The Most Dangerous Day

For most children in the developing world, the most dangerous day of their lives is their birthday.

Of more than ten million children under the age of five who die each year, about one in five -- an estimated two million babies -- die within the first 24 hours of life, and another two million die during their first month of life.

Simple measures like knit caps to keep babies warm could help save many of those lives, according to the report released by the US-based group, Save the Children.

Knit caps. Yes, that's a simple measure indeed.

Could advanced nanotechnology make a difference in saving the lives of these babies? Of course it could, but that's not really the point here. The fact is that we already have the technology we need to prevent almost all of these senseless deaths of innocent babies. What we don't have is the WILL.

And if we don't have the will today to stop millions of unnecessary deaths, then why should we expect to have the will in the future to ensure responsible use of nanotechnology?

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[DT]

Thats what I've been saying all along, we have the tech and the food supplies to keep everyone in the world healthy and fed, with clean drinking water. Did you know there is more food produced in the world that there is demand for it? not only in the west, I mean we make more food to OVER feed the whole world. There is a 4 dollar papertowel cardboard tube sized straw that can make any water clean drinking water, this was on forbes magazine, we can make insect nets and knit caps for a few pennies a billion times over within days, we make generic drugs that can be made for a few dollars and distributed to everyone in need of it. We just don't do it, and thats what I've been saying, its not about tech its about the will of the people, some here think that this tech and that tech will make everything go away in the future, but we have all these techs today to save the world, but we don't, and by we I don't mean only the western people but specially the governments and people in charge in these poor nations, they are the most corrupt and unwilling party to all this suffering.

[Matt]

That's an important argument. The will to solve problems is just as important as the ability, and in many areas, the will is lacking although the ability is clearly there. However, if in the future manufacturing does become as cheap as growing potatoes, then the same capabilities that would suffice today will be in the range of a lot more organisations or maybe even individuals than today. So maybe one day an altruistic millionaire spends one day's worth of his money's interest to produce and distribute all the mosquito nets Africa still needs by then.

Note, however, if the same is supposed to happen with generic drugs as you mentioned, then at first today's patent laws would have to change, or else this solution will fall prey to capitalistic motivation, as it does nowadays.

[TM Lutas]

I'm sorry but you're missing the problem. We can grow as much food as we want but if using food as a weapon is national policy as it is in some countries in Africa, you will still have starvation. The ability to concentrate wealth in a selected, politically reliable elite is considered the key to regime stability in a lot of authoritarian and totalitarian models. That's the real problem. It's not our will that is the problem. It is theirs.

End the criminal governments and capitalism will end up providing the rest.

[todd]

I would like to comment on the above post it is my opinion as many of you know that molecular manufacturing in its mature form and utilizing pick in place Diamond lettuce construction, using a AutoCAD downloadable Internet file to produce useful products, ranging in size from toothbrushes to 40 foot mobile homes will end all problems on Earth. Please note I did not say will contribute to the decline of certain problems in certain places. I have very clearly stated all problems on planet Earth will be resolved with the existence and use of this technology.

If anyone here wishes to dispute the power of the individual they are sadly mistaken when the individual is enabled and empowered with a unrestricted form of molecular manufacturing capable of self replication and producing products ranging from mosquito nets to water purification to AI enabled transportation as well as a virtual cornucopia of useful products. If I alone possess a molecular manufacturing device within five years I will end hunger poverty malnourishment discontent hatred and will make serious headway against racism and religious intolerance.

I would like to be clear that my position for ending problems throughout the world will not be restricted or in any way contained by guardian entities currently expressing power throughout the known world. This technology as I stated in the past is freedom as no man is better than any other man is my opinion that the loneliest individual walking the deserts of Africa or the outback of Australia or fishing off the coast of some island in the Philippines is human and by birthright deserves all that man can give them.

By simply constructing a small airfield somewhere in some out-of-the-way location building a partly solar powered aircraft automating the process, flying the aircraft and delivering a payload of, a refrigerator size molecular manufacturing devices i can and will distribute unrestricted devices throughout the world in a relative short period of time of perhaps 60 days. These devices will be self-contained and capable of communicating in any of many languages for ease of use by individuals not normally atone to technology.

I'm sure many of you will immediately comment that the above rollout and/or deployment of the device will cause significant upheaval. I would just like to be clear I did say five years after the deployment of the device there are many many individuals living today that will not survive the change either by choice or by happenstance. It is unfortunate that these individuals will not live to see the days post molecular manufacturing but I and prepared to accept their loss.

