|
 In
1992, Walter Jon Williams published a strange, in some ways compelling
science fiction novel entitled, Aristoi (New York: Tom
Doherty Associates). In this "fictional" world of the
future, people live in both real time and virtual time. Internet
is no longer merely global; it is interplanetary. Scizophrenia is
considered not only commonplace, but perfectly normal. Everything
is strange by our early 21st century standards, be it art or medicine
or pets. The technology that dominates the novel more than any other,
however, is what is loosely called "nanotechnology" today.
For those of us who cannot grasp the science behind nanotechnology,
it is simply a technology that has to do with molecular scale creation
of incredibly tiny "machines" that can (or, at least,
one day will) do all sorts of wonderous things. Like, maybe, destroy
a planet. In William's novel, the Earth no longer exists. It was
gobbled up by a nano-bug (for want of a better term) that was self-replicating
and ate anything and everything.
Pure
scifi silliness, right? Wrong. If you do a Google search on "nanotechnology,"
you will come up with an impressive list of fascinating links, a
few of which are listed at the end of this essay. Taken together,
they make the very clear point that nanotechnology is not
a future technology; it exists now, and an increasingly impressive
array of everyday products utilize nanotechnology, however crude
the technology is by the near-future standards of just a decade
or two from now. The example I remember best is a new paint finish
for automobiles that never requires waxing and never loses its new
car lustre. Such a paint exists. Now.
A
second point these websites make collectively is that within twenty
years nanotechnology will have an impact on our lives far beyond
any technological change experienced in all of human history, far
greater than the ancient and immensely influential invention of
rice culture or the more recent and also immensely important invention
of the book. A simple example: in the near future, nanotechnologists
will invent a set of molecular sized nanomachines that can be injected
into a person's body; once there they will seek out and identify
cancer cells, disassemble said cells, and flush them out into that
same bloodstream. No more cancer. Another little set of machines
(or, mayhap, the same ones programmed to carry out more than one
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function) will roam around cleaning out
fatty tissue. No more heart attacks. No more cholesterol worries.
Others will repair gene deficiencies, physical deformaties (no more
glasses or contact lens!), and the end result will be that human
life will be extended indefinitely into the future. Nano technology
will cure physical aging—maybe not by 2024, but perhaps so.
Even if this apparent miracle is delayed by 25 or even 100 years,
it is coming and it will have an incredible impact on human life.
Nanotechnologists, similarly, will turn a specially engineered set
of nanomachines loose on a pile of dirt, and within "x"
number of hours or days you will have a house, or a factory, or
a car. No more dirty, polluting factories (but, also, no more factory
jobs). The possibilities are truly fantastic. Long life beyond in
estimate of how long it can be. The abolishment of poverty. Cheap,
incredibly cheap everything. The stars. Computers that are 1000s
of times faster and more powerful than todays most powerful machines—and
many times smaller. Lest you think this is just a bunch of truly
silly pie-in-the-sky nonsense, one of the sites providing information
on nanotechnology is that of NASA, which website indicates that
NASA is very seriously involved in nanotechnology research.
Unfortunately,
the dangers posed by microtechnology, to use another term, are
just as real and just as serious as indicated in Williams' novel.
In order to be cheap and effective, the nanomachines will have
to be self-replicating and have to consume something as energy.
Therein lies a major danger, because if some engineer misplaces
a decimal point, those tiny machines could start "eating"
things they aren't supposed to eat. Or, equally scary, some future
terrorist group may just decide to set loose a nanobug that will
"take out" America, or Britain, or China. All of it,
whichever "it" it is. Less dramatic but also seriously
worrisome are the possibilities for governments to manipulate
our lives in ways never dreamed of before. Bureaucrats are, by
definition, control freaks, and nanotechnology offers increadible
possibilities for snooping, checking, and controlling with nanomachines
the size of a molecule.
Even if we
put aside these doom and gloom scenarios, we will soon be faced
with finding political, social, and theological answers to profound
issues concerning prolonged life and access to the nanotechnologies
that will make possible lives that will extend for thousands of
years. Who will have access to life extension technology? Will
the poor be left behind again? How will we control birth rates
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when mortality rates plummet to nearly zero? Are we looking towards
a future where children will be a rare phenomenon? Will marriages
last for hundreds of years? Or will it be common for people to establish
new partnerships every couple of centuries or even every few decades?
How will
all of this affect organized religion and the ways in which people
construct their own faith? Christianity promises "eternal
life," for example. But, you have to die first to obtain
it. How compelling is such a promise when nanotechnicians can
promise that life in this life will be so extended as to seem
all but eternal? Christianity puts great store in the Resurrection,
but nanotechnology offers the likelihood that even severe injuries,
such as a bullet in the heart, will be repairable, perhaps by
a set of medical nanobots prepositioned in the body to respond
immediately to traumatic injuries and other life-threatening events.
When each individual has a "resurrection bug" already
in place, who will be interested in or place any importance on
the biblical notion of resurrection? It seems likely that the
explosive growth of nanotechnologies within the next two decades,
if it takes place as predicted, will accelerate the process of
"sheilazation" (according to the story, when a researcher
asked what her religion is, Sheila responded, "Sheilaism"),
that is the individualization of religious faith and weakening
of religious institutions.
In the unlikely
event that it should last so long, what themes and articles will
HeRB contain in its June 2024 issue
when we are supposed by most microtechnologists to be in the throes
of the nano-revolution? How will it be formatted? Who will read
it? What will Thai Christianity be like? Will it have sustained
its growth trends? Will nanotechnology "hit" Thailand
at the same time it does the West? Or, will there be a technological
lag?
I can hear
the cynics among you, dear readers, saying, "Come on, Herb,
get real!" I can only respond by urging you to look at the
websites listed below. If nothing else, each of us needs to prepare
ourselves for the world that is coming. If we are in our 50s (or,
perhaps, 60s) and above, it is very possible that we are the last
generation that will die having lived a "normal" or
"historical" life span of less than a century. If we
are in our 30s and 40s, we need to think about the possibility
of living for centuries (although it might not happen in our life
time), and if we are under 30 we need to conceptualize and even
plan for a life that may well extend into the next millennium,
not just the next century. And all of us need to think about the
political,
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social, and theological issues raised by microtechnology. We are
entering a world bright with fantastic promise and overshadowed
by incomprehensible threat. How will we as a single human race manage
this future?
"Get
real?" Well, yes, I'd like to "get real," but I'm
not at all sure what "real" is going to be like even
a decade or two from now. Consider how vastly different 2004 is
from 1904, which was greatly different from 1804. What seems entirely
possible is that 2024 or 2054 is going to be far more different
from today than today is from a hundred years ago.
Herb Swanson
Ban Dok Daeng
June 2004
| Nan |
o Postscript: in its 1 February
2004 online edition, the Washington Post ran a
story entitled "For Science, Nanotech Poses Big Unknowns,"
written by a staff reporter, Rick Weiss. ( Link)
That story indicates that the nanotechnology industry bids
to expand rapidly in the next few years to the extent that
it is being hailed as the "next industrial revolution."
The article also underscores the many worrisome questions
related to the industry; it focuses, however, on near-term
environmental issues rather than the long-term social and
ethical questions. Articles such as this one, in any event,
demonstrate that nano-issues are important now and will
become only more so in the immediate future. |
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