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Topic: The alien proposition (Read 3195 times) |
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Hermit
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #15 on: 2005-11-10 08:34:05 » |
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Any inimical group possessing femto-tech would not need to get into a war - or a negotiation - unless that is driven by ethical considerations - with a group that doesn't even comprehend the urgent need for nano-tech. They would merely convert them into something more useful. Lunch perhaps.
So arguments revolving around warfare issues (or lebensraumte) with femto-technologists are, I suggest, futile.
Unfortunately, if evolution is the only mechanism for sharing environments, then if there is competition the weaker will go to the wall. The non-femto-tech would not survive. And the femto-techs probably would go to the wall in turn should they run into an "atto, zepto or yocto-tech" societies.
We are currently well able to build machines at the millimeter scale, can with difficulty produce micrometer scale machines, and are starting to puzzle out nanoscale production challenges. Even at the nano scale. quantum effects begin to have serious effects on the design. So it seems likely that the nanotechnology scale is a fairly unforgiving barrier to further miniaturization efforts.
Hermit
Table of Engineering Multipliers
| milli | 10^-3 | | micro | 10^-6 | | nano | 10^-9 | | pico | 10^-12 | | femto | 10^-15 | | atto | 10^-18 | | zepto | 10^-21 | | yocto | 10^-24 |
(Notice that each multiplier is one thousandth of the previous).
A Budget of Paradoxes (Augustus de Morgan)
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
Poetry, a Rhapsody (Jonathan Swift)
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em;
And so proceed ad infinitum.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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localroger
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #16 on: 2005-11-10 19:37:56 » |
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Quote from: David Lucifer on 2005-11-09 13:11:22
The analog for (the benefit in question) "femtotech" should be "building New Orleans" not "draining the swamp". When seen in this light this becomes more of an argument for taking threats seriously rather than an argument against accepting the benefit with its inherent risks. I agree we should take threats seriously, but it also is rational to discount future threats appropriately.
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Actually, I'd niggle that I was right: The original city as founded by Bienville survived Katrina. It is the suburbs, which were originally cypress swamps and were drained starting in the late 1900's, which were submerged. When the first neighborhoods built like this lasted awhile more were built in ever more precarious abundance, but the protective measures were never improved much even though they've always been known to be weak. And even if they were as good as the Netherlands, there is still the dictum of hydrologists which our cheerful-as-a-ray-of-sunshine local paper recently printed: "There are two kinds of levees, those that have failed and those that haven't failed yet." The wise man may build inside the levee, but he architects his house accordingly. Not much wisdom was shown in the development of suburban New Orleans.
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BTW Keith Henson showed up in #virus, He is alive and well and living in the Mortmain Mountains.
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That is really excellent news.
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He mentioned that he originally brought up this thought experiment to demonstrate the failure of discount economics. The implication is that if you employ discount economics then you will likely accept the alien gift because the big cost (grey goo scenario) in 1000 years will be discounted to almost zero at normal discount rates (around 10%/year). Since Keith thinks this is obviously the wrong choice it indicates a problem with the methodology. I however believe that the decision is correct and there is nothing wrong with this methodology. The future is discounted precisely because it is uncertain and as Jake pointed out, a lot can happen in 1000 years.
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Well as for the merits of discounting the future, one can make a rational case on either side; my point is that our history of dealing with such long-term threats is not very good, and that is a factor I'd have to consider too.
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