Given the fact that most of the
nanotech developments we've seen have to do with making smaller
transistors or generating
electricity, we're not exactly sure why a recent study conducted by the researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that two-thirds of American think nanotechnology is "morally unacceptable" -- perhaps they didn't hear about that team that used nanotech to
inscribe the Bible on the head of a pin? Overall, Americans were far less accepting of pint-size technology than other countries -- 72 percent of French respondents thought nanotech was morally okay, as did 54 percent of the UK residents polled and 62 percent of the Germans. Still, we're left wondering why
anyone would find a reason to object to nanotechnology -- unlike biotech, we just don't see a lot of moral dilemmas posed by the research. Well, apart from that whole gray goo thing -- but if that's the risk we have to take to finally score a pair of
electric pants, you can sign us right up.
posted February 20th 2008 6:31AM
maybe 2/3 of americans saw that episode of the x-files where nano-technology is used in a secret government conspiracy to build walls inside people's blood vessels? pretty interesting stuff actually, if immoral. it was even controlled by what appeared to be a pda--the palm pilot of death!
i didn't think the x-files was THAT popular though.
The question seems a bit leading. If asked whether something is moral or not one might automatically assume that there is some serious ethical debate on the subject and just fall on the side against because that's typically the conservative position. There isn't a strong debate. I suspect you'd get similar responses if you asked whether paper cups were moral or not. Just attaching the word "moral" will get you strong positions for and against answers no matter the subject or a person's understanding of it.
Ask better questions and you'll get better answers.
I'd like to know exactly how this conclusion was reached. How did the surveyors gather this information? Did they not give people the option to say they were indifferent about the issue? There could have been a lot of bias in the survey.
I don't think the survey was asking the right questions, so I'm not taking the results too seriously. What's more alarming here is the response in these comments. Most of the replies I've read have stated that those answering "yes" were either crazy or ignorant.
Does anyone here believe that a person who is sane (please define this for me...) and fully informed could think nanotechnology is a bad thing? If no, does any such technology exist?
I think that more likely, depending on the locality of the poll sample, that the same people who said that credit cards were morally wrong are saying that nanotech is morally wrong.
Mark of the Beast and all that.
I have had more than friend of mine who's mom was more than a bit concerned that her using her credit card she was unwittingly using "The Mark of the Beast" to buy or trade goods.
Then, as now, there's just a huge knowledge differential that is resultant in these situations which, while laughable to people who understand the technology, pose tough moral questions to those who don't really understand the new tech out there and get their news solely from Focus on the Family. And unfortunately, FotF may well be themselves as uneducated on the subject as Jack Thompson is on video games.
But unlike Jack Thompson, they don't go crazy for the taste of blood in the water and don't salivate when they hear an ambulance or hear about a mass shooting.
"HOGWASH AND POPPYCOCK!!! this is bloody FARCE!"
That comment made me choke on my M&Ms!!
"Two-thirds of Americans think nanotechnology is morally unacceptable"^H^H^H^H^H^H
^^^^^
have no idea what "nanotechnology" is.
Fixed.
religion is making people more and more stupid. The United States is running on an anti-reason, anti-logic platform. More science, more math, more education... less religion and stupidity
I suppose it's immoral that stained glass relies on nanotechnology. Evil little metal nanoparticles make the stained glass in churches all over the world have such pretty colors. And that fancy softball bat or mountain bike handlebar doped with carbon nanotubes will bring the downfall of the human race. And God forbid someone gets an MRI and has to have an injection of a contrast agent full of nasty little superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. Such as moral predicament, indeed.
I think this might be an indicator that Americans get too much of their information from SciFi exposure. Afterall where were those nanotechnology classes that we all took in grade school?
These people that need bible-esque books to tell them the difference between right and wrong are way below dogs and cats in terms of intelligence.
Both the survey and this article are interesting in terms of how we frame things to reflect our own prejudices.
Being a nerd I have pedantic tendencies that make me want to write in the margins when given only a few answers to choose between for a question.
"Is nano-technology morally unacceptable?" is a rather stupid question. "Is fire morally unacceptable?" varies considerably to my mind between the case of someone using a fire to cook and keep warm and hence stay alive and someone dropping incendiary devices on civilian targets.
What sort of nanotechnology are we talking about? What degree of over-sight are we assuming as a minimum? What level of testing for toxicity are we assuming will be done on nano-particles? How quickly are we assuming nanotech results are being productised? What continuing research are we putting into toxicity and other negative effects after the materials are in the field, and what contingency plans do we have in place for a possible recall and clean-up?
