This took a weird turn in an article that I thought would explore the basic scientific challenges of nanotech and why we don’t have it yet. I do think that the erosion of religion has some negative externalities in modern society (ie. lack of easy meaning and direction in life and downfall of local community kinship), but no I don’t think that is the main reason why we don’t have nanotech specifically. I don’t even think that’s the primary reason we are more polarized politically now (my current thoughts lean towards changes in information consumption, communication, and trust in institutions).
But specifically nano-printers? Of course people want that, as much as people want quantum computing, fusion energy, brain-computer interfaces, and life-extension. The benefits are obvious, from the money-making opportunities alone. Maybe reality is just disapointing: it’s a harder problem than people originally expected without any economically viable intermediate steps (the kind that bolster AI reasearch now) so progress is stuck in a quagmire.
This took a weird turn in an article that I thought would explore the basic scientific challenges of nanotech and why we don’t have it yet. I do think that the erosion of religion has some negative externalities in modern society (ie. lack of easy meaning and direction in life and downfall of local community kinship), but no I don’t think that is the main reason why we don’t have nanotech specifically. I don’t even think that’s the primary reason we are more polarized politically now (my current thoughts lean towards changes in information consumption, communication, and trust in institutions).
But specifically nano-printers? Of course people want that, as much as people want quantum computing, fusion energy, brain-computer interfaces, and life-extension. The benefits are obvious, from the money-making opportunities alone. Maybe reality is just disapointing: it’s a harder problem than people originally expected without any economically viable intermediate steps (the kind that bolster AI reasearch now) so progress is stuck in a quagmire.