Michio Kaku: Can Nanotechnology Create Utopia?

Michio Kaku is another guy, like Ray Kurzweil, who has made a lot of money by passing off speculation as legitimate science.
 
You can't just tech your way to utopia. But it would help to eliminate certain types of scarcity.
 
When celebrity scientists start talking about Utopia, run.
 
Technically yes it could but I think government would control it's technology and limit it's use.

It would change society too greatly if it's brought out too quickly
 
Atheist said:
Michio Kaku is another guy, like Ray Kurzweil, who has made a lot of money by passing off speculation as legitimate science.
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I tend to dismiss whatever Kaku says. He's just a shameless attention whore willing to endorse any old shit as long as he can make a dollar. It smacks of charlatanism when scientists aren't more discriminating when whoring out their credentials.
 
MGLucas said:
I tend to dismiss whatever Kaku says. He's just a shameless attention whore willing to endorse any old shit as long as he can make a dollar. It smacks of charlatanism when scientists aren't more discriminating when whoring out their credentials.
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Yeah, whenever credentialed scientists theorize about things that pose a threat to our ideological babies we can just label them cranks and sell-outs.
 
No. What makes a utopia isn't just advanced technology. There are a lot of social problems in this world that need to be fixed first. No amount of technology can solve them alone. As long as there are evil and crazy people in this world killing others for drawing pictures and the like, then that will not happen.

A utopia is a nice 'end game' goal to think about though. But we are so far from that right now unfortunately.
 
drstrangelov said:
I met that guy once, the hair is glorious.
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dat hair line doe

It looks alright from the front but from the sides it looks horrible.

FVjvJnU.jpg
 
I believe anythings possible but Kaku didn't really convince me that nanotechnology can create utopia. What he did do is a good job of explaining scarcity and its implications and I also think he did a good job of asking questions about what happens if ever did reach utopia and scarcity was completely eliminated. Those are some fascinating questions.
 
big_hungry_joe said:
No. What makes a utopia isn't just advanced technology. There are a lot of social problems in this world that need to be fixed first. No amount of technology can solve them alone. As long as there are evil and crazy people in this world killing others for drawing pictures and the like, then that will not happen.

A utopia is a nice 'end game' goal to think about though. But we are so far from that right now unfortunately.
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Not sure if you watched the video but what if as Kaku says, someone invents a "replicator" type instrument that eliminates scarcity? A lot of societies problems stem from scarcity (income inequality, famine, wars, etc) so if there exists a technology that could eliminate it wouldn't that be enough by itself?
 
Probably more likely to create a dystopia.

I can't wait for government mandated hormone controlling nanobots in your blood, and a GPS chip that alerts them if you are doing potential terrorist activities, such as deviating from your allowed home->work->commercial district zones.
 
big_hungry_joe said:
No. What makes a utopia isn't just advanced technology. There are a lot of social problems in this world that need to be fixed first. No amount of technology can solve them alone. As long as there are evil and crazy people in this world killing others for drawing pictures and the like, then that will not happen.

A utopia is a nice 'end game' goal to think about though. But we are so far from that right now unfortunately.
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I think most of the friction between the West and the Middle East is geo-political and is the direct result of the relative scarcity of oil and its importance in driving economic growth. Look at who is financing these Islamist organizations. Saudi and Qatari elites who have vested interests in keeping American influence in the region in check but don't have the traditional military power to do so on their own (plus, they need enough plausible deniability to keep selling oil to the West and direct fighting tends to result in outcomes like what happened to Sadaam so direct military conflicts aren't preferable anyway.) Religion is just a convenient recruitment tool because going to poor people (relative to oil elites) and saying we need you to fight America so that we can maintain leverage of our oil reserves isn't all that effective in the same vein that U.S. officials telling the population that we need U.S. soldiers to die in deserts for oil doesn't poll all that well (so we use nationalism/patriotism/democracy as propaganda). Two different sides of the same coin. You take the scarcity of energy away and suddenly all of these geo-political games seem a lot less necessary.

Also, notice that you never really see any Qatari terrorists. Qatari is the richest country in the world with little over 100k per capita (twice that of the U.S.). People aren't really receptive of the whole martyrdom thing when life is pretty good here on earth.

All that to say that if you solve scarcity, you will be a long ways into solving those sorts of problems. There might still be mentally ill people and depressed people and people that derive joy from killing. Ending scarcity won't solve those issues, they are problems for medical science. But scarcity is the biggest root cause of many of the problems the world faces and so solving it is the biggest thing you can do to make lives better on Earth.
 
nixkid said:
I think most of the friction between the West and the Middle East is geo-political and is the direct result of the relative scarcity of oil and its importance in driving economic growth. Look at who is financing these Islamist organizations. Saudi and Qatari elites who have vested interests in keeping American influence in the region in check but don't have the traditional military power to do so on their own (plus, they need enough plausible deniability to keep selling oil to the West and direct fighting tends to result in outcomes like what happened to Sadaam so direct military conflicts aren't preferable anyway.) Religion is just a convenient recruitment tool because going to poor people (relative to oil elites) and saying we need you to fight America so that we can maintain leverage of our oil reserves isn't all that effective in the same vein that U.S. officials telling the population that we need U.S. soldiers to die in deserts for oil doesn't poll all that well (so we use nationalism/patriotism/democracy as propaganda). Two different sides of the same coin. You take the scarcity of energy away and suddenly all of these geo-political games seem a lot less necessary.

Also, notice that you never really see any Qatari terrorists. Qatari is the richest country in the world with little over 100k per capita (twice that of the U.S.). People aren't really receptive of the whole martyrdom thing when life is pretty good here on earth.

All that to say that if you solve scarcity, you will be a long ways into solving those sorts of problems. There might still be mental ill people and depressed people and people that derive joy from killing. Ending scarcity won't solve those issues, they are problems for medical science. But scarcity is biggest root cause of many of the problems the world faces and so solving it is the biggest thing you can do to make lives better on Earth.
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Great post.
 
BearGrounds said:
You can't just tech your way to utopia. But it would help to eliminate certain types of scarcity.
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Maybe not but technology can lead to profound improvements and open up new opportunities. A good example is how Nikola Tesla changed the world with alternating current, literally creating the world we live in now, despite fierce attempts by Edison to stop him. I don't think we would've went as far with Edison's monopoly on direct current. But tech might help social progress along.
 
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