Your Nanotech future?
With recent attention to Nanotechnology in the media I have been thinking about what the benefits and implications of nanotech will be, in my opinion, our imminent future. From all that I have read from industry leaders, it seems that we will be using widespread nanotechnology in the next 10-15 years. If that's the case you can safely bet that there is substantial nanotechnology already existing right now, today. I have been interested in Nanotech for quite a few years now and know that IBM have been experimenting with it since the early seventies. Even back then IBM managed to arrange 75 Xenon atoms into the letters IBM.
Most of you reading will know what Nanotech is, but for the benefit of those who don't, it is basically creating things at the atomic level by arranging the specific atoms the correct way.
For example if you require wood for whatever purpose you currently have to plant a seedling which will over the next 5 to 20 years will grow into a tree, then you would then chop down and cut up into timber pieces you need. With nanotechnology you would simply arrange the correct atoms that wood is made of to the right shape and size in a short amount of time, maybe minutes or hours instead of years, and the product would be exactly the same as a grown tree, not an imitation.
All you will need for this is the natural resources that contain the atoms. Don't think it won't happen because it already is, and with large companies and governments throwing large funds at Nanotech companies for R&D it is simply a matter of time. The US government in recent times given NNI (National Nanotechnology Initiative) $500 million for R&D and other Universities like Uni of California have spent $150 million on labs for Nanotech.
Some of the benefits that will first pop up I think will be in the Computing and Medical industries, mainly because companies in these business sectors already work in or close to the molecular level. IBM just announced they have had a breakthough in Quantum computing. Perhaps we could build computers so small we have them wetwired into our bodies containing Terrabytes of storage and Terrahetrz CPU's. We could finally teleport anywhere, we just need a machine to pull our bodies apart to individual atoms and upload us to where we want to go and re-assemble us at the other end. I don't know what will happen to things like our soul and brain memories when we teleport but I'm sure (hope) the R&D guys in white suits will figure this out.
On the medical and biometics front you could fix or change absolutely any body part, inject Nanotech machines into our bodies to combat or erradicate viruses.
The possibilities are left only to our own imaginations and the only one limitation I see is the eventual depletion of natural resources, but even then you could recycle everything anyway by just separating unused items to the atomic level.
Bad things, hmmm let's see, you could have video surveillance which is so small it would be invisible, able to have video and audio monitoring for weeks or months at a time and move around absolutely anywhere it is programmed to. Or you could create nanotech machines that create more Nanotech machines leading to propagation much like a computer virus, this would consume the entire planet in about 2 days however if you caught this problem in enough time you could build other Nanotech machines to consume the virus like Nanotech machines. This is true Orwellian Big Brother stuff but I believe eventually possible.
It is really hard to predict how Nanotech will change us, Take a look at current or past inventions. The 4x4 vehicle was designed for offroad terrain yet 90% of them never see the dirt, cars generally give us the freedom to travel but also contribute to global warming, Nuclear power provides us with good electricity but problems like Chernobyl. So we can all fantasise how it will change us and only some of it will come to fruition and other totally unexpected things will happen, good and bad.
My advice on how to prepare yourself? To invest in prominent Nanotech R&D companies now, then specialist micro tool making companies who will put breakthrough ideas to a tangable (but invisable) reality. Traditionally, if you invest in these ideas at the early stages for little money they will in time increase 100 fold or more overnight. But as most of you will know, overnight successes take 10 - 15 years of groundwork before any sudden change, look at Intel, Apple and Microsoft. Imagine buying Intel when it IPO'd.
So Nanotech has its pro's and con's but if you have stock in these companies you will have a say in how the technology is directed as well as the wealth needed for the new nanotech advances because like anything else in life, humans find a way to put a monetry value on things even if the core resources (such as in this case atoms) are free. This means you can control Nanotech rather than be controlled by it.
Damn, your still reading.
Oh, my head hurts, just goes to show what my mind does on a boring rainy day.
Do I have my money where my mouth is? Unfortunately not yet, however I have some superannuation money in tech stocks and plan to invest in overseas Nano stocks in the next 6-12 months market permitting, this will also give me a chance to do a bit of research.
Is this advice meant for you to invest? Not really, nor do I want the responsibility of bad stock choices, it's more a culmination of my thoughts for the last 2 years.
I think if this all come to pass in my lifetime and I had the money, I'm going to build a big-ass spaceship/station and get the hell of this rock!
Food for thought or just insane ramblings, you decide.
5:22:19 PM 
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