Without asking those we can't even begin to consider this within the wider context of whether a given hypothetical disaster constitutes moral culpability or simply bad luck (to give an example from another technology, were the attempts to increase honey yield and hence food supply by cross-breeding bees in South America a morally good or bad act, given that they had no idea it would result in a prevalence of highly dangerous bee species in the Americas?) Nor can we ask what degree of environmental damage we consider morally unacceptable and what degree the inevitable side-effect of being yet another resource-consuming species.
Since none of these factors are elucidated in the question we are going to frame our responses according to our prejudices, prejudices to nanotech itself, to novelty generally, to the very phrase "morally unacceptable".
The author of the article then does the same thing in saying "Given the fact that most of the nanotech developments we've seen have to do with making smaller transistors or generating electricity..."
Whether most of the nanotech developments we've seen have anything to do with this depends very largely upon what nanotech developments we've been following. Most of the nanotech developments we've seen in terms of products we actually buy, wear, eat, clean our teeth with etc. have almost definitely been to do with the properties of nanoparticles. They aren't as "sexy" to the popular technology press and indeed they aren't as novel (some substances we would now consider nanoparticles have been in use for over a thousand years, as with many scientific developments it doesn't just give us new technology but also new insight into existing technologies - that technology follows in the heels of science doesn't always follow, if it did we might still have scientists telling us that steam-powered locomotives were impossible).
Some of the comments then go on to refer to the grey goo scenario. This demonstrates a prejudice to think in terms of science fiction that is common amongst a particular demographic (I don't say this to dismiss such a tendency, I'm part of the same demographic and the grey goo scenario did immediately pop into my own mind). It's not completely erroneous to consider such a scenario - as a hypothetically possibility it hasn't been dismissed - but this is like framing the moral questions about the use of AI technology in face-recognition systems for targetting potential criminal suspects in terms of the sort of science fiction that assumes the accomplishment of AI sentience.
The final prejudice that affects everyone here, including me, is the prejudice against not having the answer. After all, only stupid people don't have the answers, we couldn't possibly suggest that maybe the topic is so large that we don't have the answers available to us right now - without the burden of onging research and preferably expressed with sarcasm - could we?
I have average Joe non-techies telling me about how bad cell phones and iPods are for the environment everyday. How cell phones are environmentally unsound (because of some of the materials used to make them), etc. I don't think you have to be a moron or misunderstand the question to think it's "bad." I also don't think you have to be a techie to understand the question.
It seems like everyone I know knows about that kind of stuff.
As far as to why anyone would question the morality, I'm sure it was in the context of nanotechnology being used inside the human body.
As to why two thirds of Americans objected to its morality, that would most likely be because two thirds of Americans are morons, and no, I don't think it's un-patriotic at all to say that. I just call it like I see it.
The capacity for Americans' stupidity never ceases to amaze me. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, when some of our most visible, famous Americans are so completely "stoopid" that they don't know whether or not the world is flat, it's pretty much time to throw in the towel!
I'm no jingoist, but honestly I find cynical comments like this annoying. 2/3rds of Americans are morons? Get over yourself already. You don't know most of the people who you assume are idiots. We sit here and bash people for being too religious, but then when it's time to run homeless shelters or bring food to the hungry, who steps up? I know some non-religious people who do, yes, but by a wide margin it's people from religious communities. America is the single largest donor of aid in the world. And that was before the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation started up. Maybe it's partially because we're so wealthy, yes, but it's not the rich people that are giving out most of it, it's lower-middle class families.
I am a person who loves science and who hates to see religion used to exploit the worst parts of human behavior. But for those of you who wish that science wasn't restricted by moral criticism, ask yourselves: who was it that invented nuclear bombs? It wasn't religion. It was science. And what's done is done, but it's morality that keeps us from using them.
2/3 of the US dont like Nanotech
is total Garbage
Nobody asked 2/3 of the US
the poll was done by the University of Wisconsin
so they probably asked a bunch of HillBilly Farmers from Wisconsin.
Why not ask people in New York, Los Angeles or any big city and not in a very rural Non Tech area
You do realize the the University of Wisconsin is one of the best in the nation.
Additionally we mess with things we don't fully understand and that could be dangerous. Imagine if we find out that Birth Control pills make our offspring's offspring's infertile. I don't think making trillions of nano-particles dispersed in the air with unknown long term effects isn't really worth it. For all we know it could be a thousand times worse the asbestos. I could care less about nano-tech that is completely contained though.
I am also the kind of person that believe that a small portion of our population should go without receiving non-natural medicine and preservative loaded food in case something deadly was to manifest.
Since I used to live in that Hick state for 16 years & my son went to UW I do know a little about it.
