[extropy-chat] Re: Why no assembler design? (forwarded from R B)

[Brett Paatsch]

Emlyn O'regan wrote:

> > > There is very serious progress on the wet path -- at least tens of
> > > millions of dollars have been invested.  Most of the CEOs don't
> > > have an awareness of where their technologies are leading -- but
> > > that is simply an education problem that can easily be resolved
> > > in the future.
> > >
> > > Robert
> 
> You know, there is really very little reason for education 
> of CEOs on this path. All the incremental steps between 
> where we are now and MNT seem to  potentially yield
> fortunes of their own. We'll get there without the practitioners
> actually choosing to go there from the start. You could speed
> it up with a "pruning" effort; lobby those with money so that
>  the useful efforts get funded and the wrong turns don't
>  (although those wrong turns can turn out to valuable sometimes). 
> 
> (Now Robert's going to tell me why I'm dead wrong about 
> this...)

In case Robert doesn't get to you for a bit I'll chip in.

"Those with money" are often approached by all in sundry 
because they are "those with money". "Those with money" don't 
stay those unless they invest their money wisely. This means in
things they understand or via other people who they trust (rightly
or wrongly - but you can imagine the selection effect here well 
enough I am sure ;-) who then invest in what they understand or
in someone they trust and so on.

Sooner or later someone has to *understand* what they are 
investing in or the whole pyramid turns to shit and all the trusters
fall down together because it turns out no-one really knew
anything. 

There are not that many folk who have money because they 
understand things  - that also have heaps of time to stay the sort
of bleeding-edge-current with technology that some on this list
are. Some on the list have time precisely because they do not
have and are not managing large amounts of money. There are
some (in the world that have both money and understanding),
(Jurvetson springs to mind as a possibility) but they are busy 
and the pitch to them has to be sharp because they are busy. 

Michael West founder of Geron managed to find them, but he
embodied both enormous passion and sales skills plus formidable
technical knowledge.

He was it seems (from a reading of Steven Halls - The merchants
of immortality) an very effective and very rare empowered 
vector. 

I'd recommend a read of the Merchants of Immortality to folk 
who are interested in understanding some of the commercialising
aspects of leading edge technology but don't want to hit the 
"hard" business texts books on strategic advantage etc (thinking
of Michael Porters books here).

Another small tip. Dreams, visions and plans we may all safely
have without encroaching on anyone else's plans, dreams and
visions, but as soon as we try to act on them in a practical way
we start to encroach on others real estate and market share.
It is mistaken to think of the implementation of a plan in the real
world as just one more detail. Others are trying to implement their 
plans too.

Most folk may prefer to live in a world where nearly everyone has
access to MNT but be willing to settle, if they have to, for one in
which they are a subset of the haves rather than in the set of the
have-nots. To be in the haves in a less than motherhood and
apple-pie world may require being able to buy just about 
anything *provided* you have the money to do so. So folks feel
a need to make money just in case the grand social dream of 
plenty for all doesn't pan out that way in practice, (like say using the
entrie history of humanity up to this point as an example). 

Any bio-entrepreneur of assembler of molecular nano-technology
assemblers faces real challenges potentially from competitors for
the rare resources that are knowledge workers in
the still emerging domain space. 

Regards,
Brett