"Ron_Fischer.mvenvos"@XEROX.COM (06/02/89)
>If we have machines which give effective immortality, the only reason to >have such an immortality is because of the joy of living, not for the joy(?) >of making money. Think of the synergistic multiplication when people switch >from competition to mutual helping and a progressive creation or discovery! It is not necessarily true that molecular assemblers will foster cooperation between parties. It may instead cause individuals and corporations to become more secretive than ever. (ron) [Or simply paranoid, to avoid spreading possible gray goo. --JoSH]
"Ron_Fischer.mvenvos"@xerox.com (07/13/89)
The other reason to encode how an object is constructed is to keep it from changing. Historic buildings and statues are changed over long periods of time by weather and the atmosphere. (ron)
"Ron_Fischer.mvenvos"@xerox.com (07/22/89)
I've lost the original posting, but in reply to previous message that began something like "...but what would you buy things with in a nanotechnology based society?" I think the answer is clearly still "money" but in a more abstract form than bearer bonds, coins or bills (I rather like coins and will miss them). Right now the value of money is determined by a set of complex interactions in the financial markets of the world. This valuation is already quite far from any relation of goods and services. One can almost always value some things against others. In a society with nanotech we're likely to put even more value on information. Consider the value of "insider info" today. I believe the original poster mentioned this but dropped the topic. (ron)