Nanotechnology, Nitpickers, and Natchez

[firemeboy]

With the strides we're making in nanotechnology, do you think we will ever get tot he point that we can efficiently take any substance, and basically turn it into another substance?

And if so, how will that affect our economy? If I can take dirt and turn it into Gold, I've just taken away the foundation of a very fragile economic system. Suddenly Fort Knox holds nothing important. How would the world economy react to that? And if I can take a pile of dirt and change it into a potatoes (again, this is nothing magic, something that happens all the time, only it's not us doing the changing), then how does that affect the world economy? For the better? For the worse? If I can make my own food, and cloth, and shelter, why on earth would I go to work? Need a new house? "Throw some dirt in the Matter 0' Mattic son, make me a pile of two by fours...

Granted there will still be many jobs that need to be done, but I can think of a boatload of jobs that would disappear over night.

And I guess from a conspiratorial standpoint, the question has to be asked, would such a device be allowed to be created? It would be pretty easy to make me some weapon's grade plutonium out of the left over mashed potatoes...



[This message has been edited by groza528 (edited 11-11-2003 07:59 PM).]

[Bicho the Inhaler]

firemeboy, nanotechnology != alchemy.

I'm not saying we will never be able to turn dirt into gold; in fact, this does not necessarily violate any laws of physics. I'm just saying that nothing we have accomplished so far goes any length in indicating how this might be done.

Regarding dirt --> potatoes: as you say, it happens all the time. But turning dirt into potatoes "artificially" wouldn't really be that special (in terms of concrete results, I mean). It would just be potato farming on fast forward. Depending on the quality of the potatoes, more traditional methods might disappear altogether, and potatoes would become a lot cheaper.

[firemeboy]

I know, I know, but you have to admit that they are at least along similar veins... Working at a molecular level. The more we understand about nanotechnology, the more we will understand manipulating the basic building blocks of life...

[UnheardVoice]

I would imagine that trying to create plutonium from potatoes (sugars and carbos - carbon, etc.) would take an incredible amount of energy. I going to assume that you mentioned nanotechnology as if a bunch of nanobots transporting one proton each could somehow come up to a carbon and simply attach the one proton right next to the other protons. But the energy required to do this is very large, due to replusion. And then repeating the process over and over again, with each time increasing the effective nuclear charge of the nucleus, which makes the replusion stronger with every proton... "nanotechnology" won't get that strong for a long time.

Concerning the dirt and the potatoes, this process really isn't "alchemy", because the elements themselves don't change - just whatever compounds they're in. The carbon stays a carbon, but it just changes from being in carbon dioxide to glucose to limestone... etc.

[Samadhi]

Nanotechnology is to alchemy as
Constructing the DeathStar is to Nanotechnology

[firemeboy]

For the love of Pete...

http://www.midrangeserver.com/tfh/tfh061603-story05.html
http://www.nanoword.net/library/weekly/aa052301a.htm
http://logistics.about.com/cs/introduction/

Alchemy is based on old world models, nanotechnology is based on new world models. I don't want to argue semantics, I was interested in your thoughts on what would happen if we came up with a way to arange atoms to form other elements, cheaply and easily.

When did the GL get so anal? I'll change the freaking subject, will that help?

[firemeboy]

How about those Mississippi Indians?

[Samadhi]

[Samadhi]

What's Nanptechnolgy?

[UnheardVoice]

Nobody would buy instant potatoes because everybody knows that anything not created organically will eventually kill them. It will probably be banned in many countries. The only legal exception will be instant noodles.

[Coyote]

Mmmphh...well, firemeboy...I would have to say that it would have a large scale effect on humanity, and absolutely no effect on humanity.

Let's take a look at Electricity as a power source. It's clearly become an essential part of our current lives, as anyone who's had to endure a major blackout can attest to.

Now consider the world as it was 300 years ago, before the 'discovery' of electricity. Humanity had firmly established itself as the dominant life-form, and had developed fairly stable social, political, and economical frameworks. (Yes, I'm aware that the stability was of a wildly dynamic sort...but we could say the same today, without bringing nanotechnology into the picture.)

We're able to comprehend life in that pre-electricity world fairly well...ask any teacher of English Literature. But imagine a person from that world brought into this era! They'd be at a complete loss as to how to deal with all the radical changes, socially, politically, and economically, that had been brought about due to the introduction of electricity.

The world we know today would be incomprehensible to someone from 300 years ago...and yet, we've retained much of the basic structure that existed back then, for we can still comprehend the thoughts and motives of those 300-years past people, and country borders haven't changed to an alarming degree (with a few notable exceptions, I'll admit--but can you attribute those to the discovery of electricity?)

