mmm@cup.portal.COM (Mark Robert Thorson) (05/01/89)
Before nanotech makes it possible to bring some of the dead back to life, we ought to consider some of the potential consequences. For example, lots of people are planning to be frozen after death, in hopes of being revived in the future. How do you know your re-animated corpse will really be you? At a minimum, the experience should be similar to the mental disturbance which occurs during electroconvulsive shock therapy (severe memory loss, personality changes, etc.). If you believe in the existence of a soul, there's also the possibility that the "new you" will actually be somebody else; i.e. another soul would come to inhabit your body, should it be rendered re-inhabitable. Does a body need to be frozen to be re-animated? What if the structure of a dried brain can be read out by an e-beam electromicrotome? Who would be the first person to be re-animated? The obvious candidate is Lenin. His preserved body is kept in a tomb in Red Square. (I don't know what shape the brain is in; it may have been destroyed in the preservation process, like the brains of Egyptian pharoahs.) What a disaster that would be! Even if the second incarnation of Lenin was merely a genetic clone educated from Lenin's writings, that would be a dangerous man. He would be the focal point for the revitalization of Communism. If he advocated the philosophy of the original Lenin, it would be a philosophy of uncompromised dedication to the goal of World Revolution. He would be a living example of the achievement of the promise of religion (immortality) through the acts of man alone. Even if he only pushed the same old brand of socialism, it would take on a new intensity that would plunge the world into a struggle that would make WW2 look like a card game. [An interesting thesis. I wonder, however. Suppose you were to bring back Martin Luther now. The burning issues of yesteryear don't seem quite so all-consuming, though in his day he sparked religious wars of hundred-year duration. In time (I hope) Lenin will be seen this way also. --JoSH]
hkhenson@cup.portal.COM (H Keith Henson) (05/04/89)
"Lots" of people are not signed up for cryonic suspension unless you think that fewer than 300 is "lots." You show me a "soul", or even describe one in a testable way, and I will consider taking "soul" arguements under consideration. Far as bringing back Lenin, I doubt it. Even if it were possible, would those who control such be willing to do so? ---Still, it would make a heck of a story line for a SF tale! Keith Henson
brian@CAT28.CS.WISC.EDU (Brian Miller) (05/05/89)
In article <8905040521.AA11905@athos.rutgers.edu> mmm@cup.portal.COM (Mark Robert Thorson) writes: >The obvious candidate is Lenin. His preserved body is kept in a tomb in >Red Square. (I don't know what shape the brain is in; it may have been >destroyed in the preservation process, like the brains of Egyptian pharoahs.) One of my history teacher in high school told me that he had read that a couple of decades ago there were some serious problems with the plumbing immediately surrounding the tomb, and that the results were so ugly that what is behind the glass now is just a wax model. Believe it or not.
mmm@cup.portal.COM (Mark Robert Thorson) (05/07/89)
Nanotech is certain to cause tremendous political upheaval if the appropriate steps are not taken in advance. For example, what if nanotech makes it possible for one man to become dictator of the planet. The first man to realize how to do this may choose to do it in order to prevent anyone else from doing it. Even if Conra ...er the first man decides not do it, the second or the third man will. He'll have to do it in order to keep someone like Robert Morris (the author of the Internet worm) from using nanotechnology to perform massive destruction just for the hell of it. Doesn't this imply that as soon as the end goal of nanotechnology gets within sight, the government or the military will have to snatch it out of the hands of the technologists and wield it for their own purposes? They will be forced to do this, because if they don't, some Shi'ite or some undergraduate will sooner or later get his hands on the technology and use it for their own destructive purposes. The kind of political control that will be needed will be very severe indeed. Nuclear technology, though awesome, has never needed this kind of control because the infrastructure needed to make a bomb from scratch is so immense. But stealing nanotech might be as simple as dipping the point of a pencil into a test tube full of nanoassemblers. Using a stolen nanoassembler might be as simple as plugging in an interface card into an IBM PC, and loading a communications program. (Here I'm assuming that control of a nanoassembler might be as simple as shining a properly modulated beam of light on it, for example an LED controlled by a register bit on the bus of a personal computer.) If nanotech experiments can be done in the kitchen, the government will need to have the power to enter and control the goings-on in every kitchen in the world. So nanotech represents the greatest threat to individual liberty yet devised. It will put events in motion which will bring about an oligarchy, if not a personal dictatorship. And this will not be a dictatorship limited to the three score and ten of a man's life in the pre-nanotechnology era. It will be a dictatorship which will last for the rest of man's existence.
josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) (05/13/89)
mmm@cup.portal.COM (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
"Nanotech is certain to cause tremendous political upheaval if the
"appropriate steps are not taken in advance.
Quite so. Drexler writes that it is not unreasonable to assume that
if a totalitarian state availed itself of nanotechnology, it might
simply kill off all its people as superfluous and continue "life"
as a super-organism. Consider the facts:
a) States (ie, nations) are ubiquitous and hold essentially all the
power in the present world: there are no entities aside from other
states that can successfully challenge the prerogatives, much less the
survival, of a state.
b) Even the liberalized democracies of the West become quite nasty
when their prerogatives are threatened--threaten their survival and
they will willingly slaughter millions of human beings to get you,
whether "you" are a person, organization, or other state.
c) Major states can't afford to squelch development of nanotechnology
internally, since this would simply mean the other states would have
it and they wouldn't.
