[extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech

[Robin Hanson]

On 11/15/2003, Dan Clemmensen wrote:
>I would suggest some minor changes as noted below

Thanks for the suggestions!

>I think the medical stuff , while it sounds good, is not relevant. There 
>is a huge amount of additional design work to get from design of 
>"hardware" (computers, furniture, etc.) to design of "bioware" of any type.
>I also think that energy-generation products and energy conservation 
>products are more fundamentally important, and more feasible. Am I correct 
>in assuming that energy is a fairly major component of current economic models?

Energy is probably around 1-2% of GDP, while medicine is about 14% in the 
US.  Solar energy collection doesn't need atomic precision - what other 
energy generation do you have in mind?

>>... As with PCs today, open source product design and file sharing of 
>>stolen product designs could become issues.
>
>... The term "stolen" is value-laden.

Perhaps, but I don't see another term that so connotes the issue.  I grant 
that file-sharing of copyrighted material may be a good thing, but it is 
clearly theft under current law and widely recognized as such.

>I think that the cost of energy is a crucial marginal cost. It is almost 
>certainly more important than the marginal marketing cost, unless I 
>misunderstand the term "marketing" as used in economics. Mitigating 
>against this is the fact that "radical MNT" may drive the marginal cost of 
>energy toward zero.  ...

If you think the (marginal) cost of energy might go to zero, then unless 
you have a story about how the (marginal) cost of marketing goes to zero, I 
don't see how you can be confident that the cost of energy is the larger 
cost.

>It is very difficult ot construct a "radical MNT" scenario that does not 
>result in self-reproduction of local manufacturing. Therefore, it is not 
>clear that this is a primary assumption. I take this as a consequence of 
>assumptions 1 and 2.

Even if it does eventually, there may be an important time duration before 
then.  The design problem may be very hard, after all.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323