Today, nanoscience has deployed materials into the environment which can receive radio signals, deliver drugs through the lipid membranes of cells with no antibiotic resistance, use DNA to assemble carbon and gold structures at the molecular level. Nanoscience has given us biological factories which can produce virtually anything using the DNA of e. coli. The “accidental” release of chemicals into our environment may have placed at the disposal of nanobots materials engineered for particular purposes, with particular features. We find chemicals in our water and air we cannot explain. Our food is shrouded in plastics with chemical properties easily adaptable to the needs of nanoscience. Artificial sweeteners and heavy metals have plagued us for generations, a chemical soup of frightening ingredients. These chemicals may serve as deeply buried supply centers, caches of material for use at a time in the future. Unused but available, these materials may only need assembling into appropriate configurations, by nanoassemblers, switched on by way of radio signals. Conveniently, these signals will soon pass much more readily through walls and structures, thanks to the introduction of DTV in February of this year (2009). And a critical step, the shift of the world’s capitalist, free-market paradigm and the collapse of the world’s economic structure, is already underway.
The Orwellian future seems to have been avoided, but only through modification – Big Brother is now potentially inside us, not just watching. Huxley’s future of a Brave New World, genetically engineered for precise control, is in fact here to stay. While Hans Moravec, who established the world's largest robotics research program at Carnegie Mellon, is convinced he can create a conscious robot in 30 years and is quite enthused by the prospect, the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC) is adjusting the trajectory of the future of humanity, and it is no accidental detour. Imagine controllable spontaneous human combustion, or switchable flesh eating viruses in the hands of a modern Adolph Hitler. What need would he have of gas chambers and ovens? The whole process would have been much cleaner and more efficient with the applied science of nanotechnology at his disposal. The thought gives fears of the New World Order’s vision of eliminating 80% of the population a sharper point.
What prevents this from recurring? What can be done to avoid this future? These are important questions to which no answer immediately presents itself.
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