as a completely disarmed country would have the potential to assemble an entire arsenal – say of cruise missiles – in the span of a day or less.
Why would the existence of nanotechnology imply that it is very rapid? I can easily imagine needing a large factory to build the more complicated nanotech. Just like with current technology it takes months and millions of dollars of investment to create computer chips.
Remember that technology is not magic, and we shouldn’t base our inferences on science fiction books. Change will happen gradually, nanotech assemblers will at first be crude, coarse grained, unreliable and expensive. These machines will require power and raw materials, which will not suddenly be free. For most products, traditional manufacturing will remain orders of magnitude more efficient. Just like the desktop printer didn’t eliminate the printing press.
Drexler has some scenarios, based as far as I can tell in solid science, showing that the nanotech manufacturing revolution could be extremely rapid. And an economy based upon raw materials and energy is very far from our current one (and nanotech recycling could have large effects on the need for raw materials; energy is the main bottle neck, in theory).
You would need some kind of energy source with a very high and rapid EROEI to scale up in such a sudden way, e.g. solar cells that required very, very, little energy to make, including harvesting all the raw materials.
You seem to be arguing that we can’t have a massive gain in value just from re-arranging our current resources better. The raw energy and resource requirements to build a cruise missile are pretty small; given unenriched uranium, the raw energy required to build a nuclear-armed cruise missile is also pretty small. Not to mention tiny camera and drones; a lot of designs are out there, just impossible to assemble in current technology.
Why would the existence of nanotechnology imply that it is very rapid? I can easily imagine needing a large factory to build the more complicated nanotech. Just like with current technology it takes months and millions of dollars of investment to create computer chips.
Remember that technology is not magic, and we shouldn’t base our inferences on science fiction books. Change will happen gradually, nanotech assemblers will at first be crude, coarse grained, unreliable and expensive. These machines will require power and raw materials, which will not suddenly be free. For most products, traditional manufacturing will remain orders of magnitude more efficient. Just like the desktop printer didn’t eliminate the printing press.
Drexler has some scenarios, based as far as I can tell in solid science, showing that the nanotech manufacturing revolution could be extremely rapid. And an economy based upon raw materials and energy is very far from our current one (and nanotech recycling could have large effects on the need for raw materials; energy is the main bottle neck, in theory).
You would need some kind of energy source with a very high and rapid EROEI to scale up in such a sudden way, e.g. solar cells that required very, very, little energy to make, including harvesting all the raw materials.
You seem to be arguing that we can’t have a massive gain in value just from re-arranging our current resources better. The raw energy and resource requirements to build a cruise missile are pretty small; given unenriched uranium, the raw energy required to build a nuclear-armed cruise missile is also pretty small. Not to mention tiny camera and drones; a lot of designs are out there, just impossible to assemble in current technology.