Nanotech, Cyborgs, Government.

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.

Gar, laptop

So my laptop, the small, and very nice Toshiba m400, is having problems. Unfortunately, I can’t determine if it is a hardware problem or a problem with my linux install. (Yes, I am a Linux user and an open source software supporter: read Eric S. Raymond’s writings to see why this is a expression of free market principles).
Anyway, the symptom is mainly powering off in the middle of me working, which is irritating. I have already done a memtest86+, which eliminated the possibility of it being a memory problem. I am going to do a fresh linux install (good thing I do seperate /home partitioning on all my setups) and see if that solves the problem. My fear is that the motherboard is the problem, which is an inconvenience, even though it is covered under the 4 year warranty (obtained by buying this computer through my high school). Oh well. One way or the other, I will resolve this problem.