"your argument is that robots have no morals? I do believe this to be true, and this is why they will do as they're told without argument."

I don't know any entity without morals that will "do as they're told". Rather, an entity without morals (such as a tree or a predatory animal) seems to simply pursue more energy and space for itself, with no concept of accepting command input from anything or anyone.

"They also lack the key ingredient from which all humankind bases its morals, and most other societal norms – emotional attachment. They're perfectly content to be bored, doing a dull or repetitive job."

How do you know that? A tree seems content to do so, so does a Buddhist or Catholic monk. But the cheetah or falcon is not – nor does a virus or a bacterium (which also lack "emotional attachment") – such things are quite aggressive at pursuing growth. In this sense they are like economic entities, e.g. corporations.

"Like a gun, or a knife, or even a bathtub, it depends on the intentions of the user."

Nonsense. If I have a gun, a knife, and a bathtub in the house, and I remove one of them, statistically I will save far more human lives by removing the gun or the knife than by removing the bathtub. And in a world where there will be one billion Internet users soon, and where DNA sequencers and secure radio transmitters are cheap, I can't call these technologies neutral.

Intentions are less relevant the wider the number of users get ahold of something – across the whole body of users, you can expect all intentions to be expressed. And unfortunately the actions of a vast majority of gun users for self-defense do not make up for the actions of the minority who use guns to expand their energy and space access by forcing others to withdraw from what are socially considered "fair" borders or boundaries.

There is a basic dishonesty in your argument: you are willing to accept statistical arguments to advance technology, but deny the impact of the same statistics when applied to probable uses of those technologies. Suddenly there "we" is a big happy unified species, whereas up to the very moment of discovery of the world-killer, "we" are supposedly so at each other's throats that "we" must build weapons as fast as possible.

You employ the metaphor of fighting disease, but the closest-to-absolute fact we know about this is that applying more effective antibiotics is exactly what accelerates evolution of bacteria beyond the point where we can possibly respond. It is simple escalation, with predictable outcomes.

"World peace", if that is indeed our shared goal, will come from GlobalGreens, Transcend.org and other elements of the traditional peace movement.

It will not come from wasting time on technology and its promotion, but from comprehending some basic facts about decentralized systems, normal mammal (but especially male human) competitive sexual nature, irrelevance of morality to outcomes other than emotional, relevance of ethics in escalation, and other principles elaborated by Gandhi or Chief Seattle. You appear to be ready to employ the principles elaborated by Ronald Reagan, which frankly could not have worked without a "de-escalator" (Mikhail Gorbachev) "on the other side".

It is a poor strategy which relies on your enemy deciding that your rhetoric is somewhat valid and deciding to stand down as a moral decision despite the hundreds of millions of poor people such a decision creates, and thugs it enables… imagine breaking up the USA the way the USSR or Czechoslovakia broke up! The USA is likely to go the way of Yugoslavia rather than do anything on a clear moral basis.

I don't think "your goal and mine appear to be exactly the same: eventual world peace." You have put certain conditions on that peace, such as your own friends and allies (the "we" you keep invoking which I don't recognize as including me) remaining the most powerful people in the world and able to veto any decision that they dislike. In other words, applying a "moral code". That always leads to evil. Shall I rest my case here?

Would you *surrender* to achieve "world peace"? If not I doubt you are actually committed to it. At least not to the degree that Gorbachev was/is.

