Re: Major Technologies

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Wed, 6 Jan 1999 16:52:08 -0800 (PST)

> [Spike]
> it is almost too sad to contemplate, but the grey goo scenario explains
> as well as anything i have ever heard the baffling observation
that the cosmos
> are not buzzing with communications. the theory would be that whenever
> any civilization discovers radio communication, that nuclear holocaust or
> nanotech grey goo always result within 100 to 1000 years. {8-[

But if that's true, wouldn't all that gray goo--indestructable and ravenous by definition--have long ago spread from its origins to devour most of our observable universe into clouds of elements and goo? You can't have it both ways: if life is common but always destroys itself with gray goo, then we must explain the apparent absence of the latter rather than using it to explain the absence of the former.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC