I've been reading Many Colored Glass, which is a collection of essays by Dyson (of Dyson Sphere fame). One of the essays is a debate between him and Bill Joy, the founder of Sun Microsystems regarding the necessary restrictions of nanotechnology. He argued this by drawing parallels to biotechnology. Reading through, a few interesting nuggets fell out I thought people would enjoy. Von Neumann showed mathematically that a self-replicating assembler requires four parts; Component A, an automatic factory. Component B, a copying machine. Component C, a control machine to control the actions of A and B. Component D, a blueprint, containing a complete description of A, B and C. These four components all exist in cells already (A is ribosomes, B is polymerase enzymes, C is enzymes controlling cell division, D is the genome composed of DNA or RNA.)Any self-replicating nano-machines must rediscover these components that already exist in every bacteria - in other words, the grey goo threat is already here (and has certainly never been realized). A self-replicating nanomachine composed of inorganic matter cannot replicate itself by eating existing forms of life. A biological nanomachine is just a new biological disease germ. In a nutshell, the grey goo scenario, while dangerous, is not an existential threat. The worst it can reasonably be expected to do is release an invasive species into an environment, which is indeed very destructive, but not a new challenge to us. He does discuss if biotechnology follows the explosive take-off of computer technology. He hypothesizes that if it does, we will see home gene sequencers, a return of power to rural settings and non-urban locations as biodiversity becomes more valuable, and a green revolution. He describes the home biotechnology kit as meeting five basic functions: 1) To grow plants under controlled conditions (a greenhouse with tools and chemical supplies) 2) To grow animals under controlled conditions (stable or cages, with food and medicaments) 3) Simple and user-friendly instruments to allow the manipulation of seeds, eggs, or embryos 4) Tabletop genome sequencer 5) Tabletop genome synthesizer, able to synthesize substantial quantities of DNA with any desired sequence. Biotechnology will permit relatively easy at-home fabbing, through the growth rather than manufacturing of common things such as chairs and tools. Obviously combining this with existing computer technology means that anyone with a personal biolab and a PC can generate any of an assortment of common items with common resources such as fertilizer and water, and without requiring any special skills. EP missteps here in that it assumes biotechnology made these massive leaps (specifically #4 and #5 above), but stopped shortly after the most immediate economic applications, and instead the lagging sister, nanotechnology, made up the gap. The advantage I can see for nanotechnology is that it is quicker. However, the biotech leg requires less specialized equipment, is an older, more dependable skill, and is not as limited in size as nanomanufacturing (in fact, I imagine that large pieces such as spacecraft struts may be organically grown using specially adapted flora). I'll post more interesting things as I get to them. In the interim, anyone who is interested in some very awesome ideas which feed directly into EP, I strongly recommend looking into Dyson. Sterling actually gave him a shout-out in the foreword of Schismatrix, so I'm not sure what more of a recommendation someone can get.