Somebody said (I can't quote due to a flakey system:( that GMAST-L is
currently discussing nanotech battle-dress, and it made me think about one
possible source of error when trying to predict the future.
Imagine an SF-writer in the middle ages. Larry Niven model 1400. This
enterprising writer has a question: How would the society look if the
communications capability were to increase hundredfold. He makes the not
totally unresonable assumption that people in the future will be able to
store documents several illuminated folio pages long on little pieces of
rock, he calls them 'stone chips'.
Now this is almost exactly how it is going to be. I envy the person that
can get it this right. But what will his next step (based on the time he lives
in, the technology they have there and so on) be?
In all times, people has tried to squeeze in a lot of text on thin paper to
get it to fit on the leg of a homing pigeon. So what the writer writes about
is how these 'stone chips' are put on the legs of homing pigeons and how this
gian leap in communications technology affects the society.
The error here is that between pigeon and chips, a lot of other technologies
will emerge, some of which are more suitable for communications than
the writers' air-mobile EPROMs. Are we doing the same kind of error when
we try to predict the future: Certainly, but we don't know in what areas.
Take the nanotech battle-dress for example: In my not so humble opinion,
a nanotech battle-dress is comparable with a silicon-lubricated electrically
operated aluminium ballista shooting tungsten quarrels. The changes brought on
by nano-tech so advanced that one can make a battledress out of it is
probably so big that the need of battle-dress will disappear. Why walk to the
enemy and blow his brains out when you can send out a grey-goo nanobot and
make mush out of him with a kill-probability of 99.9%?
On the other hand there is also the opposite problem: Inflated belief that
new inventions will make current tactics etc. obsolete: Witness the missile-
mania of the 60's where every tank, aircraft, ship or sub could be replaced
by the appropriate missile that would do their job much cheeper and without
any drawbacks. Well, it didn't happen that way: We still have tanks and
aircrafts and so on.
But I still don't believe a nano-tech battledress will be needed:)
- -bertil-
- --
Hey? Where did my .sig go? I know the system is flakey but not *that*
flakey!