This is a short commentary from another list - self-explanatory I think. Steve -------- Original Message -------- From: James N Rose <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Nanotechnology and its social implications To: gaiapc-list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I understand your perspective Nick, but I'm not in awe of the 'advancement process' of modern technology. The technology is not 'evolving' in the same sense that we historically describe living systems to be doing. It's quite easy to look at airplanes and powered flight from circa 1908 to now. The craft and forms seem to have 'evolved'. But remove humans from the process and there is no 'evolution' of anything. What evolved was human cognizance of the components and coordinations that certain physical parts can enact when placed together. The 'evolution' occurred inside the brains and minds of humans ... the lifestring of engineers and pilots over the decades ... not in the material or 'bodies' of aircraft. That's how I view the evolution of AI also. AI and nano-technology will continute to transform in the same manner as aircraft has, unless it's perfected to integrate independently of human intervention ... totally and completely. Technology is not going to be the salvation of life on this planet, though it may be in some part instrumental. It has been the rapidity of technological change which didn't have the time or space to be tested for detrimental impacts, which has been the major problem. I like technological advancements as much as you do, but I think the Gaian shift in thinking has to include being responsible for screw-ups and messes that might pop up from new technologies... not avoiding or ignoring them ... hiding them in garbage repositories buried under ever enlarging pseudo-hills for example. But to get back on track re the Subject-line, the impact of nanotechnology will not be what we've been focussing on so far ... the competence of these mini-systems to function to the purposes designed ... but rather the fact that the average human will be so far removed from competence in dealing with nano-technology that either the techonology will make humanity drug-dependent on it ... having to come hat in hand to technology suppliers (dare I use the word 'pushers'?) to satisfy their need/cravings for tech-stuff, or, there will be a revolution away from hyper-technology. Think of it. We're still living in a remnant age of 'Tim the Toolman Taylor' where any person with some common sense and a box full of human sized tools could take care of the property and mechanism-aids around them. With dependence on clean-room produced microchips and nanotechnology, humans are being isolated from the local capacity to deal with problems. We're locking ourselves into zoos ... of our own making. And exactly when was a new species ever reported as having naturally evolved inside the zoos we've created for other animal life forms over the hundreds and thousands of years of zoo building? Never. To me, the reality of nano-technology is that it stops natural evolution dead, not enhance it or transform it into something greater. To me, that is the saddest outcome. Jamie ---------------------------------------------------- PS. IMO, his website is worth exploring. I personally know three contributors - Tony Judge, Bruce Buchanan, & Heiner Benking. http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/
