I'm sympathetic to Farber's concerns about conflict and human nature.

We are still a society partly bent on self-destruction; our appetite for violence and reality TV remains intact. Advances over the next 20 years won't change human nature unless everyone gets gene therapy and we end up with a society of smiley faces. In fact, the report devotes an extensive chapter to the future of war and combat, which envisions a battlefield occupied by uninhabited combat vehicles and soldiers with enhanced physical and mental capacities.

Here's an attempt to narrow human conflict down to two general categories: conflicting goals, and the desire to control.

1) conflicting goals

a) Under this category is the familiar competition for resources.

b) Also under this category is the sort: 'I want to do such and such, which precludes another from doing this or that.' For instance, 'the Euroamerican Gateway Committee could not agree on whether it would be more economically feasible to build a transatlantic tunnel, or invest in a new high capacity teletransportation portal.'

2) control

a) predictability

We often have a desire to control one another, to make a person do as we would like them to, if for no other reason than for the sake of predictibility. We humans are obviously real big on control in general – otherwise, why science . But I'm not sure this one alone is of war scale caliber so to speak – even Hitler's motives were (one would hope at least) resources competition related.

b) power lust (pathological?)

Imagine a world where everyone has everything they need, and more – brought to by Nanotechnology! Happy, happy, joy, joy! What could possibliy be the problem? Oh, but wait, here comes the ugly spector, Mr. Pathological Powerluster! Oooo, you'd better do as he says, or he'll take away your molecular french fry machine. This one's much like the control thing, except on a war or tyranny scale 'cause we're talking heads of state level control here – what did Johnny's parent's do to that poor child?. There's nothing more satisfying than a good day behind the pupetier's stage.

c) ego

Here, I was thinking in terms of hurt feelings, and revenge, aggression, that sort of thing.

Theoretically, nanotechnology could eliminate competition for resources problems, and this is the really big one, and the most "reasonable" (though still not an excuse for tyrany) one. But could we side step other goal conflict problems?

As for 2, the "unreasonable" ones, maybe gene thearpy indeed? Would such tampering dilute the very attributes that brought humans to nanotechnology in the first place?

But I would think the only serious threat to a nanotechnology utopia, would be the power lust problem. These are the kind of folks we need to worry about.

I don't know. I took a shot at it. I think I'm in the ballpark. At the very least, this is a beginning analysis of human conflict (not that this isn't already being done).

The point is, there'll still be problems even with the ellimination of competition for resources. I think mainly these will be along the lines of 1-b, and 2-b with 2-b being the only serious threat (aside from psychos).