Damien B.'s main point seems to be that advanced nanotech would
require some damn complex software which embodies or otherwise has
access to quite a bit of knowledge, including how things aught to be
designed, and how those designs can be assembled. John Clark's
response seems to be that it will nonetheless still happen someday.
If so, I'm not sure there is much disagreement here.
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/