OT ( nano ), please skip if you wouldn´t like

[Lalaman]

As the rest of yesterday as well in the kitchen ( tons of dirty pots and dishes ) as in my head ( transpiring vine ) and the weather outside make me feel good for nothing I thought you might allow me something off topic concerning a futures theoretical possibility. ( Considering the DUC at present beeing slow anyway.)

Nano technique.
Let´s suppose the world is still twisting alright in maybe 15 or 25 years. Think in the meantime nano technique had developed. First there had been very expensive mashines to build up or take to pieces little things molecule by molecule and then techology has gotten better and better.
One day you have a mashine in your home that has a container where you throw waste in. Metal, cloth, plastic, the rest of your yesterdays sandwich or whatever. Now, when you load the moleculare structure plan of anything into your mashine it starts taking molecules from your trash and building the desired object. Depending on what it is about, some hours or days later it spills out the ready thing.
You go in internet, load down ( for free or for cash ) the molecular plan of the thing you want, may it be a piece of russian leaven bread, a fancy watch or a decent microphone and a while later it lays there in your phantastic nano mashine.
Or maybe you put something inside of that mashine and it duplicates it as long as you have the needed raw material at hand.

[img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Wouldn´t that be great?
You can imagine that it could be an incredible situation, introducing efficient use of resources as well as bringing quality of life to everybody. At the same time if technology allowed that path this technique would threaten all material mightyness to be equaled to the average. So this whole thing could ( or would ) end up as a drowing inside of a safe at the latest when it was ready for serial production. In the same way as it has happened to quite a number of outstanding technical inventions just because they were uppon descreasing the way of todays profits.

I kow, this is talking about eggs that are not layed yet. But I am interested in your thoughts, practical ones or guessings.

Lalaman

[polly serial]

you would probably enjoy a book called the diamond age, by neal stephenson.....that's among the fab things he envisions.

[gabriel_p]

Damn, Joe, you sure are optimistic [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
I'd sure like to "materialize" some of them "U87" mics. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Vegadark]

in all honesty though, who knows what kind of technology will become possible in the future. i mean how long have personal computers been around? how long has it been since the transistor was invented? they have been around a reletively short time. if we can go from a single transistor to a 2200+ Athalon PC in 50 years, where will we be in another 50?

[Roy Howell]

I used to worry a touch about things like machines taking the place of man, because of visionary books like 'Future Shock'. But it seems to me that the human element will always be there first.
The wisest thing we could do is make our environment a priority, and if through technology we can recycle things in a brilliantly simple manner, I say 'coooool'. [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]
I'm gonna stop there though, 'cause sometimes I'm just so deep it gives me a headache... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Vegadark]

for some reason, this is my favorite type of discussion. it really interests me when it comes to technology and the developement thereof.

[Steve Moore]

Read this:

The Age of Spiritual Machines
by: Ray Kurzweil
Viking Press
ISBN:0-670-88217-8

Yes he invented the Kurzweil line of synths. It deals with the many moral, ethical and spiritual issues of the evolving technologies and the impact they will have on society in the near future. Specifically with that of artificial intelligence. He deals quite a bit with music and technology. And this stuff is NOT sci-fi but all based on actual emerging technologies. It will literally blow your mind.

Steve M

PS: Not a casual read.

[Lalaman]

You guys hit the nail on its head! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
I was burning to exchange a fiew words about the prospectives of technical development concerning human beings herein since a really long while but I was afraid of being shameless so far OT.
Maybe I could now, within this thread ...

Hm? What do you mean?
[img]images/icons/blush.gif[/img]

[Lalaman]

Yes he invented the Kurzweil line of synths. It deals with the many moral, ethical and spiritual issues of the evolving technologies and the impact they will have on society in the near future. Specifically with that of artificial intelligence. He deals quite a bit with music and technology. And this stuff is NOT sci-fi but all based on actual emerging technologies. It will literally blow your mind.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">WOW!
That´s for my wishlist!

[synthguy99]

Huh. I need to get that. I scribbled out a couple of hundred pages of a science fantasy story several years ago, trying to think lucidly of every logical conclusion of artificial intelligence and bountiful energy and it's impact on human life I could. I bet Ray has some very interesting insights.

Uh.... Steve M too. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]