[extropy-chat] Name that system

[Robert Bradbury]

On 12/19/06, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:

Jef, I am going to set aside your comments (not because they do not deserve
comment but because they do not go to the crux of the matter).

Two decades ago, Eric Drexler wrote Engines of Creation.  Fourteen years
ago, Nanosystems was published.  Those publications outlined how one could
transform the world we live in.  They were "in your face" statements to the
status quo with respect to "it does not have to be this way".  For whatever
reasons they were ignored.  There are at least 2 persons on this list
(myself and I would hope Keith) who understand this down to the molecular
level.  What may be unclear is that there has recently been an order of
magnitude jump in the complexity of molecular part designs (I will nod my
hat to Mark Sims @ Nanorex for credit for this) [1].

It does not matter whether we are going at it from the top down (Moore's
Law) or from the bottom up (Drexler et al).  The convergence is clear.  The
consequences of that are like a wind blowing in from Valinor.  You can argue
the details but you cannot turn the wind.

That is the point I would like to make -- people are passively or actively
choosing to ignore the wind.  Both of those fronts present a far greater
"reality check" than Google buying out You Tube for $1.65B.  To sit here on
the "extropian channel" and argue philosophy seems to me to be a testimony
as to ones lack of awareness with respect to how the winds are blowing.

The informed and aware individual is not content to be handed his or her
battlefields.  Instead he or she designs and dicates them.  Only then may
the outcomes be more probable.

Robert

1. What may not be clear is the jump from the ~2600 atom fine motion
controller design to the ~25,000 atom worm gear design.   That is an order
of magnitude jump by ~4 people.  The jump to multi-million atom nanoassembly
arms is only two more orders of magnitude.  400 people or much more clever
design... you be the judge.
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