Todd

[Phillip Huggan]

"End the criminal governments and capitalism will end up providing the rest.
Posted by: TM Lutas"

Capitalism's market forces are responsible for many of the Dictatorial regimes in the consumption of exported natural resources and strategic location of military bases. It could very successfully be argued rampant neo-capitalistic actors are directly responsible for destroying the country of Iraq: Cradle of Civilization, site of the most developed health-care system in the Middle-East pre-1980, and home of what many called the most beautiful city (Baghdad) on the planet.

Before capitalistic efficiencies can be obtained a whole bunch of un-Randian societal support structures must be in place. And more often than not capital is thrown towards oil and minerals and poor places with societal support structures already in place, are allowed to languish. Can there really be any debate on the point capitalism detroyed Iraq and is failing to save Sudan. Neoconservatives are really starting to piss me off.

[Phillip Huggan]

Todd, I would wish you all the best in air-lifting MNTed supplies. But your planes will be shot down if they fly over the air-spaces of any of: Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, Ukraine, Europe, UK, Canada, USA... so be careful. Expect paratroopers to be deployed to secure your airstrip and expect fighters and bombers to be on standby. I suggest a perimeter laser anti-air defence and satellite deployment in an attempt to secure space hedgemony. Realistically though, the Russians will throw some Mach-10 prototype missiles at you and you'll be dead.

[Tom Huffman]

Mike, you've raised some important points. I think the best reply I can make is to state that, you really can't separate the issue of how tomorrow's technology will be used from the type of society we have today. If we are a just society that cares about people, everywhere, then we will devote more resources to using our best tools to improve life for all people, including poor children. If we are a society where only profit is important and decisions are made only on the basis of how it will benefit the shareholder class (the top 1 or 2 % of the population) then helping babies survive in poor countries gets minimal consideration, and fantasies about what you could do with some futuristic technology (Sorry, Todd!) are just that, fantasies.

The point I'm really trying to make, Mike, is, yes, we do need to think about future uses of technology; but, we need to think about the type of society we're building now.

This comes from someone who was a Senior Associate of the Foresight Institute (When I was making better money!) and hopes to be again. I joined the Senior Associate program , 1) because I'm excited about the potential of MNT to improve life for everyone, and 2) I wanted to have a part in the dialogue on how MNT would be used. I came into the discussion from a pro-space organization: The National Space Society; but, I've spent most of my time at Senior Associate Get-Togethers in discussions on "Spreading the benefits" or "How to help people survive the transition."

Someone at a SA Get-together mentioned the problem of "Five-Sight," people who are looking so far down the road they lose sight of the problems of the near future, or the present. I'm afraid that may describe too many of the people I've encountered at Foresight get-togethers or the one Accelerating Change conference I've attended.

The point I want to make is, that if you're really concerned about the future, you need to get more involved in the present, whether that's through political activity, or volunteer work, or teaching or whatever.

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

Philip, I'm not sure it's capitalism that is responsible for those abuses. Mercantilism did similar things.

A sufficiently large company will start to act as though it's above the law--because it is. In areas with less law, smaller companies can do that.

Free market conditions look like a good way to make people better off. That requires a relatively uncorrupt rule of law. Unfortunately, some large companies and nations find it worthwhile to corrupt other nations. Of course, some countries don't need any help to become corrupt--they'll do it internally.

A major benefit of molecular manufacturing is that it's self-contained and general-purpose. You won't have to drop it from airplanes. You can carry it in your pocket from village to village. If done right, it will be very hard to stop. (I'm not recommending that an unrestricted nanofactory be used this way. But a restricted nanofactory could do a whole lot of good.)

Chris

[todd]

I would now like to continue my above comment and thank you Chris for pointing out that distribution of the personal molecular manufacturing device can be achieved in other ways. I did, say in my above post that we would be using a automated airdrop systems I would not be present at the airfield so I would not be killed by a regulatory attack. As I would likely role-play a few thousand scenarios before taking this path I feel in general I would likely use more than one airfield and deploy many thousands if not in the 10s of thousands of aircraft on a single morning. There certainly is technology to prevent or shoot down the aircraft on approach to a given country. But as I also stated above I was planning on deploying to the poorest of individuals not the wealthy countries that would otherwise be able to actively resist this deployment.

I think everyone should go back and read some of the previous posts on this idea of an economy of plenty and rethink what we are talking about when we talk about plenty. There was an example given of a single manufacturing device producing enough food to feed a family of four as well as granting the family some 14 automobile size devices and/or products per month. This is a single device there's no reason to believe that this family of four would not have six or seven or even more devices available to them throughout their home garage and/or shed.

