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	Discuss: Emerging Topics--the general FM discussion forum Topic: Nano Vs. the Luddites. Or, How Small Are Your Sledghammers?

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mkb

Member Since:
05 May 2006
Posts:11

06 Jun 2006 2:48 PM

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Nanotechnology is still a relative unknown in the sphere of controversial technologies (vs. stem cell research, cloning, et al). That said, once it's capabilities and implications really hit the mainstream media, there will likely be some serious backlash from people who are opposed to humans tinkering with humans at a cellular level. It's one thing to produce an invisiblity cloak using nanos (no, I'm not refering to Ben Bova - see this article for more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...5/25/ucloak.xml). It's something else altogether when we start injecting ourselves with micro-bots.

There are groups that are going to get upset when we start attempting to revive people from cryo using nanos. In essence, stopping death. Certainly many world religions believe that this area is the domain of their respective deities, and they will want to keep it that way. If you think Dolly the sheep was upsetting, just imaging Walt Disney or FM-2030 wandering the lecture circuit (assuming they wake up with any knowledge of whom they used to be).

What type of legislation can we expect? How will this impact the development of nano industries? Curious to hear your thoughts...

Frymaster

Member Since:
23 Mar 2006
Posts:32

20 Jun 2006 1:15 AM

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Okay, I'll bite.

I was hoping that somebody who knows more about this stuff would get you to tell more, cuz you most likely work in this field. So, at the risk of looking like a complete moron...

How is bio-nano-technology that different from a pacemaker or a stent? What kind cures does this technology enable? Can bio-nano rebuild an entire organism based on a fragment of tissue a la The 5th Element?

mkb

Member Since:
05 May 2006
Posts:11

20 Jun 2006 2:40 PM

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Hi Fry

I don't know if you realize it, but that bite comment was a neat little pun.

I'm actually not in the field, so I can't get _super_technical with you. That said, it's an area that interests me, especially from a big-picture, philisophical perspective.

I'd agree that there isn't a fundamental difference between the net effects of a stent vs. a nano. My point was more looking at public perception. There was corporate malfeasance going on before Enron, but it took a tipping point for the feds to impose sweeping reforms across all publically traded companies. My thinking is that the people who are already pushing back at stem cell research, abortion, et al, will hit their tipping point when it comes to nanos. If life is god's domain, than so is its handmaiden, death. How dare we interfere to such an extent that we virtually erase it? You make a rational argument Fry, but it's the irrational reaction that we should anticipate, based on history.

Can nanos reassemble an entire organism? Not yet. Will they? I have no idea -- it would seem unlikely, based on what we know about the persistence of memory, but maybe...

I think it's that possibility that will raise a lot of hackles -- and you can count on politicians to encourage that reaction for their own gain. After all, there is a lot of speculation that the Luddites were unwitting agents of magistrates who wanted to exploit a troubled situation to further their own careers.

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