Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: ems@buttermilk.princeton.edu (Ed Strong) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: First Steps to Self Sufficiency Message-ID: Date: 7 Dec 90 08:48:43 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Princeton University Lines: 64 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes: > >In article ems%nanotech@princeton.edu writes: >>TRANSPORTATION >> >>Nanokit number three could convert your automobile to run on hydrogen >>and add a water cracking plant to your basement industry. Or perhaps > >[ etc. ] > >>COMMUNICATION >> >>This is a stickler. While not strictly necessary for self-sufficiency, >>it is an ability we baseline humans won't want to give up. Yet it > >I admit to having been struck by the odd contrast between your treatment >of transportation and communication. You talk about communication as >something which we will want to preserve for perhaps frivolous >reasons, while physical mobility survives as some unquestioned >necessity? Physical mobility is just another form of communication, an >expensive, dangerous, method with long latency but high throughput. So >everything you say about the one goes for the other. .. >Communication will remain strictly necessary for self-sufficiency. .. The reason I drew a distinction between transportation and communication, is that communication requires another person to interact with, and so contradicts the theme of this thread, self-sufficiency. If you are *really* self-sufficient, and your neighbors are as well, why should they bother you? Transportation, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily require cooperating with another person. .. >Knowledge will also continue to increase forever, and you will naturally >want to share in it. .. I agree, but this is getting away from self-sufficiency. You may *want* to talk, but do you *need* to talk? .. >Standards are constraining, however, and people don't like constraints. >Most people would do things whatever way they like, rather than >according to someone else's schedule, agenda, specification, etc. ... The thread is (was?) first steps to self-sufficiency. Based on that I assumed there wouldn't be unlimited computer and/or AI power available at first, only relatively simple one function "kits". Even so, the basic steps outlined would have a tremendous impact. Also, as part of these first steps I included the assumption that average joes wouldn't automatically use nanotechnology in the cleverest ways possible, at first, but "merely" as replacements for existing devices. After all, we don't use the technology we already have in the best ways. (I still wish for a self-directed car. Maybe before I'm a grandfather....) .. >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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ed Strong, Technical Staff Member ems@princeton.edu Princeton University (609) 258-1747 35 Olden Street Department of Computer Science Princeton, NJ 08544-2087 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------