I have in the past laid out a theoretical description of an expansion where a single manufacturing device placed within the largest building in the United States and given the requisite power could produce some 6 million vehicles per day. Given the volume of the building the size of the vehicle and the size of the manufacturing device. This large factory could be used to produce military vehicles but can also be used to produce any product. If we ½ the size of a product this would produce at a rate twice as fast some 12 million products per day. This is a single factory in a single location potentially run by a single small organization of perhaps a handful of people.

I would also like to point out that everyone on the planet is not playing by the same rules. There are not restrictions on producing products such as the US patent system everywhere in the world, as we all are aware of this should also be pointed out that even here in the United States there is widespread misuse of copyright laws and a reckless abandonment of such laws on the Internet in the case of downloaded music and movies. As we are and have been very clear that AutoCAD files will be used to produce products these files can easily be distributed throughout the Internet and as the Internet has grown exponentially over the last few years we can expect a continuing growth as well as a ease-of-use to be forthcoming. I fully expect that a given cellphone will contain the requisite computer power to download a copy and make available the files needed by individuals around the world to produce products at their discretion. It also should be noted that cell phones are among some of the most frequently misused and illegally used and distributed products.

I will close with my reiteration that I will resist in every way possible any restrictions on individuals anywhere in the world created so that another individual may gain in some way at the others' expense.

todd

[Phillip Huggan]

"A major benefit of molecular manufacturing is that it's self-contained and general-purpose. You won't have to drop it from airplanes. You can carry it in your pocket from village to village. If done right, it will be very hard to stop. (I'm not recommending that an unrestricted nanofactory be used this way. But a restricted nanofactory could do a whole lot of good.)
Chris"

Even more diffusive than that. You probably just need the engineering plans and some specialty engineers.

[Phillip Huggan]

"There certainly is technology to prevent or shoot down the aircraft on approach to a given country. (Todd)"

Yes at an investment of tens of billion in military R + D. This technology is not available at any cost for shooting down missiles (what most air-forces in the world will consist of when MNT is introduced). I don't think it is feasible to compete with large militaries on ballistic engineering even with MNT.

For the mosquitoes nets and well drilling I would personally offer the products through regional microfinance charities. Even with some of the non-military advanced technology products, MNT would be challenging existing intelligence agencies so I don't yet have any hopeful idea how to avoid being stormed by a SWAT team.

[Tom Craver]

Todd:
"I will resist in every way possible any restrictions on individuals anywhere in the world created so that another individual may gain in some way at the others' expense"

I don't think anyone is specifically opposing using MNT to benefit people. I suspect TM Lutas would say that you shouldn't be allowed to give out free nanofactories, if they are patent protected.

So are you basing your the position on the idea that any attempt to profit using nanofactories to make and sell goods to the poor is immoral, perhaps because it implicitly accepts the possibility of leaving them in dire poverty as a viable alternative if they don't pay up? And that that negates the moral right to intellectual property over MNT? Wouldn't the same be true of every productive invention ever made? So is it ok to "appropriate" any technology, as long as you're giving it to the poor for their benefit?

I'm not saying that isn't a position worth debating - perhaps you would argue that we are now positioned to move into a new age where creativity and productivity no longer need the inducement of profit from exclusive rights on intellectual property? A sort of "open source" society?

But suppose the poor can be raised to a decent standard of living, without giving out free and un-restricted nanofactories - perhaps even through capitalist trade, as TM Lutas suggests? Do you still have a moral basis upon which to negate intellectual property rights?

What if, by doing so, you do destroy the incentive to create improved versions of nanofactories, that would have benefited people even more - or slow other advances of equal importance?

What if giving out nanofactories would leave the recipients worse off, because they rapidly descend into tribalism, with turf wars, cattle stealing to prove one's bravery, and slave-taking as a right of war? That's pretty much what we had, back when everyone relied solely on natural nanotech (i.e. the hunter-gatherer age), so it is a possibility.

Would you give out nanofactories, if you believed it would trigger world wide chaos that might well result in you and your loved-ones enslaved or dead? Is retaining the benefit of your peaceful life sufficient justification for withholding MNT, if somehow - years down the line - a better world might emerge?

Those are really more of the level of questions I think we're interested in here - I don't think anyone here is a classic movie villain, out to do people harm in the name of profit...

-TomC

[Phillip Huggan]

Tom, the simplest objection I'd have is that MNT is an exponential manufacturing technology, in that an exponential number of new consumer products can be created. So instead of the relatively linear 20 year current patent horizon, MNT and any exponentially innovative technology should be subject to an exponentially shortened patent lifetime: say, 1.5 to 5 years.

