[extropy-chat] FWD: ACTION ALERT: Nanofactory Animation ChallengeGrant ? Please Respond by November 15

[Brett Paatsch]

Hal Finney wrote:

> I'm forwarding the letter below from Foresight.  Apologies if
> you get it more than once.  I'm not sure how good a cause it is,
> though, to give money for making a movie vs helping out ExI 
> or some other transhumanist group.
> 
> I took a look at the animation and it was pretty nice, at least the
> first part.  It clearly illustrates Drexler's emphasis on mill based
> assembly rather than the robot arm based model which is 
> practically synonymous with molecular manufacturing in the
> popular press.  Here is some commentary and criticism.

Thanks for the work in this post Hal.  I watched the movie frame
by frame while going through your commentary and criticism. 

I agree with your comments. I think Foresight would be well
served to take them onboard.  

Another thing that stuck out to me was that although the molecules
were collected by Brownian motion there was never a case of 
a mill slot failing to be filled. The success rate was 100% which 
seemed highly improbably to me. Given the precision of the system
I wondered if a blank slot in one of the mills might result in there
not being a double carbon atom to place in some corresponding
carbon cubes being built downstream. 

Regards,
Brett Paatsch

PS:  Personally, I think Drexler is wrong and Smalley is right, but
the arguments are so hard to get at that I can well understand how
intelligent people could be on both sides of the debate. 

Full credit to Foresight for making it easier for more people to make
up their own mind though. It will be a lot easier for people to engage
with and play "spot the error in" a movie than it will be to effectively
criticise a book like Nanosystems.