Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucla-cs!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: raburns@sun.com (Randy Burns) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Nanotech thoughts Message-ID: Date: 17 Nov 89 22:42:58 GMT Article-I.D.: athos.Nov.17.17.42.57.1989.16623 Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 26 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article peb@tma1.eng.sun.com (Paul Baclaski) writes: > >In article , mgoodfel@mgoodfel.oracle.com (Michael Goodfellow) writes: >> >> Someday, we will all be eaten by Grey Goo. ... argument boils down to the premise that nanotechnological war would be at least as expensive as nuclear war is now. >Given these limitations, populations of humans on Earth should be >safe--Grey Goo is not inevitable. However, these assumptions do >not lead to the conclusion that any particular individual is safe >from nefarious activity of corporations or governments (no change >from current state of the world), so there should be considerable >need for a consciousness backup system. I think that there is another important point that supports this argument. Chemical warfare is already far cheaper than nuclear warfare. So far few nations have found it strategic to use chemical weapons. What is even more remarkable is that no terrorist group has made large scale use of chemical weapons. Since chemical weapons have been so rarely used in recent years, it is unlikely that nanotechnological weapons would be any more heavily used. I'm still more worried about the unintended side effects of peaceful use of nanotechnology.