I'm talking about What I Have Decided to Do With My Life.  I took a physics class quite by accident and loved it.  I am almost done with my undergraduate work and have found myself mixed up with a group that is obsessed with nanotech and what it can and will do in the future.  The short of this is, we are attempting to make a machine that can make machines.  A machine that can make any type of machine.  These machines that our machine making machine makes (fun tongue twisters yea!) can then be joined to make very complex machines.  And the kicker is, the hardware and the power for these machines are essentially free. 

Bollocks, you say?

I'm talking about nanotech.  It's already here.  It is moving forward every day.  And its application in the near future will change your life.  It will change everything.  Economics will no longer be driven by the availability or lack of raw materials.  I won't get in to the deep wobbly bits about the tech today, but I want to talk about the ethics, and the consequences. 

I have studied the existing ethics quite a bit and find them lacking and short sighted.  These ethics would be great for a tool that can be contained.  This tool cannot.  Once this Pandora has been let out of her Box, it will never stop.  And there will be no limits to what it can do. 

I'm a pretty simple guy.  I am motivated by simple things.  I enjoy my work and I am excited about doing something with my life that will change the world.  But here's the thing.  I am a little scared.  Because I am a simple guy, because I am no great thinker, I am worried that my work will be like Alfred Nobel's.  It will be useful, but it will be devastating as well.  Of course, it won't make a difference if I work on this or not, this work will go on with or without my help.  There are hundreds of people smarter and willing to put the effort I would into this.  But because I want to do this, I feel a responsibility to listen to all those who would speak about this.  I know there are those here who think that nanotech is a bunch of horseshit but I assure you, horseshit or not, it is what I am working on.  And within your lifetime (Unless you are over 70 or about to be hit by a bus) it will change the world. 

So on with the discussion.

Here are some of the points I have heard, starting with the negative:

1.  The economy will collapse.  No one will work anymore.  We will digress socially and technologically and the world will end.
    I have issues with this one.  But I am here to listen to what you have to say, so I will hush up.

2.  The world will end up as a big grey mass of goo.
    Again, I think this is not likely, and most folks in the field agree with me.  But these are people working with nanotech, and they might not be the most objective. 

3.  This will cause the greatest arms race ever.
    I don't have a good argument against this.  It might very well be true.

4.  This will be like any other tool, the rich and powerful will have it, and the rest of the world will beg them for the products.
    I don't think so.  Tell you what - when I get mine, I will make one for you with it, and then you can make another one for your friend and so on, until the rest of the planet has one. 

5.  The Guvament will be way to scared by this and will squash the research and hide my body in the desert, where my bones will be picked clean by coyotes. 
    They might try, but I doubt if they can succeed.  Then again, I might end up coyote chow.

Those are but a few of the negatives I have heard.  Please feel free to come up with more.

Now to the positives:

1.  The economy will collapse.  No one will work anymore.  We will digress socially and technologically and the world will end.
    Sounds good to me.

2.  People will work on that which makes them happy and the entire world will be more productive than ever. 
    Sounds too good to be true, but a nice thought.

3.  Starvation, thirst and disease will end.
    Again, this sounds too good to be true.  Though I truly hope that does happen.

So, whadda ya think?  Is this the beginning or the end of our world?  Or am I just continuing an age long quest for the Philosopher's Stone. 

~m