A deeper problem is that militaries will want this technology, so there may be some forceful pressure to surrender it. If a viable case could be made to one's courts or government that administering MNTed products was a public good, it might help keep MNT administration non-military.

Using MNT to control the majority of the world's resources and employees is a really dumb move (because a small group of people cannot administer more efficiently than can the best of a large diverse population) and such efforts will rationally be halted by Special Forces very easily.

[DT]

Companies profit from wealthy consumers, companies giving away medicine isn't going to harm them too much, of course a company can't keep giving away free aids drugs and the poor have no regards to stop thmselves from getting aids, thats true in africa, the people are just clueless about aids, they don't use protection they keep having children with aids, they have no sense of control, the companies can't just keep giving away free stuff to people who don't care, Sanofi-aventis gave millions of polio vaccines to poor nations, thier obejction to generic companies like in India is that Indian companies are going to sell thier drugs everywhere, including the west, not just the poor, so you can't blame the companies, they have to make money, they aren't a charity, and they do make the products, they aren't like oil companies that extract something thats already there.

People keep forgetting that future technology isn't needed to save the world, I repeat we can save the world today with today's technology, its not the tech thats the problem its the mentality, the poor themeselves are very uncooperative, they lack the will to save themselves, such as in Africa, the governments are too busy figthing domestic and international bullshit, poor nations governments are all corrupt, corporations do give out charity although they could do more but they also are companies that need to make money. Everything for basic survival today is available for a few million dollars that any wealthy nation can afford.

[Tom Craver]

Phillip - I'm not clear what your objections are targetting. My post was not advocating anything, just pointing out some issues that Todd may not have considered. No hidden agenda, honest!

Are you saying that because patents are too long, there's a moral argument for violating them, or are you suggesting that we greatly shorten patent durations? I'll state with 99.99% certainty that the latter isn't going to happen.

I'd guess that the chances are extremely high that the military will get MNT classified before goes public - patents won't even be granted. We may as well expect that the MNT breakthrough will be kept secret for several years while intense development takes place.

That has implications. For example, when MNT eventually goes public, it'll already be highly capable - but probably deliberately limited in critical ways. E.g. something like the "nanoblock economy" I've written about.

[NanoEnthusiast]

Patents last 20 years, copyrights for a corporation last 90 years. Since the whole point of a nanofactory is to make things according to a computer program, and computer code is already protected under copyright, we might see a push to extend copyright to physical goods. I wouldn't be surprised that lawyers at biotech companies aren't already thinking about it for genetic codes. You could argue that people should just be patient and wait for patents to expire, but what about copyright? Every 20 years like clockwork, just as Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain, the law is changed to add another 20 years. If retroactive extensions are allowed, why not retroactive reductions?

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

Philip, "Even more diffusive than that. You probably just need the engineering plans and some specialty engineers."

You also need specialty tools. I would not expect a few specialty engineers in a pre-MM developing nation to be able to construct MM from a recipe--they'd need tools to make tools to make tools. I don't know whether things as simple as vacuum pumps and deionized water are readily available. In the US, scanning probe microscopes and DNA synthesizers are readily available. I would expect MM to be doable from a recipe in a well-equipped US university lab circa 2020.

Chris

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

Philip, "Tom, the simplest objection I'd have is that MNT is an exponential manufacturing technology, in that an exponential number of new consumer products can be created."

That's not how I've been using the phrase "exponential manufacturing." I use it to mean that a factory can make another factory, growing the manufacturing base exponentially.

There is room for argument over how quickly new products can be created. To me, the design problem reduces to sofware, and most of today's physical products are far less complex than today's software systems (except where they include software systems), so I do expect a flood of products to be created quite rapidly.

But I certainly won't try to put a mathematical function on products-created-per-time.

Chris

[Phillip Huggan]

Assuming there are no import/export restrictions on SPMs, chemicals or vital semiconductor parts, anywhere courier companies can penetrate is where MM can be based. When I used to work in a courier distribution center, the only flagged destinations for parcels were the USA's Axix of Evil countries. So anywhere but Iran/Iraq/Syria/Cuba/North Korea, etc, you can pay to have parts shipped in.

Fine, you'll need engineers, blueprints, and more engineers, and more blueprints to make the parts in the previous set of blueprints.

