4 Responses to “Reynolds on EPA nanotech meeting”

1. Morgaine Says:
   December 19th, 2003 at 6:53 AM

   A professional approach to areas of concern

   This is how the current world of nanotech logic goes, when it comes to dealing with possible concerns:

   1. Identify some possible areas where MNT might have environmental impact (after all the usual disclaimers).
   2. Talk about the possibility of regulation, feed political institutions with information, and hope for the best.

   That's it. That's the entirety of the logical process. All our years of professional training and experience in dealing with problems and solutions, simply abandoned. That's not good enough, and moreover, it's not responsible.

   Let me sketch out how logic is meant to work in the context of a scientific community that has its thinking cap firmly on its head. It uses the most fundamental of logic-based engineering protocols, and it goes something like this:

   2. Identify some possible areas where MNT might have environmental impact (after all the usual disclaimers).
   3. Examine the solution space covering the area where possible problems have been identified. It breaks down into several categories, including regulation, general engineering charters, specific defensive technology and strategy, and community initiatives, so examine each in turn. (Add other categories as they become clear.)
   4. Examine the possibilities offered by regulation.
      • Observe that regulation is in the first instance national, whereas the problem space is global. This doesn't mean that it cannot help, but check out more promising solution areas first.
      • Observe that meaningful international regulation is near-impossible to achieve except among just a handful of nations and very late in the day, and that the most developed nations regularly flaunt agreements whenever it suits them. It may be of some limited help one day, far down the line.
      • Observe that all regulatory approaches only restrict the "good guys", and that there is no unanimous global view as to who the "good guys" are anyway. No regulation will stop organized crime, nor terrorism, nor accidents, nor indeed the effects of "legal" military use of MNT.
      • Observe (for the benefit of those to whom it is not yet obvious) that on the basis of the preceding points in item [3], the likelihood of regulation protecting the world from the problems identified in item [1] is so small that to rely on it alone or in large part would constitute extreme negligence.

   5. Examine whether engineering charters may help reduce any of the identified problems by helping responsible engineers avoid dangerous approaches. (This is somewhat related to the road trodden by the Foresight Guidelines, minus the politics.) Start laying the ground for engineering charters to be created.
   6. Examine the solution space of defensive technology, observing that it can in principle deal with the entire range of problem types, from military or terrorist or criminal attacks to commercial products gone awry, and from whichever part of the global they may originate. Propose specific technologies and strategies that may be relevant, and start laying the ground for these to be examined in full detail.
   7. Examine how communities can organize themselves to make use of defensive technologies and strategies. Observe that national "defense" rarely defends anyone except military and political leaders, tending to focus on eliminating the agents of offense instead — this is clearly very useful and will no doubt continue, but it is very limited. Wider defense either requires a community focus or else needs to be community-wide yet transparent to the community. Examine both possibilities, and promote community involvement.

   Isn't that more rational?

   Please let us take a professional approach to dealing with problems and solutions, instead of giving up all hope by appealing to the magic genie of politics with total disregard to its limited usefulness in this area.

2. ChrisPhoenix Says:
   December 19th, 2003 at 9:21 AM

   Re:A professional approach to areas of concern

   Morgaine, it's a lot worse than that. Currently, there appear to be two kinds of people in government:

   1) Those who have never heard of MNT (the vast majority).
   2) Those who are opposed to it for political reasons (including herd mentality).

   There is presumably a third kind, though we don't know how many:

   3) Those who are willing to think about it, but are keeping their heads down.

   So our MNT strategy, for now, is very simple:

   1) Educate government people about the bare basics of MNT. If possible, show them why they should care.

   Does this make more sense of my EPA presentation (and maybe of Glenn's)?

   If there's something better we can be doing at this point, please point it out. I think the points you raised are good for us to think about internally, starting now. But I don't see how we can even begin to communicate them to the government without laying a foundation of MNT awareness (and also working to counteract the rampant denial in certain high places).

   Chris

3. Morgaine Says:
   December 19th, 2003 at 12:04 PM

   Re:A professional approach to areas of concern

   Chris writes:

   I think the points you raised are good for us to think about internally, starting now. But I don't see how we can even begin to communicate them to the government without laying a foundation of MNT awareness

   Why is communicating them to a government the number one point on the agenda, when it is pretty clear that a political solution can help only marginally? Please reread the four bullet points within my item [3]. They're not perfect, it's easy to quibble with them, but overall they combine to say that national politics is no solution at all, let alone a responsible one.

   This is precisely the problem that my post was seeking to highlight. Every potential concern here is being addressed without any attempt whatsoever at a rational examination of the solution space. Instead, there is an immediate rush to dump the whole thing in the lap of government, without even bothering to assess to what degree this can provide a solution.

   No honest professional chooses an arbitrary solution without examining the realm of possible alternatives, identifying to what extent each alternative can help, employing elementary traceability analysis to determine the degree of coverage of the overall problem by the proposed solutions, and suggesting means for improving that coverage. On a scale of 1 to 100 denoting the range of problems identified so far, would anyone like to volunteer a figure for coverage by current efforts? Maybe 2 or 3 out of 100 at best, its effect cannot be greater than that. Do the traceability analysis yourself if you think it's higher.

   The existing solution strategy is far from being professionally honest: it is arbitrary, and any analysis will readily show that its potential coverage of the problem space is insignificant. As a result, the existing strategy is not a responsible one: it claims that the goal is to deal with the potential environmental impact responsibly yet makes no attempt to do so. A negative view might be that it actually abrogated responsibility by trying to dump the hot potato in the lap of politicians.

   I say again, reread my four bullet points within item [3]. They are nothing new, many have said them before and probably better, but at least they're laid down concisely there.

   And then, having reprioritized [3] to the end of the list on the basis of being singularly useless, let's proceed with categories of the solution space like [4] to [6], which actually have some possibility of delivering an effective response. Just those three paragraphs alone provide enough opportunity for us to exercise our responsibility for decades to come.

   That won't happen though unless people do the coverage analysis, recognize their elementary mistake in direction, swallow their pride, jokingly admit "Oops, wrong planet" and rapidly proceed to do something more useful.

4. Kadamose Says:
   December 20th, 2003 at 2:19 PM

   Re:A professional approach to areas of concern

   Chris, trying to convince politicians about MNT is a complete waste of time. Even if they did understand the benefits of MNT, they would not allow it to exist, simply because it would be a threat to all bases of power within the government, itself.

   I truly do appreciate your effort in trying to educate the government about this technology, but you are educating the wrong people. The people that need to know about this technology, is the everyday average joe – since it is they who will decide the outcome of what happens to this world once true Nanotechnology comes to fruition. Will we be living in an even worse hell than we are now, or will we band together and create a literal heaven on earth? The only way to have the latter is if EVERYONE is educated on this matter.

   If you educate the public, and they understand the benefits and dangers of MNT, they will be more than happy to donate and possibly even fund the entire MNT project. This should be a worldwide collaboration – not an individual project funded by a corrupt government.

   If we were to educate the public properly, we would see more than 100 billion per year in Nanotech funding from the people, worldwide, and from private donations. And what's even better, is once some promises (via primitive nanotech) are fulfilled, we will see trillion dollar estimates in Nanotech funding which will usher in mature Nanotech. Once mature Nanotech arrives, the money system will be irrelevent, and true equality will be obtained. That is what we all want, and that is what we should be striving for.

   We do not need the government now or in the future – so please, stop trying to dig a hole that we won't ever be able to dig ourselves out of.

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