CryoNet #32951 - #32953

CryoNet - Tue 19 Oct 2010

    #32951: Re: CryoNet #32949 - #32950 [Gerald Monroe]
    #32952: Future Fatigue [MARK PLUS]
    #32953: Re: Scott Locklin and technological progress [MARK PLUS]

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Message #32951
References: <[email protected]>
From: Gerald Monroe <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:37:37 -0500
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32949 - #32950

--001636164a555469080492e51f47

Perry : what's the closest real world industry or field that is working on a
precursor to molecular manufacturing?

One thing about the overall field that keeps nagging at me : we have a good,
solid description of what molecular manufacturing is and how it will we
work.  Many scientists are confident it will work (and I think the prior art
of nature itself is proof enough).  How many years typically passed between
when writers and scientists of the past accurately described a technology
and when it was first prototyped?  For instance, Babbage's analytical engine
was described in 1837 (refined until his death in 1871) and the first
mechanical computer that was comparable was the German Z1, completed 1938.
 101 years.

A nanomachine capable of general purpose manufacturing is expected to look
very similar to a mechanical computer, with thousands of intricate molecular
parts working in sync.  Hopefully it will take less than 101 years to build
a working prototype, but even if it does, it's a reasonable period of time
for a cryonics organization to preserve it's patients.  On a positive note,
it's expected that nanotechnology will develop faster than almost any other
technology introduced due to the facts that the production devices will be
self replicating and that it is expected to turbocharge many other
technologies that have been stalled for decades.

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Message #32952
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:45:14 -0700
Subject: Future Fatigue
From: MARK PLUS <[email protected]>

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of "Future Shock"

http://bigthink.com/ideas/24533

I can see why Toffler's book might have impressed people in 1970 for a
week or two as something insightful, radical or edgy.

I don't see why it has that reputation now. I turn 51 next month, and
nothing in my life has given me "future shock," mainly because of all
the fraudulent promises of technological transformations I've heard
since my childhood. (And you know what I refer to.)

-- 
Mark Plus
Life is short: Freeze hard!

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Message #32953
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:24:57 -0700
Subject: Re: Scott Locklin and technological progress
From: MARK PLUS <[email protected]>

Brian Wowk endorses Scott Locklin's observations about the failure of
technological progress in Cryonet #32937:

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=32937

I have to disagree with Locklin's assessment of medical progress since 1959:

>Medicine? Surgical techniques are unarguably better now than 50 years ago, but they're not terribly different either. And compared to what was developed 50 years prior, not so impressive. I hope humans can learn to do amazing things like grow new livers in 50 years, but I'm not optimistic at the prospects. Drugs? I can't think of anything in the last 50 years which was as cataclysmic as the invention of antibiotics. Most of the drugs since then have done little more than give people excuses to behave badly. We're certainly not any healthier now, just more dependent on medical intervention to keep us alive and functioning.

We do enjoy better health now on average, but not for the commonly
assumed reasons. Modern health care doesn't have that much to do with
health, according to Robin Hanson's research. Antibiotics, for
example, did not produce a "cataclysmic" discontinuity in the
mortality rate, which has declined steadily over the past century for
reasons independent of health care:

Fear of Death and Muddled Thinking - It Is So Much Worse Than You Think

http://hanson.gmu.edu/feardie.pdf

I've had to start taking an ACE inhibitor (Lisinopril) to lower my
blood pressure after the branch retinal vein occlusion in my right eye
back in June. It produces a measurable decline in my BP, but Hanson's
essay causes me to question whether the pharmacological attack on risk
factors for cardiovascular diseases makes that much difference in the
health of populations.

-- 
Mark Plus
Life is short: Freeze hard!

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