Josh

Since the funding was obtained politically, it had to meet political standards set by both the public’s understanding of the technology, and the politician’s (and his business advisers, in this case) perception of what that understanding was. Lastly, the politician has to anticipate the public’s reaction to funding this technology, and get the most political benefit out of that reaction as is possible for *both* the business advisers and the politician. There are problems in each of these areas.

The public’s perception of the technology *was* formed early on by the media interest in “the grey goo hypothesis”. The politicians and their politicized business friends perceived that, and told themselves that *any* funding approach that could even vaguely be made to look like funding “grey goo” was politically deadly, for both the politician and for the businessmen who wanted to profit in about the first 5 years from the tech. Their perceptions of what the public would accept nearly froze solid. Despite the positive work that has come out about medical nanotechnology, for instance, there has continued to be resistance to any public funding that faintly looks like it could bring about anything that could become a “disassembler”.

So, mistaken early perceptions, and, in my experience, frozen political perceptions were much of the problem. There *is*, however, one point that few nano-optimists like me like looking at. I first found this with spaceflight technology in the 1960s, even at the height of its popularity. When I described what that tech could do for us, many scoffed. When I showed with logic that their reasons for that were unfounded, many could be convinced. However, a *large* fraction could not be convinced. I found that about 20-30 percent of the local population reacted to the real world large scale changes a truly spacefairing society could introduce, with fear. They spouted wilder and wilder reasons the tech could not work, and were shown to be logically mistaken. This did *nothing* to decrease their opposition. Rather, it *increased* it. They were not truly afraid that the technology that could not work. They were terrified that it could!

They wanted no change in their world. They had spent too many years getting a coherent and working life in the world we had then. They did not want *anything* to upset their applecart! Simply, I have seen this pattern repeat itself with nanotechnology. Such people could ignore the “nerds” building stuff in their garages, who built the microcomputer portion of the industrial revolution, because they were not pushed by the press as real changers, till it was too late to stop their market-based industry from takeoff. They had a precious period of time to work, out of the spotlights.

This is *not* the case with nanotechnology. From day one it has been held up as transformative. Drexler, and myself, and many others, view this with pleasure. *Many* others view it with terror. This is *not* because they still believe in “gray goo”, but because funding this technology makes their future less predictable, *for*them*. People will continue to oppose nanotechnology unless some event makes people more afraid of a nanotechnology competitor than they are of *us* developing mechanosynthesis nanotechnology, as happened with spaceflight, lifting that technology politically, even as it warped its development away from market-viable technologies.

The idea that politicians don’t know about such people is not viable. They want political profit, and with any publicly transformative technology, they start off 20-30 percentage points in the hole. Thus, it was easy for businessmen wanting a profit in 5 years to make a case that molecular mechanosynthesis nanotechnology *had* to be treated as fantasy, in order for the entire field to remain a viable recipient of political funding.

We, on the other hand, should now see that our task is doubled:

1.) To gain the attention of all that we can of the population to the positive aspects of nanotechnology, so that political profitability for the politicians is assured for funding, without the irreconcilables, and even in spite of them.

2.) To make private investment funding the dominant source of funding as soon as possible, so that the political profit/loss balance affects the situation as little as possible.

Regards,

Tom Billings

You attribute two factors to MNT not being taken more seriously: Ignorance and Propaganda. Ignorance has no motivation, but propaganda certainly does. Again, I ask ‘What is the motivation for this propaganda?’

Apologies for not signing my previous entry.

Sincerely,
Dexter Johnson

James G.

I would like to address one of your fundamental assumptions about the public’s understanding of what nanotechnology is that I didn’t discuss in the blog entry. It seems to me that beyond the idea that “Engines of Creation” inspired Star Trek’s Borg characters, you would be hard pressed to argue that the general public’s understanding of what nanotechnology is comes from Drexler’s book since I imagine most don’t even know that it exists, never mind have read it. Do you think this second-hand understanding diminishes the full ownership of the term?

Another issue that has always troubled me is the idea that is argued here again is that MNT was not ignored, but rather actively excluded, I often wonder why this would be the case, and assumed it was to get funding for material science that wouldn’t otherwise get funding. But, if, as you say, all the material science would have been funded anyway, what is the motivation for this vast conspiracy to rob MNT of its rightful place as the one and only true nanotechnology? I am left without an answer after reading your entry here.