Comments on: Psychoanalyst takes on nanotechnology

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By: Dr. Martin G. Smith

Dr. Martin G. Smith — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:37:07 +0000

I wish to comment on Christine last words, first. I has become increasingly apparent with the advances in presentation systems that more and more groupgs are latching on to them without the consciousness of consequence, which quite simply is this. When you jam up the bandwidth with large amounts of data being transfers at the speed of light, it slow down. The means that those on the last mile of the highway of light, the 75-80% of the population that hopefully you are trying to reach, cannot access you information. – Which brings me to my second point. The only way this major advance in technology will become known, is if it is clearly presented without bias or intent, as information which people will come to enjoy to know and as a result not fear. There need, I suggest to be a clear and open discussion of all the implications of this technology and it must be, my bias declared, Open Source. There is the potential for Massive Change here, to create a truly ‘democratic’ system of production and distribution and I would suggest that it is incumbent on those on the leading edge to make it happen.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 20:50:44 +0000

In addition to my earlier comment, it appears to be that my assesment that reading of Prey is merely correlated with a nanotech-friendly demographic was correct. Catch the comment from Chris Phoenix at the bottom of this thread.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/07/cant_fool_the_p.html

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 17:34:59 +0000

I don't follow that their conclusion that being exposed to Prey produces people with a more positive attitude to nanotech ; it's a self-selecting group (within a randomized sample). Those people who've read Prey are far more likely to be those who had an interest in nanotech in the first place, and far more likely to be science fiction readers who may have encountered positive depictions of nanotech in the likes of Neal Stephensons,"The Diamond Age", Peter F Hamiltons "Nights' Dawn" Trilogy, Iain M Banks' "Culture" novels, and may be far more likely to have read "Engines of Creation" and the like. They HAVE demonstrated a correlation between Prey exposure and positive attitudes to nanotech, but this does not imply causation. I would suspect that is merely implies a correlation between Prey reading and the sort of mind-set that enjoys science and science-fiction. I personally read Prey because I wanted to find out how Crichton had treated the subject ; I've enjoyed his past work, and for what is pretty much a modern "B-Movie" novel, it wasn't bad. But it didn't bother to illuminate the positive side of the technology at all ; it started with the premise of a military surveillance project and didn't have anything good to say about the technology (that I recall, it's been some time since I read it, although it's due a re-read now...). I've become a little suspicious of Mr Crichtons' motives for writing since I read "State of Fear", where he postulates that climate change is all a negative brouhahah kicked up by an "indsutry" of environmentalists seeking to make a profit from the attention ; and from the amount of reasearch he references to make his point, it's clear that he wants you to take that point seriously. All in all it sounds rather like what you would expect to hear from some bought-off oil industry PR hack ; I suspect we'll all know the truth in a decade or less though.