Nanotech bill gets Bush's approval

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we need powerful technology

Archimedes invented calculus 1.5 millenia before Newton/Leibniz reinvented it. One roman soldier slew Archimedes: otherwise you can be sure the roman state would have used the man to his maximum. It is possible that the truth of the movement of planets and man's position in the universe would have been known 1500 years earlier, perhaps avoiding many of the vast religious wars etc. that went on form 1500 onwards.
In second world war, enroute to Japan, the U236 (one of a few giant german submarines that dwarfed Destroyers!) surrendered to USA as Berlin fell to the Russians: onboard were the blueprints for the German Jet fighters that were in service, the V2 rocket, and Son-on-V2 (capable of reaching New York from Berlin). Also onboard were 500Kilos of refined Uranium that went into the Manhattan project. If at any stage war technology had halted by the Allies, or a breather in the war taken, the Allies' cities would have disappeared under
german Intercontinental ballistic missiles sometime around 1945. It was that close.

Our whole existence is a game of chance. We feel around us is a caring, warm mother earth. Analysis of geological evidence however, recovers the truth that the last 6000 years have been a period of unprecedented calm on the planet (despite minor outbursts like the destruction of Minoan civilisation), normally things are a lot more precarious, and will probably get a lot more precarious very very quickly. When you think of it, we're living on a thin crust on a blob of lava: a bit like a microbe living on a bit of skin on a panfull of milk.

In short, a minor change in the environment will erase us as a race. We need all the technology we can get. I wouldn't term it a war against nature, but we have to treat it like that. We're in the eye of a storm.

No point blowing ourselves up in the process though, so some degree of caution should be exercised, but overdo the caution, and nature will come bite our behinds.

So in short, I'm a turncoat, because once I thought GM tech was a bad idea. GM, Nanotech, and some of the Advanced Physics coming through now are potentially vastly more powerful than anything in our history, they make the Atom bomb look like a peashooter. And we need it, because Nature has the mother of all cannons pointing at us.

Posted by: hipparchus   Posted on: 12/06/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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