On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
Maybe, but it seems like offense just got a boost. Passive biodefenses don't work against an active offense.
Ablative, camouflage, and contact poison ones do. Nature is full of 'passive' defenses that are effective. Evolutionary Wars: A 3 Billion Year Arms Race The battle of species on land, at sea, and in the air C.K. Levy ISBN 0-7167-3775-2
If sniffers start landing on your skin and taking a microscopic sample, then they won't be trivial to defend against.
Then you build nano-hunters. If the thing is mobile enough and smart enough then the technology is suitable to build a hunter-killer. Since you built it, and programmed it the security is quite high. Since the security is high the safety factor is high 'for you with respect to your technology'. This is another reason that 'reputation' is not as important as one would believe. Because of the requisite safety/security requirement of technology vetting nobody is going to believe a word that is said. The reason people will exist in transactions/relationships is as exchange brokers or personal interest. The ONLY(!!!) defence against a technological attack is a technological defence; passive/active, pro/re-active, etc. are digressions into minutea. They don't effect the fundamental balance of the situation. Attack/Defend. This is exactly why 'economics' and 'government' as we know it will cease to exist over the next couple of hundred years (maybe quicker). You will get your population of nano-bots when you're born from your parents. You'll inherit as a matter of course both a nano- and bio-technology when you become an adult. It will be keyed to you via a variety of mechanisms. They will get it from others in their 'chreche' (my 'zaibatsu') related by blood and long term personal relationships (note that this is not a driving force for inter-creche transfers). People will not have 'jobs' as we know them. Automation, bio-engineering, and intelligence technology will make that pointless. Exchages between chreche will be people and technology. People will have duties, obligations, responsibilities with respect to the business of the creche and inter-creche relations. Those relations will consist of almost nothing but technology/research/information transfers. As the technology increases the need for heirarchy with respect to survival and social behaviour limitations becomes less. Because of the (apparent) nature of technology growth two things will happen. The first is that individuals will be able to better fend for themselves. Consider an aggregate technology (psycho/digital/nano/bio-technology) that will allow a person to walk out into a field; filled with trees, grass, bushes, birds.... Program their nano-bots to create a steak. And within a couple of hours the field and its raw minerals and bio-mass are consumed, transformed, and delivered at your feet. A steaming steak sitting on a fine china plate; accompanied by a heap of gray goo piled next to it. Awaiting their next orders from your PDA...all in a silent, barren, stripped field. Weapons of mass destruction? You ain't seen nothing yet... What will keep some nutcase from killing everyone? Everyone will be providing both individual and community service with respect to building pro-active defences. You won't die from some Mujahadin bio-bug or nano-hunter-kill because it's against the law (and just exactly whos law might that be?), you'll do it because you've deployed(!) an active pre-emptive counter-measure technology. Probably both bio- and nano-. The thesis has been made that a critical point will be reached when countries become, as a matter of course, armed to such a point they can take on other countries 1-1. Now consider the sorts of societies that will be needed when that is person to person. Consider what it means when, as a result of this technology we must finally come to grips with the fact that the depravities of mankind are one of psychology and that the bad will always be with us. Consider what it means for things like 'trust', 'reputation', 'nation', 'independent', 'individual'. It is also a strong argument why freedom of speech with respect to taboo subjects like bombs is the wrong way to go. If everyone knows how to do it then nobody can hide their actions since they must collect and arrange resources. It also means that the number of potential observants goes way up. This increases the chances of early detection. The rational thing to do is teach people how to make bombs so they can recognize when some nutcase decides they want to make a bomb. The FBI should be teaching public classes. Jefferson said something about when a nation is threatened by the ignorance of the people, you don't change the law. You educate the people. -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------