Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Nanotech Economy Message-ID: Date: 6 Dec 90 07:28:13 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Cincinnati, Cin'ti., OH Lines: 98 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu JoSH writes, describing a clothing-making machine with consumer-robust user-interface: > I have a 5-year-old nephew who could learn to operate such a machine > in 10 seconds flat. Frankly I find it hard to see how anyone could > imagine that you *couldn't* design a clothes-making machine that > everyone can use--it is a sad commentary that such comments seem to > come from people in the software industry. > I can well imagine what the current makers of VCR's and shrink-wrapped > software would do to the concept of a clothing machine: It would look > like the cockpit of a B-52. There's no need for that. The fact that > people find modern gadgets hard to use is not evidence that people are > stupid; it's evidence that the gadgets were designed incompetently. > --JoSH] Yes, but... Everything you are saying is perfectly true if consumers will remain content with artificially constrained, inflexible nanogadgets. But this precludes the very thing being discussed earlier in this thread, namely, that nanotechnology will make everyone self-sufficient. Recall the periodically recurring theme in computer science of "automatic programming". Invariably, this is a euphemism for finding ways to automate certain steps that are done manually at present. Then we can proceed to program manually just as tediously as ever, only now it is at a somewhat higher level. The first FORTRAN compiler was touted, I believe, as a form of "automatic programming". That was probably a claim in behalf of assembly languages as well---they automated the laborious task of toggling in those binary machine instructions. Even though assemblers and compilers do reduce the work of programming by an order of magnitude (at least), we still find programming to be a horrendously labor-intensive job. That is because as soon as we solve one programming problem, immediately we want to solve a harder one. Competently-designed nano-gadgets will not render consumers self- sufficient UNLESS those consumers can learn to be COMPETENT DESIGNERS themselves. And even a competent designer can't out-design all the other competent designers in existence. This packaging of nanotechnology will merely shift the consumers' dependence elsewhere. I think it will be a step forward, but it is only a step. What will happen when the consumer wants something that the competent designer decided was not a worthwile function to incorporate? (Remember, what you are calling "competent design" is ultimately a matter of deciding how best to cripple the operation of the device.) Then the consumer will be in the market to buy some additional competent design. And this *will* happen. People don't want to live completely like clones. People have individual wants and needs that require custom design. They want to express themselves as individuals. They get bored with the same old things. No matter how good something is, once you get used to it you just don't notice it any more. (This may be a fundamental consequence of the nature of the human nervous system---to avoid becoming overloaded with irrelevant data, it "tunes out" continuously sustained inputs. For example, until I remind you, you probably aren't aware of the chair you are sitting in.) There is no way to get around the "logical specification problem". I.e., if you want to make something, you or somebody or something else must specify its structure in detail down to the level of available resources. This takes work, it will always take work, and as long as the ability to do that work is maldistributed, trade will occur. In sum, I conclude that consumer-grade nano-gadgetry won't eliminate consumerism and trade. Instead, it will merely shift it to a higher level, e.g., trading in nano-gadgetry and/or nano-gadget specifications, rather than in commodity materials and end-use manufactured goods. -- Dan Mocsny Snail: Internet: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu Dept. of Chemical Engng. M.L. 171 dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu University of Cincinnati 513/751-6824 (home) 513/556-2007 (lab) Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0171 [I think the best example of getting bored with the same old things is this very message. The original question of physical self- sufficiency--food, clothing, and shelter--has been left far behind. *Of course* people are going to want more than they have; that's their nature. However, the basic idea in the clothes machine extends fairly straight-forwardly to almost any extent. How do you "operate" the modern-day marketplace, which is capable of producing an immensely bewildering variety of goods? You don't have to know how to design the things you buy; you are presented with choices, and you choose. Human nature being what it is, we are not going to fractionate into billions of separate self-sufficient micro-ecologies. However, the ability to do that on some levels (such as simple physical wherewithal) can open up the other levels to a richer and more rewarding (one hopes!) social intercourse. --JoSH] Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com