A Little Bigger Than Nanotechnology

[SaxonViolence]

Friends,

 

Some years ago I saw a fellow talking about Nanotechnology. He said that it was too early to tell how successful Nanotechnology might be. He said that there very well might turn out to be some unsolvable Engineering Problems that have yet to surface.

 

The he started talking about what he called ****technology. (I don't remember the term that he used. That's the whole point…)

 

He said that this technology was fifty, a hundred maybe a thousand times larger than Nanotechnology. (One again I've forgotten the details.)

 

He said that in contrast to Nanotechnology, we could start on ****technology later this afternoon.

 

One possible use that he saw for *****technology...

 

He described a device just marginally larger than a jumbo bar of soap.

 

It would be a tiny dedicated Drug factory that you could supply with water and "A half-a-dozen commonly available organic solvents" and it would supply you with (?) an ounce, perhaps several ounces of 100% pure drug per day.

 

He envisioned WHO or other disaster or epidemic relief agencies being able to go into areas without electricity and to manufacture whatever drugs they needed in situ.

 

{Presumably the doctors would have trucks filled with a virtual "Library" of little drug factories.} 

 

A.} I'd thought all these years that he called it "Picotehnology" but that can't be right. Picotehnology is even smaller and a far less proven concept than Nanotechnology.

 

B.} Like many other "Just around the corner" predictions, this has not come to pass yet.

 

C.} I write—though my fiction doesn't sell very well.

 

I wanted to explore what happens to the 'War on Drugs" and to society at large when any junky with $500 can buy a tiny drug factory and turn $25 worth of bleach, ethanol, ether, gasoline, acetone and whatever else into $5000 worth of Heroin, Cocaine, Methedrine or whatever...

 

IF I knew what the Dude called his hypothetical technology it would help me to research.

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

Saxon Violence 

Edited August 14, 2015 by SaxonViolence

[CraigD]

The he started talking about what he called ****technology. (I don't remember the term that he used. That's the whole point…)

 

He said that this technology was fifty, a hundred maybe a thousand times larger than Nanotechnology. (One again I've forgotten the details.)

Using standard metric prefixes, a technology involving manufacturing features 100 time larger than “nanotechnology” would be “microtechnology”. Since “micro” is also used to describe anything smaller than visible to the naked eye (eg; “microscopic”), I think “microtechnology” lacks the catchiness of Drexler’s famous “nanotechnology” catchphases.

 

Lots of technologists and pundits use “nanotechnology” to refer to any new work toward manufacturing very small features. I’d just stick with that.

 

He described a device just marginally larger than a jumbo bar of soap.

 

It would be a tiny dedicated Drug factory that you could supply with water and "A half-a-dozen commonly available organic solvents" and it would supply you with (?) an ounce, perhaps several ounces of 100% pure drug per day.

The devil’s in the details. I’d have to see a sketch of the synthesis paths and how they’d be automated before I’d give much credit to this “bar of soap-size drug factory” idea.

 

This reminds me of a recent news story about work by Stephanie Galanie1, Kate Thodey, Isis Trenchard, Maria Interrante, and Christina Smolke (paper here) on genetically altering yeast to make thebaine and hydrocodone (from the usual foodstuff for yeast, sugar). Their yeast is still much too inefficient to make therapeutic amounts of these drugs in a reactor of practical size, but genetically engineered yeast have long been reliable and efficient in mainstream drug manufacturing, so I’d be surprised if this approach don’t continue to expant to efficiently make more kinds of drugs.

 

I have a personal stake in such technology. My childhood Boy Scout experience instilled in me a strong “be prepared” ethic, and my wife of 29 years is an insulin-dependent diabetic. In a shipwrecked on a desert island (or, more likely, destitute living in an Appalachian hollow) scenario, the only way we could presently make insulin would be to extract it from animals and attempt to purify it. I’d much prefer to use a yeast or bacteria culture.

 

A non-technical problem with schemes for home-manufacturing – whether “fabber” 3-D printing making macroscopic products, or modified microorganisms making microscopic ones – is avoiding civil and criminal prosecution for breaking intellectual property laws. I think a lot needs to be done to expand fair use-law to allow such technologies to be researched and used by consumers without fear of ruinous legal problems.

 

I wanted to explore what happens to the 'War on Drugs" and to society at large when any junky with $500 can buy a tiny drug factory and turn $25 worth of bleach, ethanol, ether, gasoline, acetone and whatever else into $5000 worth of Heroin, Cocaine, Methedrine or whatever...

My hope would be that when making drugs is so easy that nearly anyone can do it, our societies would shift their focus from the current primary strategy of blockading and confiscating the supply of drugs to treating the underlying mental health problems that cause people to misuse drugs.

 

I think the effect of society of making drugs more easily available and cheaper would, in large, be very positive. I expect some increase in abuse would occur, but this increase would be small, because the supply of drugs is a less important factor in their abuse than the psychological state of the abuser.

 

“Treating mental health problems” is a huge, deep, and broad subject, crossing disciplines from science to medicine to sociology to politics.

 

I have a personal stake in this as well. My son began abusing alcohol as a teenager, and in 2009, died of a heroine overdose. The several days following his injury and preceding the termination of his life support, and the years following it, contained the most painful experience of my life.