[extropy-chat] Molecular Manufacturing: Step by Step

[Hal Finney]

Around here we tend to get a pretty one-sided view of the prospects
for nanotech.  I have found a good contrarian source to be Richard
Jones' blog, Soft Machines, <http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/>.
(Of course, actually it is we who are the contrarians, Jones is presenting
the mainstream view but is unusual in that he is willing to address the
nanotech enthusiast community.)

In particular I recommend Jones' blog entry
http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/index.php?p=93
summarizing his view of the state of play in the nanotech debate, and to
http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/index.php?p=70 which includes a
debate between list member Chris Phoenix, Director of Research at the
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and Philip Moriarity, a physics
professor working in nanoscience research at the University of Nottingham.

Reading Jones' blog gives what I suspect is a more accurate picture
of mainstream academia's view of Drexlerism than Smalley's sometimes
shrill comments.  Jones does not agree with everything Smalley says,
but he presents a degree of bemusement at the popular enthusiasm for
nanomechanical designs that are utterly foreign to the directions being
pursued by nanoscientists.  He's not saying they won't work, but he
believes that they will ultimately be irrelevant, that we will achieve
similar power by very different means.  It would follow that trying to use
Drexler's approach as the basis of a "timeline to nanotech" is a strongly
misguided endeavor, as that is not the path which scientists are following.

I read both Jones' blog and of course that of CRN,
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/.  The CRN one gets updated
almost every day, while Jones is more haphazard.  Howard Lovy's
http://nanobot.blogspot.com/ is more business oriented but I check it
occasionally as well.  Always try to read from a variety of sources
and perspectives!

Hal