webelements.com/webelements/properties/text/image-intensity/abund-crust-at.html,
which shows that the most numerous elements in the crust are oxygen (over
half the atoms are oxygen), silicon, aluminum, magnesium, sodium, hydrogen,
calcium, and iron. Sapphire is made of aluminum plus oxygen so it should
use easy-to-find atoms.
I agree with Eugene that I don't need to make my house out of a single
crystal of sapphire; but what I do want is to make it out of machinery.
I want the walls to be filled with little clockwork mechanisms, conduits,
motors, sensors, and other active nanotech devices. I want to be
able to unlock my doorway and slide it to another spot. I want to
pull a new wall down from the ceiling and move another wall a few feet
farther in. I want to attach a sink and faucet to the wall and have
the pipes automatically connect. I want every surface on the house to
be a mediatron, able to change colors at command or turn any piece of
wall into a TV screen or videophone.
All this means that we are back to Robert's construction method, full
nanotech for every piece of the house. Throwing a few polymers together
isn't going to cut it. This means we are only able to construct 10 kg
per hour and it might take years to get our house built.
That sounds like a recipe for scarcity to me. If I can buy additional
resources, whether carbon atoms, or solar electricity, or energetic
chemical feedstocks, or even heat-pollution rights (if that becomes
an issue), then I can build my house faster. Some people are more
patient than others, willing to lend while others want to borrow.
Some people will be better situated than others, with more sunlight or
access to seawater or perhaps they are sitting on a coal mine full of
easily-tapped carbon. There will be differences, too, in where people
want to live. Many people will prefer the breathtaking vistas of the
mountains or the seaside cliffs rather than the drab Kansas prairie.
It is mistaken to suppose that just because nanotech can easily provide
the basics for moderate material riches by today's standards, there
would be no more scarcity and no more reason for trade. Most people will
simply raise their standards. It is human nature; we judge ourselves not
so much by our absolute level of success, but by our relative success
compared to our neighbors. This is arguably a useful heuristic; it
automatically calibrates for the inherent difficulties of survival in
the local situation. If I am not doing as well as my neighbors, I can
probably improve my situation by trying something different, no matter
how well or poorly we are all doing.
It may even be possible to have a market in nanotech designs, *not*
open source, but custom designs by talented designers who have chosen
to sell their ideas rather than give them away. There has been a lot
of debate over whether this will be technically feasible, and I don't
know for sure how it will turn out, but I suspect that there will be
ways to achieve it. We've all seen what a great artist can do compared
to a mediocre one, and I could easily imagine that people would be
willing to pay to get access to designs by the top names in the world.
A post-nanotech, pre-singularity world, while providing great material
comforts, will not extinguish all the differences among people which
motivate them to engage in trade.
Hal
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