"I would have been attacking the *technology* and *knowledge* not the Nazis or the Americans. But that's aesthetic." Will you please look at that comment and explain to me how that would do any good? You may have gotten Peenemunde and the Manhattan Project, but what are you going to do about China, India, or the MIddle East, all of whom developed their own nuclear weapons, with the ME as the only thieves in the bunch? Or the USSR, who deveoped the technology shortly after we did, and the only reason they did not actively manufacture was because of the war and its economic effects?!!? It doesn't matter what steps you try to take to destroy any kind of technology; it will keep cpming back until it's either obsolete or better-designed. And you can not pick and choose your technologies either. If we could, I think I would trade away television before nuclear technology or nanotech. Television these days allows the brain to become lazy, and thus sterile; this is a far greater threat to mankind than a bunch of bombs everyone's too scared to actually use. You invoke the millions who are dying in Afghanistan; yet we could be nuking them right now instead of dropping Cruise missiles, but we are not – because unlike dictators and tyrants such as the Taliban or bin Laden, we are not willing to make a sacrifice so great… however, when we are hit, we will hit back. I do not disagree that many of the Afghanis are innocent, nor do I dispute that they've gotten the shortest end of the stick known to all mankind in their pieces of world history. I mean, even worse than the Nazis, the SINGLE WORST case of genocide ever recorded was the British occupation of Afghanistan in the 19th century. The USSR didn't help. Neither did any of the civilizations that preceeded them; historically, it's the Land of People Dumped On. Unfortunately, it will continue until they can find a way to stabilize themselves to fit in with the world community. Rather than constantly conquering them, someone needs to help them, and hopefully we'll be the first to step up, since we are the latest wave. But I can not in good mind say that the Taliban was a very just government, and I can say with all my heart that for all its faults, America is generally the most just. bin Laden, Al-Qiada, and groups like them, however, are more sophisticated than you are giving them credit for. First off, the death toll was not counted in the people who died on 9/11, but the lowering of morale all over the world – the popular kid in school was hit by a car and is now in a coma would be a more common comparison. That morale can never be recovered until we find those responsible for its fall. But beyond that, bin Laden is one of the richest men in the world. Yes, we have frozen his traceable assets, but this guy isn't dumb. He's got money stashed where even HE can't find it.Since he has constiuents, it is clear there are others who share his moral ambiguity. And you're trying to say that with a pile of money and a lack on conscience, these guys couldn't unleash a nano-virus that could take out anyone not of Arab descent? Or build a nuke and blow it up in LA at rush hour? Or something equally heinous? I mean, c'mon, authors all over the world were penning novels and TV shows about planes crashing into buildings before 9/11 ever happened. And if it were to happen, our only defense would be the most important tenet of the martial arts (my answer to your invokation of Aikido, etc): Know your enemy. How do you think we fight diseases now? How do you think we protect ourselves against nuclear accidents? It's because we know how they work and can disarm it, should it ever become a weapon. As for my predelections toward good and evil, I don't know if you noticed, but we're working toward the same goal here. Our methods of going about it perhaps are different, but your goal and mine appear to be exactly the same: eventual world peace. I don't know who you think my "Bush League" government is (and if you mean George W, I didn't vote for him, but I can't complain about him, either) or that you know anything more about me than what I said in my last post, but your presumptions are offensive. I am no robot; I am a human being with values and ideas; they do not include dropping bombs or crashing planes, thank you. Bad organizing isn't the half of it, either. As a whole, we seek the easiest way out, the "magic bullet." WE're lazy creatures. It's the ones who are organized that we should revere or fear, because they take the time to be, and then it all comes down to how far they're willing to go to prove their point. No one said anything about putting them to war, though, except as an eventuality in allowing the black market to puzzlle it out as opposed to the public. And I do agree with that – the black market sells heroine and cocaine as street drugs, yet their public cohorts use these same drugs for medicinal purposes. Prediction must be a part of it, because planning is essential. But I see a contradiction in your words: "A "moral code" always leads to evil by definition, it being predicated on imitation… For these reasons a robot will be more evil than a human, simply for being more imitative by def'n." And yet, your argument is that robots have no morals? I do believe this to be true, and this is why they will do as they're told without argument. They also lack the key ingredient from which all humankind bases its morals, and most other societal norms – emorional attachment. They're perfectly content to be bored, doing a dull or repetitive job. Like a gun, or a knife, or even a bathtub, it depends on the intentions of the user.

"What exactly IS your moral code that permits this?"

As I said, there are no such things as good moral codes. I follow an ethical code of deliberately de-escalating conflict at some risk to myself – including admitting the limits of my tolerance. That is what I am doing here, with you, now. To me ethics *is* de-escalation, but your mileage may vary. You may for instance see the world as nearly-completely hostile and me making it nearly-infinite. But I am not so powerful as you think.

Self-defense is a matter of personal inhibitions and aesthetics, I suggest you read the Aikido or Bushido Zen Buddhist writings on this. It is not communicable in words. Likely I would have been ready to drop the bombs on Peenemunde, but also on the Manhattan Project. I would have been attacking the *technology* and *knowledge* not the Nazis or the Americans. But that's aesthetic.

As to "fundie governments", I detect more of that in Bush and Rumsfeld and their plans for robots raining death from the skies ("SkyNet" anyone?) than in the Saudi or even Taliban governments who simply don't have the capacity to invent weaponry.

While you may not comprehend it as such, there is an ethical code of jihad, and some elements of it (such as not attacking unarmed people in their homes) seem to be followed even by extreme sects.

By contrast, the civilian death toll due to U.S. bombing in Afghanistan, refugees also driven out of the homes by that bombing, exceeded the total deaths of 9/11. The Afghans were more innocent in my opinion, having been subjected to Cold War brutalities, U.S. and U.S.S.R. interference in their governing bodies continuously since 1973, drought, and not even being guilty of much global warming or profiting off the wealth of the Earth. Many more also were children. But that too is an aesthetic judgement.

Personally, I consider you an emissary of evil and your Bush League government not much better. But that has more to do with your attitudes towards technology as a universal good, your moral laziness, and your inability to see that it is not "bad people" that constitute the problem… rather it's bad organizing techniques.

Evil is usually quite banal. People drop bombs or blow up buildings because they can't think of anything more creative to do. Good consists of unexpected creativity, and choosing rather than predicting. A "moral code" always leads to evil by definition, it being predicated on imitation…

For these reasons a robot will be more evil than a human, simply for being more imitative by def'n.

If we trusted them completely, it might be quite different, but we don't, and we won't, and if the robots are weapons of war, we certainly *can't*…

There is book called "Galileo's Mistake" you should read. As to Mengele, he was only one Nazi, and not even all Nazis shared his attitudes. You are proposing exactly the same ethical standard as he did, however, that being "since someone is going to do this, let's do it first".

