[ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun

[Adrian Tymes]

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:11 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> On 2013-11-13 01:25, Adam A. Ford wrote:
>
>> I am surprised at how much the course conveners refer to Drexler's views
>> as Science Fiction in forums and in the main lecture video:
>> https://class.coursera.org/nanotech-001/lecture/7
>>
>
> Maybe you should bring up what he really argues for? See his Guardian
> blogs, and his recent book. The problem seem that everybody argues against
> Strawman Drexler, who has little to do with real Drexler.


This is definitely seeming to be the trend here.  Even one of the
professors clings to Strawman Drexler after having been called out on it,
in detail, by four of the respondents (myself and Adam included).

But it turns out there might be a financial incentive for this: if the
don't spout that, government funding sources worry they're promoting a
scary vision of uncontrolled nanotech, and pull funding (because of course
one must not be seen as supporting that which scares the sheeple, if one
wishes to get reelected).  And of course we wind up dealing with those who
got funded, far more than those who did not.
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