Well, now, where to begin? My recent rantings
have rippled up and down the nanosphere and have had a far larger
influence on the public debate over nanotech's future than I had ever
expected. Scary. I'll take it from the top, but stay with it until the
end, since there's a narrative flow with a bizarre ending.
I wrote a column in Small Times. Mark Modzelewski of the NanoBusiness Alliance, wrote an opposing column in Small Times. Both were excerpted in
Mark:
basements
Then the nanoblogosphere (I just made up that term) rumbled and roared:
Chris Phoenix of the
for Responsible Nanotechnology:
"Politics these days seems to be more about smearing your
opponents
than about presenting actual facts. Mark Modzelewski says that we've
cooked up a conspiracy theory with a "devious cabal." What we actually
said is that the wording was changed
deliberately and blatantly."
Chris will likely have more to say in a letter to the editor
for the next print edition of
Times magazine.
From a blogger who chooses to remain
anonymous:
"I resent this insuation. It's totally inaccurate. I work out
of my
mom's den, not her basement."
From blogger
Moore
The idea of Drexler's nanobots is indeed a cool one. I agree.
It seems
exciting. But it would be ridiculous to base national nanotech policy
on achieving something that, as I said before, no one has shown any
scientific reason as to why they should work and plenty of people have
shown scientific reasons as to why the won't work. The commercial
approach that we have now works well. It allows the field to develop on
many different tangents and in all directions.
From blogger
Goodner
"I think this act is another example of government largesse
to
corporate interests, no surprise from this administration. If this
money had gone to academic research, and the ip to the public domain,
without preordained conclusions society would be better off."
Chris Peterson of the Foresight Institute,
writing in Nanodot:
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Rock on Howard, thanks! Think small, impact large.