There was so much material touched on in William Gibson's No Maps for These Territories that I will have to make my comments over several posts. I'm starting with a fragment, because it reminded me of something...
Q: How might humans become posthuman?
Gibson: "Functional nanotech would guarantee the end of economics, the beginning of immortality. McDonald burgers could be made out of garbage."
First off, I thought they already were! [snicker!] (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
But seriously, though, this comment took me back to a project I did in the 5th or 6th grade. We were supposed to invent a machine that could help humanity. It was a creative art project. I made a drawing of a machine that you could put garbage in on one end, set the dial, and get something really useful out the other end. I was even somewhat rational about it. You could get food by throwing old food garbage in-- leftovers, watermelons rinds, whatever-- but you couldn't get food from something like wood shavings. But you might get a chair. I thought it was rather clever. The teacher, while praising my creativity, made it quite clear that my "invention" was impossible.
But now, with the advent of nanotech, my impossible machine is not so impossible, is it?
6 Days til Lift-Off
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