The books I read often set my thoughts for several weeks after I have finished. I recently read both The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, and Methuselah’s Children by Robert Heinlein. Both very good books. Since then, I have been thinking mainly about cyborgs that are based on nanites in the body, and what would happen in a society that had those people who went that route. A nanite based cyborg would probably be capable of many potentially destructive things (the most compelling reason I found to add nanites to my system was so that I could construct things directly with materials at hand), and, if a such a cyborg decided to start destroying things, would be likely difficult to stop. My realization was that no society can survive if it does not hold the non aggression principle as a moral absolute, and nanite based cyborgs would only speed up the self-destruction. In a society that does hold the NAP as a moral absolute, any reasonable nanite based cyborg (which I will probably call an NBC so I don’t have to type that out again) would work to bring down a NBC violating the NAP. This would probably not work so well in a system where a single entity held monopoly over use of force, meaning governments can only make NBCs dangerous. Oh.
Save the Republic!
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” -Benjamin Franklin
July 7, 2008 at 2:02 am |
I think you are on the right track with the statement that a reasonable cyborg would try to stop any rampaging cyborgs. Just like superheroes tend to spend a lot of time fighting supervillians. And fortunately, I think that more people would want a peaceful and non-destructive existence, so likely there will be more good people than bad people. The good people will be numerous enough that any cyborg vandal won’t be able to get very far – the good people will stop the vandal and rebuild things, especially if the government funded police have more advanced nanites or better training.
As for the part about governments, I think that the Second Amendment of the US Constitution could apply to nanotechnology – and so any monopoly of technology would be unconstitutional. Not sure whether citizens of other nations would be similarly able to overthrow such control, but generally the people prevail.