You enter the wellness center and tell the receptionist avatar that you’re here for an annual restoration, and though your real age is 110, you would like to be restored to the age of a 20-something. A nurse then injects billions of genome-specific ‘bots non-invasively through the skin; you’re now set for another year.
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Complete entry
Posted by
Valkyrie Ice on 06/16 at 02:59 PM
It never fails to amuse me when people feel a need to assure people that such medical nanobots “will leave your body”
Why? What purpose does that serve? Other than trying to lie to people to “sooth” their nerves with a “see, you will still be 100% natural” (snort), there is not one single reason for this scenario to occur. No need for an “annual reset” when active nanites could keep you from ever aging, repair damage done to the body as it occurs, enable superhuman enhancements without the need to “amputate” and install cybernetic replacements and basically render you immune to any disease.
Simply put, the assumption made by ANYONE that we will only have nanites in our bodies when a doctor is using them AND AT NO OTHER TIME, shows little more than a cognitive failure to accept the truth, that Doctors would be entirely unnecessary, checkups would be unnecessary, that all the trappings of modern medicine would simply cease to need to exist beyond some very limited trauma services, which could likely be automated, and the field of medical research science.
Additionally, NOT having nanites in your body 24/7 is extremely DANGEROUS. Without nanite defense systems, you’d be completely vulnerable to an engineered nanoplague. With such systems, your “enhanced immune system” could call upon vast storehouses of information to fight invading nanites, and render entire populations immune to further attacks in short order.
Basically, this is an example of a “Static Worldview”. Making a prediction in which nothing else is changed but the one single aspect being examined, when in reality the creation of medical nanites will RADICALLY alter how we do medicine, and indeed, eliminate the overwhelming majority of the medical profession.
It’s a nice recap of Freitas’ work, and I recognize that many of the examples are drawn straight from his “brief explanation” summaries, but I’ve criticized him for this too.
Posted by
CygnusX1 on 06/16 at 04:47 PM
Hmm.. not sure?
Would seem like a good idea to continue with annual checkups, purging, and replenishment of new improved, upgraded nanobots?
This type of nano technology does/will make the human body ultimately “totally” reliant upon this, and one can imagine all types of catastrophic disasters with nanobots failures, including susceptibility to total immune failure and rapid age acceleration?
Guess I still hold too much faith in my present immune system and white cell immune memory?
Nanotech is already being implemented to attack MRSA and penetrate bacterium cell walls and deliver the fatal antibiotics dose.
But I see no problems of using bots to supersede and improve upon conventional drugs and medicines.
Posted by
Christian Corralejo on 06/16 at 05:48 PM
I just hope they can fight of prions. There’s currently no cure for those.
Posted by
Chrontius on 06/19 at 01:45 AM
@Christian, it should be feasible to design prion-degrading enzymes without full-on medical nanotechnology; this would be just like another very interesting drug you take with your tetanus shot.
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