Moreover, there's no particular year or month or day we can point to and say "This is when the world changed" due to the discovery of electricity. I submit that this is due to the fact that knowledge of the big change was introduced before the actual changes came about. Information always travels faster than technology. 300 years ago it would have been common gossip in the backwater areas, before they even got electrical wiring and power stations. Today it's sources like the Media and the Internet. We can't really be blindsided by any new technology...we already see it before it hits.

My point here, I suppose, is that, yes, the world will change drastically in the future. But we probably won't, at least not in an overnight, world-altering sense, but rather as a gradual process. Regardless of how amazingly world-altering the idea that produces the change is.

[Courk]

After skipping over half the thread, I'd like to say that I don't think too many truck drivers would lose their jobs. While the Matter O'Matic could produce raw materials, I find it unlikely that it could produce, say, a whoel, working computer. Sure, maybe it can maek the plastic for the case and the glas for the screen, but not assemble it. Peopel would still need to assemble it and then ship it to you - and truck drivers would be delivering it from way point to way point.

[Chuck]

[Coyote]

Bah.

Aren't you the guy that always complains about your perfectly serious remarks being misinterpreted as jokes?

Not that I've ever been either perfect or serious, of course...

[Chuck]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

But seriously folks, wouldn't it take a lot of energy to pull dirt atoms apart and reassemble the pieces into gold atoms? How much power can a microscopic robot store in its tiny batteries? Or how many photons can its tiny solar panel capture?

[OcularGold]

Chuck - yes it would. lots of energy, but the OP is going on the assumption that that energy is available cheaply.

To answer your question, firemeboy... i think we're going to figure out in a few years, although in a slightly different context. The technology to create diamonds is getting better and better, and soon (I've heard within a decade or two), engagement ring-size diamonds will be able to be created easily n cheaply.

What exactly would this do to the whole diamond industry and society's views of diamonds? I guess we'll see.

[Digglu]

shrug presumably it'll be the same thing that happens when people have the option of buying a real thing or a replica. real diamonds will probably have the same (if slightly decreased value) where manufactured diamonds will be much much cheaper. unless, of course, the two are indistinguishable, in which case the entire market will go downhill and anyone who bought a real diamond in the couple of years before this will kick themselves for spending a crapload of money. shrug

------------------
"You may not make sense, but at least you're enthusiastic about it"

[Blade]

If nanotechnology allows you create or alter things at an atomic level does that mean that potentially you could alter dna?

[Digglu]

you can alter dna now...it's just knowing WHAT to alter that's the real problem

------------------
"You may not make sense, but at least you're enthusiastic about it"

[Mackay]

Re: diamonds. Synthesised diamonds have been made, and they ARE distinguishable from naturally-occuring diamonds, simply because they are perfect. There are no, perfect naturally-formed diamonds, at least, not to my knowledge, just degrees of quality.
*wonders whether that should make synthetic diamonds more or less valuable than naturally-formed ones*
*decides not to start an off-topic discusson*

[Quailman]

Hmmm. The summer before last, I travelled through Natchez, Mississippi and we stopped at the Grand Village of the Natchez, a now-defunct tribe that used to live in mud-walled huts with thatched roofs. They built ceremonial mounds and worshipped the sun. Very interesting stuff. Emerald Mound along the Natchez Trace Parkway is the largest Native American mound in the US.

[Pablo]

[Samadhi]

[Chuck]

Cheap stuff in unlimited quantities could be dangerous. Instead of us buying them things, women will want us to do things for them to prove our love.

[EEEM]

What if we ran out of dirt?

[extropalopakettle]

[Hitchhiker]

Also, skilled craftsmen and information professionals will still be as necessary as ever. Pulling lead pipes out of your Matter-O-Matic doesn't make you a plumber; pulling out wood and nails won't make you a carpenter. When a task needs to be done that's beyond your capabilities, you'll either need to hire people for their expertise, or go to school to become an expert.

And entertainers will always be around, too. There will probably be even more of them, since they won't need to be "starving artists" anymore -- they can just get their food from the Matter-O-Matic and spend all their time going to auditions.

[extropalopakettle]

But robots can build houses. (Artificially) intelligent computers can produce entertainment (perhaps). The point is that technological advances make one after another human occupation obsolete. It has happened in the past, and will continue to happen in the future. Now that we don't have to chop and split wood to heat our homes, wash our clothes by hand, work the fields by hand, etc., we are more free to devote ourselves to other things. I see more and more automated checkouts in grocery and other kinds of stores. Cashiers will be obsolete. That brings prices down (eventually), and we have to work a bit less for what we buy at those stores. Cashiers are out of jobs (cashier jobs, anyway), but so were guys who delivered blocks of ice for ice boxes a hundred years ago - we've gotten over it. If we could have machines (self-maintaining machines) do anything for us, what would we want to do for ourselves?

