SubscribeThe Foresight institute’s Nanodot blog has posted a link to a really interesting discussion from the National Press Club’s meeting about nanotechnology (NanoWorld: Toward a Policy for the Human Future, see here for a press release). Andrew Kimbrell, director of the International Centre for Technology Assessment, gave a speech (from about an hour into the conference) where Nanodot’s blog characterised him as someone who “opposes nanotech”. Just finished listening to his talk (in fact, everyone’s speeches), and I cannot help but feel this characterization to be a terrible misrepresentation of what he was arguing. He did not “oppose nanotech” in so much as he seemed to oppose the non-transparent, corporate and military controlled, profit driven, unregulated, and patented way this technology is being developed, instead wanting to link nanotech development with values, keeping patents within the commons, pushing for transparency etc. I cannot help but agree with much of what he said, probably because he echoed a lot of my own concerns. Here’s a summary of what he spoke about (my apologies if some things aren’t transcribed properly).
Ever since watching the films Powaqqatsi and Koyaanisqatsi, I was turned towards director Godfrey Reggioâ??s ideas about technology as environment, that “itâ??s no longer something we use, but something we live. The popular myth of neutrality, that technology is â??neutralâ? and itâ??s the use or misuse of it that determines its value, I think is woefully inadequate.”
Nanotechnology has fascinated me for some time now ever since I picked up Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation. I am always, however, constantly amazed when I mention it to my friends and they never seem to have any idea about what it is, where it’s going, and what are the possibilities. So here’s a small list of must reads. You can always rely on Wikipedia’s nanotechnology article for an introduction, but there are better works out there to rely on.