Conclusion: There is no humanly possible way to prevent nanotechnology
from being acquired by states in the not-too-distant future.
"For example, what if nanotech makes it possible for one man to become
"dictator of the planet. The first man to realize how to do this may
"choose to do it in order to prevent anyone else from doing it.
It is important to decide whether this seems even remotely possible.
If so, it might be critically important to *Do it Now*, important
enough to be worth a high probability of wasting your time.
"Doesn't this imply that as soon as the end goal of nanotechnology gets
"within sight, the government or the military will have to snatch it out
"of the hands of the technologists and wield it for their own purposes?
"...
"So nanotech represents the greatest threat to individual liberty yet
"devised. It will put events in motion which will bring about an oligarchy,
"if not a personal dictatorship. ...
...for this very reason! Remember, a nanotech dictatorship doesn't
stay one for long. People make lousy slaves, and with nanotechnology,
are easily replaced with much better ones.
Given the predominance and proclivities of states, there is the very
real and highly disquieting danger that in a hundred years, the human
race will not exist, having been replaced by nanotech systems which
grew from the states.
First, a caveat: what makes this possible is *not* nanotech, but AI.
In fact, you can take over the world with AI without nanotech, but
not vice versa. (AI gives you self-replicating robots of the clanking
metallic kind.) Nanotech may make AI possible/easier by producing
enormous computers which may be necessary--who knows?
Anyway: if we hope to see a future in which the human race plays
a significant role, we had better come up with ways to make sure
that nanotechnology is developed in benign places first. I think
this means as many places as possible--diversity and decentralization
of power are our major guarantees. And what this means in turn is
that advances toward nanotechnology must be published as widely and
freely as possible.
What's more, they will be. Nanotech may be right around the corner,
but only to a full court press in scientific/technological endeavor.
10 to 20 years in computer development means 1000 to a million fold
increase in power, necessary to design/simulate/control assemblers.
Ten years development in STM's, in molecular biology, in micro- and
quantum electronics, etc, will mean similar gains. *That's* the
sense in which nanotech is around the corner, not that you might
be able to do it in your garage tomorrow.
It is up *us* to make sure the ideas are widely understood and
people are ready to exploit the techniques everywhere as the
technology comes into hailing distance of nanotech. The survival
of humanity might just depend on it.
--JoSHJoseph.Bates@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (05/14/89)
JoSH recently mentioned that in 10 to 20 years we will see an improvment of 1000 to 1 million in computing technology. While this is the "standard" figure, it seems to me that a more accurate rate is 10 to 100 (say, 30) each decade. Memory has improved a little faster, crunching a little slower. Examples. In 1965 the Linc, a high end "personal workstation" of the time, had 3K bytes and an 8us cycle time. Today a RISC has about 10Mb and 40ns. This is x3000 and x200, or about x30 and x10 per decade. One gets similar numbers with home computers, and smaller numbers comparing a 360/91 and a Cray 3. So perhaps O(30) per decade is a better choice for back of the envelope calculations. Of course, this has no impact whatsoever on the point of JoSH's note. Joe [I can defend the 1000 with examples, but, as you say, it's not the point. The 1000 figure is a quote from CMU's own Raj Reddy. --JoSH]
landman@SUN.COM (Howard A. Landman) (05/16/89)
In article <May.12.22.50.17.1989.8162@klaatu.rutgers.edu> josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes: >a) States (ie, nations) are ubiquitous and hold essentially all the >power in the present world: there are no entities aside from other >states that can successfully challenge the prerogatives, much less the >survival, of a state. Utterly wrong. The largest multinational corporations have annual budgets far in excess of those of most nations. And the statement also implies, for example, that the U.S. could easily stop all drug trafficking if it really wanted to, a conclusion that's more than a little questionable. We may well see the creation of a totalitarian world government via nanotech (a la Heinlein's "Solution Unsatisfactory"), but I wouldn't say that Gibson-style cyberpunk conglomerates ("Mitsubishi-Genentech") have no chance whatsoever. Howard A. Landman landman@hanami.sun.com [If you wish to claim that international drug trafficking is an "entity", then it does in fact have the ability to infringe on the prerogatives of nations. However, corporations are creatures of states and I don't see a hell of a lot to choose from between the two. If an organization-turned-machine starts wiping out sections of humanity, *who cares* whether it calls itself a corporation or government? --JoSH]
djo@pacbell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) (05/18/89)
In article <8905160500.AA05900@athos.rutgers.edu> Joseph.Bates@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes: >JoSH recently mentioned that in 10 to 20 years we will see an >improvment of 1000 to 1 million in computing technology... > >Examples. In 1965 the Linc, a high end "personal workstation" of the >time, had 3K bytes and an 8us cycle time. Today a RISC has about 10Mb >and 40ns. This is x3000 and x200, or about x30 and x10 per decade. > >So perhaps O(30) per decade is a better choice... Hoom. Seems to me that an increase in cycle time *or* an increase in main memory will be an effective net increase in performance. Then I'd say that a x30 in memory and a x10 in cycle time is O(300)/decade, which is still a bit lower than O(1000)...but do they heterodyne? Ewige blumenkraft! The Nearly Neurotic Net.Roach