Your version of psychiatry has no impact whatever on my self-image, nor does your concept of threat mean much other than amount to an admission that you intend to build (or support the building of) nanotech weapons (that being the only group that I said I was personally prepared to do harm to).

But all that should be of no interest to you. What should concern you is that there are *many* more of me than of you, and you will be hiding from people like me the rest of your life if you don't change your view of the value of debating ethics before beginning an experiment or making a design physically real. I don't wish that on you, as childish as you may be with your fantasy of politics-free immortality, you deserve more out of your life than that. I hope you get it.

Be at peace. Stay out of those weapons labs, and don't vote for people who insist on building them. That's really all "people like me" ask.

No, you're certainly right – except that if the Allies hadn't bombed Peenemunde during WWII, the Nazis would have developed the bomb. What do you think they would have done with it?

What do you think a current psycho with money/charisma/power would do with nanotech if they had the resources (perhaps from his sizeable and largely untraced investments of his former family fortune) to try? Do you think fundie governments that have no regard for the "commonly accepted" morals and values, the type of people who would send 19 of their own people to die in order to smash up a few buildings, do you really believe they'd say "Sure, we'll stop putting all of our oil money and the money we extort from our populaces into scientific research till we decide who's got the morals to handle it?" In a perfect utopia, perhaps, but that isn't what we are.

ANd before you condemn weapons development, think about all the things that have come from nuclear physicis that have SAVED lives, not destroyed them. Thanks to radiology and nuclear medicine, injuries can be more easily detected, even repaired. People whose sight was formerly almost nothing can now see without glasses because of laser research that stemmed from that old Nazi research we literally stole.

"If so, the loss is yours, since I or someone like me will have to come and kill you in your sleep, if you are involved in weapons work"

You, who spouts about morals, threatening murder? So, it's right when you do it, but wrong when womeone else does it? WHat exactly IS your moral code that permits this?

Ok… so now you're comparing me to a Nazi because I don't share your world view.

I'm done trying to talk sense to you Hubley. You've threatened to kill me, you've done your best to try and paint me as a lunatic, and all you've done is prove to me that you're insane.

You're exactly the kind of person I don't want developing MNT because you'd use it to wipe out everyone who doesn't agree with you. Congratulations. While I'm sure it means nothing to you, since you're so secure in your own self righteousness, but you've just aligned yourself with the people behind the Holocaust and the Spainish Inquisistion. If it comes to a choice between your world, and the Grey Goo… I'll take the Goo.

BTW. Replying to almost every post put up on Nanodot doesn't make you a concerned citizen, it makes you desperate for attention, and it makes you look like a five year old.

And this will be the last time I deign to reply to you.

Unlike this bizarre and ungrounded undebate with LSMcGill here, the Greenpeace discussions have been generally civil and free of the worst of the dishonest shifting of frames McGill engages in. Biosecurity Protocol elements will be of the most interest to the nanodot crowd, as it focuses in on extensions to the existing Biosafety Protocol and makes mention of some of Drexler's measures.

"My morals are my business, and I don't expect everyone to live up to my moral code. Just as I don't expect anyone to force me to do something against my morals just because it's something their moral code says is okay."

Moral codes don't "say" anything – it's actually absurd to talk about them as if they can somehow be shared or described. Ethical codes can be shared but morality – just a mass of inhibitions. Morality can't be proven, only observed.

"Morality always stems from religious dogma," to the soul-less I suppose. Some of us feel it directly. As to "intelligent research unfettered by religious dogma", that was also Dr. Mengele's excuse. You will not get the blank check that you seem to insist on. Six point one billion people will not leave you free to build your fantasy. The Singularity Cult is quite doomed.

New weapons research "behind closed doors" is not likely to be effective. It never has before – of all such projects only The Manhattan Project has ever generated a true surprise attack weapon.

If we are concerned about "a weeks edge in development" then the goal is obviously wrong. The answer in this case is simply to surrender.

"Face it Hubley… we aren't going to agree on this one, and all the insults in the world aren't going to change my opinon." If so, the loss is yours, since I or someone like me will have to come and kill you in your sleep, if you are involved in weapons work. Your excuses do not matter. It is the work itself which matters.

There is evidently no "we" at all – you wish to claim an extremely negative view of human nature *during development* which suddenly becomes all rosy and non-suicidal as soon as you get your immortality. That is insane. It is only a question of how many you take with you, mister.

I don't need to change your opinion. Only your chance of success.

""Humanity" is insane, but individual humans are not."

You might consider where on the ladder from one to six billion humans things become "insane". I recommend you consider 'groupthink' as an influence and alternatives, such as Consensus Process which seem to reduce it.

"My dream is for a future where no-one has to worry about death, or war, or famine, one where everyone can be free to grow and develop to their best potential."

No one has to worry about death now, if they accept it as part of life. If you seek to escape it altogether, you seek to become a vampire or to end reproduction. Some would call both goals mad.

"And I want to achieve that without the loss of a single life."

But yet, you dodge the requirement to negotiate. You poor silly thing. Do you imagine that you will be allowed to live your eternal life without any negotiation? Better brush up on politics…