Meeting notice: The 04-20-99 meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Royal East (782 Main St., Cambridge), a block down from the corner of Main St. and Mass Ave. Suggested topic: NT and Risk Perhaps the most imposing threat to the development of nanotechnology (and for that matter the suite of all technologies) is not the difficulty of molecular engineering but the steadily falling tolerance for risk in the society. We could all cite a hundred examples of the point -- that children are no longer allowed to ride bicycles or climb trees is a famous case -- but one on my desk at the moment involves a study of cost trends in the development of underground space. Better technologies have lowered the cost of large sewer and water tunnels 50% per foot over the last ten years (adding to a 50% decline in costs over the decade before that), while during this same period the cost of underground highways, subways, and light rail tunnels (which are dug with the same kinds of tools) has gone up by a factor of 3! In short, holding technology constant, the tide of regulations, almost all of which are safety-inspired, has increased the cost of underground transportation for humans six-fold. The number of such projects has fallen accordingly, to two or three a year (nationally). This is a depressing story for anyone who once looked to underground development to increase the number of transport options while evading the classic zero-sum conflicts with other land uses (including habitat preservation). For all its promise on paper the demand for ever-higher degrees of safety assurance has dashed those hopes by driving costs out of reach. It is easy to imagine this falling tolerance for risk affecting the development of nanotechnology, especially since the risks in question are often ascribed not just to humans but to 'the balance of nature' or ecological 'health'. Any change that holds out a chance of introducing a serious change in the distribution of species -- or even of disturbing their normal behavioral routines -- is questionable to some and self-evidently wrong to others. All these forms of risk-aversiveness -- the risks to children, the risks to the environment, the risks to property, and the risks to workers and consumers -- represents a field of hurdles that new technologies are asked to clear. The higher these hurdles grow, the fewer technologies will be able to do so. It therefore behooves us to ask if these hurdles are going to grow forever, eventually reaching (and growing through) the point where direct human control of cars is no longer permitted, where staircases and ladders are banned, where 911 access is a required implant, and where robot lifeguards patrol the oceanfront, searching for and arresting any human swimmers found in the water without waterwings. ("We just doing this for your own good, Sir. Think of the message you're sending to your children.") One way of approaching this question is to ask where the current delta in risk-aversiveness came from in the first place. Theories include: -- the feminization of the workplace. As more and more women have risen to positions of authority they have imposed their estrogenic values on more and more behavioral routines. If this is right, then eventually the hurdles will stop growing, if only because the proportion of woman in positions of influence finds its natural limit at the total number of women. -- increasing life expectancy. Many people now expect to live considerably longer than their parents; this inflates the cost (in lost years) of a given basket of risky behaviors. If this theory is right, and if as some feel the prospects for life extension are nearly infinite, then the hurdles will keep growing. Perhaps as they grow the cost of developing life extension technologies will rise accordingly, leading to a steady state. -- increasing prosperity. This argument is that as people get richer they tend to spend a steadily larger fraction of their incomes on personal health and safety (which doesn't mean those expenditures really make them significantly or even meaningfully healthier or safer, viz all those people out there now getting their energy fields repolarized, having their ears candled, and drinking bottled water flown in from Austria). While ordinarily we think of rich people spending this money directly, a more prosperous society might also be willing to spend this money indirectly, through the higher cost of regulations and prohibitions. The prosperity theory also suggests the hurdles will grow without limit. -- the ethics of individuation. In the good old days (fill in your dates here) group identities of all kinds were stronger, which meant that when someone died in an accident there were others to carry on the identities that defined his life. (Further, he or she might have died in ways that actually benefitted the group identity, perhaps by burnishing its reputation for courage or self-sacrifice.) Today, outside of the Balkans, identity is increasingly based on the individual, which makes all individuals unique and therefore that any loss of an individual a total loss of that particular assembly of meaning. This reconfiguration of the basic element of society naturally lowers risk tolerance. Whether it will lower it forever is unclear, depending on whether it makes sense to think of individuation as an infinitely graded process. I tend to think not but am open to discussion. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Thoughts on the structure of internet commerce: http://world.std.com/~fhapgood/texts/tupperware.htm. Reactions solicited. (Warning: Relevance to nanotechnology indirect.) Announcement Archive: http://world.std.com/~fhapgood/nsgpage.html. Comments to: hapgood@pobox.com