Its a Great Medical School but, where did they do the survey? and who did thay ask? It probably wasnt anyone in Madison Wisconsin since thats about the most liberal non moral city in the Midwest
per capita the Most Gay City in the US Not very many moral people there
Ask yourself: what's more moral? Two adult persons of the same sex in love, or telling someone you don't even know that they're a bad person because they chose to be in love with someone of the same sex? It's not your business what other people choose to do with their lives, and you can keep your pointless, hateful scorn to yourself.
oh no I must of touched a nerve.
Im betting you have no idea what morals are.
Homosexuals are Immoral.
Sex with anyone who isnt your Husband or Wife is Immoral (even if your singal)
Gambling is Immoral.
Being a Drunk or Drug addict is Immoral.
Murder and Rape is Immoral
Stealing and Lieing are Immoral
with just those listed that means Everyone is Immoral!
oh a I dont hate anyone I love Everyone!
I hate the Sin Not the Sinner since we are all sinners
I cant find my i-Pod nano
I am definitely against making them smaller!
i was born and raised in the usa. i moved to europe in my twenties for 7 years. Going back proved to be one of the greatest shocks i have experienced. Before i left i would not have beleived americans are mindless sheep, being spoon fed garbage from the media, church, etc.. . i think that more americans need to leave the states to see things a bit more clearly, it would do the world much good.
What is more amusing is the fact that the national council on bioethics has come to the conclusion that nanotechnology is not only moral, but outside the scope of most "bio ethics" because its really nothing more than, guess what, small technology (yet for some reason they still have panels on it even though they all agree that at this point in time there is absolutely nothing wrong with it).
When talking about america you really have to keep in mind that half the people in the country believe in a literal devil, it keeps things in perspective.
Morally unacceptable and havingproblems are 2 diffrent things. Abestos are unethicle and harmful to health. Today it would be morally wrong to use them in costruction. However, when they first came out nobody knew of the health problems and they therefore wern't morally wrong. Just because some products have been recalled does not mean that all research is morally wrong. A product must either harm life in R&D knowingly to be produced, harm life in the production, or be known to be harmful to life if it is morally wrong. All nanotech research does not fit these catagories.
This is why China is owning everyone...
Whoever framed that question is an IDIOT! Nanotech has nothing to do with a moral choice. What the hell is immoral about making small machines?
Now the release of nanobots onto a battlefield that will buzzsaw the flesh off the enemy IS a moral choice.
Two things that are wrong with this article:
The study says that 29.5% of respondents found nanotechnology to be morally acceptable.
1) Since the study doesn't release what the other possible answers were, that does not necessarily mean that the other 60.5% of the respondents said it was morally unacceptable. Since they haven't released the exact details of the study yet, how are we to know that one of the possible answers wasn't "I don't know enough about nanotechnology to answer"? Honestly this is just a really uninformative and misleading press release.
2) Even if there were only two possible answers, that means 60.5% of Americans felt nanotechnology was morally unacceptable. Most of you will remember from your grade school math classes that 2/3rds is about 66.6%. 60.5 is more like 3/5ths. It seems insignificant but shouldn't we value honesty over deliberate exaggeration?
These comments are directed towards anyone who seems bent on believing that Bible Belt Fundamental Baptists are the cause for this survey's results (which is funny, given that hardly any Fundamental Baptist churches exist in the South; they reside mostly in the North while the Bible belt is littered with Southern Baptist denom churches; so, get it right!!!),
If I lived in the South (which I don't, but if I did....), I would be someone that you would consider to fit that category you mentioned based on my theological beliefs. However, unlike many Americans who are just as ignorant about the difference between bio and nano-tech as people are ignorant about the differences between HD DVD and Blu-ray techs, I understand that there is a distinction between nano and bio techs. I also understand- given the nature of the scientific community in this country being just as honest at times about their motives as McCain is in calling himself a Republican- that the development of nanotechnology- for all the good it can do- will ultimately be used by the scientific community to create and promote biotech, thereby creating mini OnStar GPS units that go inside of people, instead of vehicles, and though that is intrusive more than it is immoral, who knows what else could be done with it (Manchurian Candidate, anyone? Or, howabout a recount? "You don't need to do a recount." I don't need to do a recount...wait a minute, your nano mind tricks won't work on me...or will they?).
I would love to see what nano-tech can do, particularly in making laptops faster and more lightweight, while running cooler (what can I say, I like laptops for gaming due to portability), I would hate to see the can of worms it will open in other ways.
I would not have answered the question the way that many did in stating that it was morally wrong had I been one of the people sampled (given that no tech is morally wrong in and of itself; it is morally wrong based on how it's used), but considering the end logical scenario that will be played out in this country eventually, I would've had to think about how to answer it.