[srunni]

See chapter 3 ("Nanotechnology will not lead to super-abundance") of Against Transhumanism for a good argument for why this isn't so simple: http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/201...

Summary

1. Lack of rigidity, excessive stickiness of molecules (Van der Waals force), constant random interactions (Brownian motion) at the microscale of cells means mechanistic intuitions from the macroscale don't apply.

2. High surface area (combined with VdW force) causes problems related to friction and energy dissipation.

[wyager]

I didn't want to navigate that PDF, so I read the author's IEEE article, which I think has similar content.

What a boring criticism! All of the things he mentions are easily approachable engineering challenges. His conclusion seems to be "mechanical engineering as with gears and pulleys won't work with nanobots". Duh! No one claimed otherwise.

> mechanistic intuitions about the microscale don't apply.

Obviously. Why would you or the author think nanotechnology optimists don't know this? Half the reason we don't have nanobots is because we don't yet have the engineering expertise and practical tools for these scales. The other half is that we're still working out efficient 3D nanofabrication. They are related problems. These are not physically insurmountable issues (as demonstrated thoroughly by organic life). There are a hundred different fields of study that are slowly eating away at the edges of the general purpose nanofabrication problem.

[srunni]

> All of the things he mentions are easily approachable engineering challenges.

If they are so "easily approachable," feel free to solve them any time. I think you'll find that solving problems in living systems (let alone in the clinic) is much more challenging than it might appear from a CS/physics perspective (https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Andy-Grove-fallacy?share=1).

I'm not saying it's not worth trying (it's certainly a more worthwhile endeavor than getting people to click on more ads), but that it's important to be realistic (for example, that all disease is unlikely to be cured by 2100).

[wyager]

"Easily approachable" doesn't mean I can just go ahead do it. It means I can see how one would start working on it, and in fact many people are.

In fact, I am currently working in a nanotech lab, so I am hopefully helping a bit ;)

None of the problems you linked to are things that need to take a hundred years to solve. It's probably more accurate to measure development barriers in R&D costs than years. At the very least, we could just reverse engineer biology.

[srunni]

> I can just go ahead do it.

Doing experiments on animals (and especially humans or other vertebrates) is the exact opposite of something you can just go ahead and do. The best way to see that is to give it a go yourself.

> At the very least, we could just reverse engineer biology.

Many people in the past with a CS/physics mindset have made similar claims. If you try to work with living systems, I'm sure you'll see why these problems aren't just a matter of spending R&D dollars.

[wyager]

> If you try to work with living systems, I'm sure you'll see why these problems aren't just a matter of spending R&D dollars.

Perhaps you can explain it to me, so I can skip becoming a bio researcher.