Re: NANO: Custom molecules (gulp!)

Harvey Newstrom (newstrom@newstaffinc.com)
Sun, 28 Nov 1999 13:13:27 -0500

D.den Otter <neosapient@geocities.com> wrote on Sunday, November 28, 1999 12:27 pm:
> Even then the nanites would just drift around, not really
> doing much. In the meantime we'd be working hard on
> uploading etc.in our Martian (or whatever) base.

A random, off-topic thought occurred to me in response to this.

It seems that most of the vocal opinion on this list is against the people protesting the genetic engineering of foods. Most comments seem to think that their fears of technology destroying the planet are absurd. Then, on another topic, most of the vocal opinion feels that nanotech will destroy the earth, and that we should escape off-earth to avoid the catastrophe. We denigrate the people who want to ban genetic engineering and cloning, yet we want to be safe in our off-earth base where nanotech capable of destroying us would not exist.

We may have more in common with the Luddites than we thought, in terms of survival strategy. The only difference is that we may have a better view of which technologies are likely to destroy the earth.

--
Harvey Newstrom <mailto://newstrom@newstaffinc.com>
<http://harveynewstrom.com>
Author, Consultant, Engineer, Legal Hacker, Researcher, Scientist.
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