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Tomorrow Is Ready - Are
You?
by
H. Vanoy Barton
Our society is on the cusp of
the greatest change in the history of humankind. In fact it is happening as you
read this. Everything that has heretofore happened will appear as idle play time
compared to the coming change. It is a true quantum leap for our
species.
What is this tremendous advance? It is
Nanotechnology.
There is not sufficient space in this newsletter to
explain the extent to which this technology will transform life on this planet.
With that in mind, I will paint with a broad brush and give you a link to where
you can begin your own research into this technology, and its implications for
all facets of life. The children who are now in the third grade will see this
technology become as ubiquitous and normal as a piece of paper. Hence, society
needs to be aware. I have researched and tracked this technology for the past
fifteen years.
The end result of this technology will be that humankind
will have created a new species - a new type of human - which I long ago dubbed
'Homo Superioralis'. Sound grandiose? Let me give you the practical conclusion
of this technology. A person will be able to touch another person and thereby
know everything the other person knows, and vice-versa. Imagine the educational
benefits of this type of knowledge transmission and absorption. Imagine the
learning curve being shrunk from a lifetime to mere moments and continuing ad
infinitum. Our species will reach heights of achievement previously only
imagined in the works of authors Issac Asimov, Clifford Simak and other
visionaries of the Science Fiction genre. This will be a fact and I can prove
it, and so can you with research. What sort of world will that be for our
children? Will we reach the stars? Will the stadia of millennia holding the sum
of our dreams be fulfilled?
Other practical uses of this technology
include video games, movies, art, along with many other activities, which will
occur only within the brain. Envision a 'Star Trek Holodeck' which transpires in
the mind only. This will be a reality. In fact crude research prototypes
currently exist with non-Nano applications. For example a device that will
mainstream in the next few years is a 'video game' that occurs only within the
mind with direct sensory input to the brain - as you may recall, video games
mainstreamed before PCs. Will this interfere with a child's, or adult's, ability
to discern reality? Will fictional entertainment become reality while engaged
with the game? Yes! Will this distort a child's, or adult's, ability to function
in society?
Currently 'smart dust' exists. Quantum dots exist. Strides
are rapidly being made in the medical applications of Nanotechnology. The end
point of this research will be similar to what is illustrated, again, in 'Star
Trek' - patients will be infused with nanites capable of knitting bones,
clearing arteries, repairing retinas, along with curing virtually every disease
presently known to humankind.
What Nanotechnology will become is the
direct integration of computer (machine) and human - thus my contention that we
will have created another species. We will no longer be merely human, we will be
something else.
The societal implications of this type of technology will
far surpass any challenge humankind has ever faced. In the world of geek there
is light technology and dark technology. In reality, there is only one
technology. How that technology is utilized determines light, or dark. For
example as surely as nanites can interface with the human brain to allow instant
knowledge transfer, they can also interface with the human brain to deliver
programmed utter docility or programmed behavior. For example, ruthless business
concerns could easily have willing slaves, content to work for no pay,
subsisting with the barest minimum of food and shelter - the sweat shops of
yesteryear on steroids. Ruthless governments, or NGOs, could completely control
citizen behavior to their whim or desire. Military commanders can easily induce
total psychosis or immobility upon the enemy, or the citizens of the enemy, with
introduction of nanites programmed for this function into water supplies. The
uses of Nanotechnology are unlimited - both light and
dark.
Nanotechnology will mainstream, it will happen. Ever faster
processors are being used to design even faster and smaller processors.
Conception to marketplace is being compressed at a Mhor's Law pace and beyond.
Reflect on how far computing has come within the past twenty years.
Nanotechnology will proceed at a like, or faster pace. Twenty years from now we
will have created a new species. 2025 will be as different from today as 2005 is
from 1705 - or moreso. Are you prepared? Are our children prepared?
Start
your research here and you will begin to understand: Small Times
This
Is Info,© 2005 - 2008 H. Vanoy Barton, all rights reserved.
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