Nanotechnology

[Samildanach]

I have been reading a great deal about Nanotechnology in the past ten years and Im aware that the body (for example) is an example of nanotech. However I am in two minds about how big an impact it is going to have on our daily lives. Some say its a general purpose technology much like electricity and it will be having a massive impact within ten years time. Im just not sure exactly how this impact is going to occur...sure I can see the material science aspects and computing aspects but beyond that it gets quite hazy. Also, the general molecular assembler......fact or fiction?
I admit its a great theory and I would love for it to be able to occur but I do have doubts as to whether they can be implemented. If you look at cells for instance they do function more like molecular factories and it you take us as being the result it proves that self assembly works however....its slow.
Can we do FAST self assembly or is that not the point? Is the point it will be cheap and plentiful if we can but create the seeds or the factories?
what are your thoughts?

[Packratt]

It's hard to play 'science fiction writer' and predict exactly how far technology will progress when it's still in it's infancy. After all, many thought we would be floating around in flying cars by now and technology hasn't really brought us there, but few predicted we would be sitting here typing messages to each other on boxes.

Nanotechnology will impact our lives, but it's hard to determine to what degree that it will and that all depends on what directions we take down the nanotech road. There are definitely many caveats, the grey ooze of uncontrolled nanotech replicators spreading over the entire planet or the biowarfare nanotech that can engineer dissassemblers that would take you apart one atom at a time from the inside out.

Yet there are also many beneficial possibilities, from simple material improvements in the strength of the metal parts we create or by manufacturing advances that would make human labor all but a memory. (whether that is good or bad is also a matter of implementation, putting everyone out of work is not necessarily a good thing in and of itself as we see today with unemployment rates advancing due to productivity advances, in part).

Ultimately it is never the technology that you should fear, a crude wooden spear kills just the same as a nanotechnology virus. Wonder about those who would control technology, not the technology itself.

[Pooeypants]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Packratt,)

Ultimately it is never the technology that you should fear, a crude wooden spear kills just the same as a nanotechnology virus. Wonder about those who would control technology, not the technology itself.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
Not quite, most ppl are afraid that the nanobots will gain some kind of consciousness and decide they want us dead, I mean after all, we would be technically enslaving them.

[Plaything48]

What would they have to gain in killing us?

[Plaything48]

It's not hard to see the great potential of molecular engineering.

Start with cheap consumer goods. Nanotechnology will involve construction without traditional labour. This could dramatically reduce costs associated with manufacturing and make even luxury goods more widely available. Some have gone so far as to suggest that mature nanotechnology would radically alter economies and end the need for taxation.

Then there's the method of this manufacturing. Nanotechnology could allow material products to be reproduced as easily as informational products are today. We can send software from computer to computer today for practically no cost. Assemblers would need only software, atoms, energy and time to create goods. You could therefore simply download software necessary to produce a number of material items.

What about matter and energy? This brings us to nanotechnology's environmental benefits. Today's method of manufacturing is messy because we can't place atoms in a particular place. Instead, we work with many atoms using chemical reactions. This, however, produces byproducts that must be filtered out to get the purest form of the compounds we're looking for. What's filtered out is waste, and is often toxic.

Nanotechnology would be far cleaner. Not only that, we could use existing waste products as matter for things we need and want. Old dumping grounds could become a source of atoms for use in creating valuable products. And as for energy, nanotechnology could allow for such things as highly efficient solar panels, which would make energy cheap and widely available.

A cleaner environment would indirectly improve our health, but nanotechnology could have direct and dramatic medical effects as well. Microscopic robotic surgery could heal people at the molecular level. It could, for example, remove cholesterol from arteries, destroy cancer cells, repair injured tissue and rebuild limbs and organs.

And these are just some of the possible benefits. Others include computers billions of times faster than today's, molecular food synthesis to reduce hunger and the terraforming of other planets. And many of the benefits probably aren't even apparent yet, since the prospect of molecular engineering will allow for things that are inconveivable using the tools and techniques at our disposal today.

However, we can never have the good without the bad, so watch out for a few of the potential dangers of nanotechnology.

[ThorfinnSS]

Start with weaponry. That always gets funded. As a side-benefit, think of all the coastal property that will be available for squatter's rights should you survive.

The intersection of the mapping of the human genome with our ability to create (bio)nanites, should allow us to target specific racial or physical genetic tags. The ultimate in democratic lobbying. Maybe we could sell such a concept to the tobacco industry and they can weed out those who dislike the stench of burnt floor sweepings.

[Autolykos]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Samildanach,)
I have been reading a great deal about Nanotechnology in the past ten years and Im aware that the body (for example) is an example of nanotech. However I am in two minds about how big an impact it is going to have on our daily lives. Some say its a general purpose technology much like electricity and it will be having a massive impact within ten years time. Im just not sure exactly how this impact is going to occur...sure I can see the material science aspects and computing aspects but beyond that it gets quite hazy. Also, the general molecular assembler......fact or fiction?
I admit its a great theory and I would love for it to be able to occur but I do have doubts as to whether they can be implemented. If you look at cells for instance they do function more like molecular factories and it you take us as being the result it proves that self assembly works however....its slow.
Can we do FAST self assembly or is that not the point? Is the point it will be cheap and plentiful if we can but create the seeds or the factories?
what are your thoughts?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

Nanotechnology will have as profound an effect on human life as the wheel or agriculture did.

- Rob