[Vinny]

Explore the universe. We will need all those diamonds to build those crystal orbiting domes in the sky.

Diamonds are precious, not just because they're rare. Arthur C. Clark wrote serveral books about building massive structures in space, and diamonds would be the best subtance for the skeleton of those structures.

Funny enough, I just started reading a book called Moonwar, by Ben Bova, which is about a colony on the Moon that pretty much used nanotechnology for everything: converting moon molecules to solar panel, making oxygen and water, even maintaining longevity by virus-like nanomachines in the bodies. In the book, the technology is outlawed because of its dangerous potential, as fmb has mentioned (economical disaster and weapon of mass destruction), but the moonbase needed it for basic survival, hence the war. Might I suggest you read the book too, fmb? Just started reading it, so not sure how good the book is.

[This message has been edited by Vinny (edited 11-16-2003 03:31 PM).]

[Vinny]

quote:

---

When did the GL get so anal?

---

I reckon it's about the time when FMWBP showed up.

[Blade]

Perhaps nanotechnology will have little effect at all on the general population in the future. Maybe it will be a technology limited to the academic world and organisations with a lot of power and money. It may be invisible to the rest of the populace like supercomputers and echelon? Perhaps this will be a move adopted to preserve the research into the technology whilst keeping society calm about its potential ethical problems.

[Vinny]

Finished reading Moonwar. Pretty good book. It started out kinda bland, but boy does it get good a quarter of the way through.

There's one event in the book that was so shocking that my mind was just reeling, and I couldn't read any further for a while, just keeping moving forward but not comprehending anything and end up reading the same few sentences over and over again. The implication of what the character had experience was just too much.

Regarding nanotech, the book doesn't go into the nitty little detail of how the technology actuallly work (just brief generation of nanoscientist using computer to program and build batches of machines), but it does provide a lot of sense on how it was used, how it affects the lives of the characters.

I recommend you read this book, fmb. I am sure you'll like it. This is actually the 2nd book of the Moonbase Saga, but you don't need to read any of the other one to enjoy it. I haven't read the other one either. I'll probably go look for them at the McKay's Used Book down the street.

[firemeboy]

The "gray goo" problem has always fascinated me. If you can change things on a molecular level, and a nanobot, or whatever you call them, is self replicating, and simply breaks matter down. How do you stop it? When it's changing things on a molecular level, there is a real danger that a nano weapon could be devastating. Or even just a nano error...

[Vinny]

You can have some way of deactiving the bot, program it to shut down by an expiration date, deactivated by ultraviolet beam, radio wave, etc. It doesn't even have to be self replicating. But you're right, if it is and there are no terminating condition, it'll be hard as heck to stop if it becomes harmful. Super Virus on Steroid. Intelligent Weapon of Mass Destruction.

[Vinny]

But then again, the same can be said for the biological weapons currently being developed. If some of the more dangerous biorganism in labs some how evolved and escaped, or used and no cure or elimination can be provided, the Earth is pretty much screw. So not very much different from current situation when it comes to risk.

The medical benefits though, are many. Imagine being able to cure cancer, or HIV, damaged nerves, plastic surgeory, etc. Hell, we can even program "good" nanobots to counter natural bioweapons/epidemic/plagues.

[firemeboy]

Yeah, as long as you do it fast. There is some thought that complete global destruction could happen in a matter of weeks.

[Dr. Borodog]

Turn the entire biosphere of the planet into grey goo? Eh.

Couldn't be much worse than socialism.


------------------
You will respect my philosophai.

[This message has been edited by Dr. Borodog (edited 11-20-2003 10:59 AM).]

[Vinny]

I am starting to read a book called The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson. Has anybody else read that? Not sure how good it is yet, just got past the first few chapters. I loved Cryptomonicon and Snow Crash though.

[tinman]

So far gray goo is not possible but we probably will do it. It is possible to target nanostructuers to react to only certain genes or actions. Its one thing that is realy scary all the work where the bucks are in Military tools. Nano threads are so strong that one you cannot see by eye would cut you in half if you walked into it. I whish I could say good for nano but some ass gets gray goo going we are all gone. China is after it also...



Good side you can make some realy small stuff that dose work......like a street sweeper for the inside of your heart....

tinman

out