-----Original Message-----
From: mark@unicorn.com <mark@unicorn.com>
To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
Date: 07 January 1999 15:53
Subject: Re: Major Technologies
>Samael [Samael@dial.pipex.com] wrote:
>>Oh, and it doesn't matter if they are wasting energy attacking each other,
>>as only ones surrounded by other grey goo would be spending more energy
>>dissassembling each other, the ones on the edge would be happily digesting
>>more non-grey-goo.
>
>The ones on the edge will also be happily dismantling each other, and being
>dismantled by the ones in the middle. They also have to spend time making
>more grey goo nanobots to form the new outer shell, while they're being
>dismantled by the other nanobots, and while other nanobots are busily
>dismantling the new nanobots that they're trying to build. It's far from
>an easy task; nanobot reproduction will be hard enough in a stable
>environment, let alone when other hostile nanobots are dismantling what
>you're building as you're building it.
>
>This whole idea seems an obvious non-starter to me as soon as you think
>about these problems.
Hmm, I was assuming a high enough level of diffusion for the grey goo that most of the time it wouldn't have to worry about other grey goo. If it doesn't have this (or at least some way to avoid being instantly killed by the new goo it has just produced) it will cause problems.
Samael