X-Message-Number: 32818
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2010 13:03:15 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>
Subject: Re: nano
References: <>

Robert Ettinger wrote:
> I don't have the patience to list the references or expound the
> results, but even a cursory search will reveal many useful
> developments in nanotechnology, and many patents.

Most of the developments are in things that are labeled
nanotechnology rather than in actual MNT, which is what is required
to repair cryonics patients.

Once a huge amount of funding became available in the 1990s for
"nanotechnology" research, a lot of people suddenly "discovered" that
their work in materials, organic synthesis, etc., was in fact
"nanotechnology". Given the politics of funding agencies,
this is hardly surprising -- reviewers would inevitably come
from fields like that and would tend to support researchers
doing work they understand well. Virtually no money has gone
to real MNT research.

There are some arguable exceptions. One might regard current work in
synthetic biology as a sort of true nanotechnology research, though
for reasons that aren't worth getting into right now I don't think
synthetic biology is "interesting" from our perspective.

One might also regard the current work on DNA origami and similar
techniques as a sort of "true" nanotechnology, though there are as
yet no means to produce true machines by those methods. (That said, I
follow the DNA origami world's research because I might be wrong and
it might become critically important.)

However, if you want to talk about the people out there that are
working on actual molecular machines research, well, there aren't a
lot of them. 

> But even if there was or is over-optimism in  some quarters about
> the pace of progress, that does not affect the iron strength of the
> basic argument. 

The basic argument is indeed iron clad. Anyone who does not think
nanomachines and molecular manufacturing are feasible should look in
the mirror -- all living things are made of nanomachines.

As for the creation of a robust molecular manufacturing capability
that would permit the sorts of devices Robert Freitas has sketched
out in books like "Nanomedicine" and in his papers on devices such as
respirocytes, microbivores, etc.:

I don't think that the engineering obstacles to be overcome are
particularly beyond our reach as a technological society, even given
our current tools. The real issue is that we lack enough minds
working on the issue.

If we had a few hundred smart people in their early twenties working
full time on the problem, the outlook would be very different. As it
is, there aren't even professors for said young women and men to study
the field with.

If I had the power to go back in time and be perfectly persuasive to
just one person, I would return to the point where Eric Drexler got
his doctorate and convince him to get a faculty job, even if
necessary at a second tier university, rather than founding Foresight.
By now, there would be thousands of students who had taken classes
under him and dozens of graduated PhDs who had studied with him. That
would be enough for there to be a self sustaining research community,
conferences devoted to true MNT, a journal or two, etc., and the
community would be spreading.

Instead, any smart student who reads EoC or thumbs through
Nanosystems and wants to learn more has essentially nowhere to turn,
gets discouraged, and is ultimately lost to the field. That needs to
be fixed.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger		

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