[DT]

If a person invents something then he/she has every right to profit it from it, they worked hard to achieve something, in my opinion drug companies deserve whatever they make because without them we would be dying from the black plague by the millions still to day, my friend had cancer and he was dying, the only thing that saved him was a drug from Genentech, he and his family were given a second chance by Genentech basically, Genentech spent 10 years making no money struggling to get venture capitalists to invest in its R&D and they researched for a decade to bring out a drug that saved hundreds of thousands of people, if there were no patents Genentech wouldn't have existed, their drug wouldn't have existed and hundreds of thousands of people would've died, including my friend.

[Phillip Huggan]

But millions are dying in Africa because generic AIDS/HIV drugs are illegal under patent laws.
Patent laws aren't intended to serve market forces, they are supposed to be a system for bettering a nation's qualities-of-living. There is no market being lost whatsoever in allowing generic drugs to be dumped in countries that aren't Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and bordering the Mediterranean. We've never had a "failed continent" before. Let's not see what upheavel that will bring.

I notice in the USA there are still many fighting to kill communism... so I'll try to offer pro-market prescriptions whenever possible. How about putting the manufacturing cost of generic drugs in trust for many decades. When a nation achieves a level of economic development comparable to 2006 Indonesia or Vietnam, all nations in the UNDP agreement begin putting slight tarriffs on a nation's exports and delivering the cash to the big-pharma company? In a sense, a developing nation's workforce would eventually be paying some of the pensions of a multi-national drug company.
Free market is superior to centralized governemnt in delivering consumer goods, but there are still improvements to be made on it. Trade and patent policies should reflect potential quality-of-living increases, not the service of some invisible hand. Does anyone really think it would be wrong for a federal government to co-ordinate the illegal manufacture of generic drugs in a Avian Influenza pandemic?

[DT]

Drug patents are only 20 years, many patents for other products are almost forever, the Drug companies already lose billions to generic drugs, infact 52 percent of all prescriptions filled in the U.S are generic, Pharmaceutical companies not only spend incredible amount of money on research that makes these life saving drugs but they take full responsibility for thier drugs, even though Vioxx was approved by the FDA, Merck is soley responsible for the drug, and this is a business that deals with life, a very sensitive area that things will go wrong just like any other industry, the drug companies take the heat, then generics later come in pick the best drugs and make them with no R&D cost and make rather good profits, infact they make the same amount of profit ratio most major Drug companies make 20 cents on a dollar.

Also drug companies give away alot of drugs to poor nations, but its not enough because there are so many effected and drug companies trying to give all these people free drugs would bankrupt them, there is no reduction in disease, its growing and the world can't expect the drug companies keep treating these diseases while there is no decrease in numbers only increasing annually because the people and the government of these poor nations have no regards in trying to prevent disease. Did you know that only 15 percent of african males wear condoms? did you know that only 20 percent of africans go and get free aids tests. Africans actually have many children but such a small population because many die, why don't they just stop having children when there is a aids epidemic? how can you expect the companies to do anything about that? is it thier fault that 85 percent of African males don't wear the greatest preventention against aids, something readily available and no patents on it to stop its use.

Aids drugs only treat aids, they aren't a cure and they don't prevent aids, so they can keep trying to treat aids, but its like using a bucket to stop rain from hitting the ground, you'll catch a few drops the rest hit the ground and its basically infnite.

btw Genentech gives away its expensive drugs to poor patients, they also have a program like many major drug companies that work with patients to work out a payment plan if they can afford it or they cut prices by 70 percent for people who can't afford the price of the whole drug. They are very flexible, but you cannot possibly expect them to throw a drug out there for everyone to copy for free and some make money off of it, in that case they wouldn't even research it in the first place and there would be no such drug to save so many people let alone try to copy it for free.

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

DT,

1) What do you mean, "Drug patents are only 20 years, many patents for other products are almost forever, ..." Are you thinking of copyright?

2) Much of the expense of new medical devices and drugs is in testing. The amount of testing required is immense. This level of FDA regulation of drugs has only developed in the last few decades.

These huge costs are hard for large companies to bear, but they are impossible for small companies. Untold amounts of innovation are being lost (and large companies are more secure). And people are dying; recently a group of terminally ill people sued the FDA for the right to take drugs that had already been demonstrated safe but not yet proved effective--a right that in my opinion they should already have!

If you see drug companies as having huge costs imposed from outside, then it's easy to say that they need to recoup their costs. But if you see drug companies and the FDA as a unit, then it starts to look like those costs are pretty arbitrary, and maybe even artificial.

It becomes possible to imagine a situation in which those massive costs simply don't exist, and drug prices are far lower, and there are a lot fewer barriers to selling your drugs at low cost or licensing their manufacture in needy countries.

Chris