Tom pointed out: "As I said, I hope you're right; but, I'm not that hopeful that this system of enormous profits for the few will just fade away."

Ok lets agree that several industries — BigPharma and software have *huge* profits relative to manufacturing costs.

Now with regard to software — competition seems to be driving down costs (after all Linux is almost free (you have to buy a CD or take the time to download a distribution, yada, yada, yada) and most other open source project products are almost free as well).

With respect to BigPharma — the costs drop significantly as soon as they go off-patent and become generic. So your complaint would be with the patenting and drug approval system. (Bear in mind that the drug approval process in the U.S. seems to be from $400-600 million.) So BigPharma has to charge drug prices at a level that (a) justifies the costs of getting the drug approved; and (b) provides a ROI to investors in the company (who may well include pension funds of companies who pay retirees who purchase said drugs). Sticky problems. You can reduce drug approval regulation — in which case you probably end up with people selling XYZZY pills to cure cancer. Or you can reduce say patent protection or other "entitled" benefits to BigPharma (which is spending $40+B in R&D) which would reduce stock investor confidence in future profits which would reduce investment in the entire industry which would probably reduce overall medical research progress and would result in a net increase in the number of humans that die each year.

I am no fan of BigPharma. But one does not mess with this system lightly.

So it is difficult to see how the nanorobots required to extend ones life would exceed $1-$10/yr. Now one can of course add costs for intellectual property rights with respect to the nanorobots but is difficult to see how excessive royalties could be charged on inventions if foundations and/or governments become involved in providing basic life-extending technologies. Bottom line — once we understand what needs to be done and once we have the technology to do it — it should be *very* cheap.

Robert I hope you're right about the costs of nanomeds; however, please be aware that most of the popular pharmaceuticals on sale today cost only pennies to synthesize. Here are some examples a friend of mine found on the web:

Lipitor: (for cholesterol) cost to produce 100 20 mg tabs: $5.80 Sale price: $272.37 Markup: 4,696%

Celebrex (for arthritis) Cost to produce 100 100 mg tabs: $0.60 Sale price: $130.27 Markup: 21,712%

As I said, I hope you're right; but, I'm not that hopeful that this system of enormous profits for the few will just fade away.

Roland, this is old news. Mulhall's book was published in July 2002. As one Amazon review puts it "Mulhall's musings seem more science fiction than science; they are entertaining, but not particularly thought provoking."

Any serious fan of nanotechnology would even question Medicoff's quote of Freitas regarding a $1000 worth of Nanomeds/year (I've questioned Robert in another forum to see if he was misquoted.)

Note that in Nanosystems, section 14.5.1, pg 428, Eric Drexler cites feedstock costs as $0.1/kg. Note that in Nanomedicine Vol. 1, section 6.5.7, pg 175, Robert Freitas points out that humans, due to the hypsithermal limit, are limited to 10 kg of nanorobots per person. Actually the amount you can support within the human body without significant reengineering of how the human body radiates heat is probably significantly less than 10 kg. So it is difficult to see how the nanorobots required to extend ones life would exceed $1-$10/yr. Now one can of course add costs for intellectual property rights with respect to the nanorobots but is difficult to see how excessive royalties could be charged on inventions if foundations and/or governments become involved in providing basic life-extending technologies. Bottom line — once we understand what needs to be done and once we have the technology to do it — it should be *very* cheap.

Roland — go RTFM (wikipedia has an entry for it if you are unfamiliar with the acronym). There are 40-50 million lives a year at stake. We do not need waste time rehashing two year old news items that do not make a significant contribution to moving forward.

*And* though I am aware of the S.A. perspective on organ growth it is because the scientists involved are stuck in the paradigm that one must work with "natural" genomes. They have not made the transition to understanding what would be possible with "whole genome engineering". So any predictions are based on current paradigm thinking (which are fine — so long as that paradigm remains in effect ).

Robert B.