[extropy-chat] Re: Webcast of the First Workshop on Geoethical Nanotechnology

[Damien Sullivan]

On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 03:02:34PM -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> --- Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 01:47:52PM -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > > "grey goo", until new research (which would almost certainly be
> > > impossible, or practically impossible, under a ban) discovered
> > quite
> > > recently that grey goo is actually impossible, at least on any
> > large
> > > and self-perpetuating scale.

> * Even if you had self-replicating, all-consuming nanites, they'd soon
>   form a skin-and-interior system much like a growing cancer cell.

>   favorable atoms from its environment, it would most likely come to
>   some barrier - different types of rock, barren areas, et cetera -
>   where its food completely ran out.  Although this isn't a barrier to

Oh.  I used arguments like these, along with "diamondoid nanites in oxygen
bring to mind the word 'flammable'", some years ago on the onld list.  I
thought there was more behind "research".

-xx- Damien X-)