Nanowar: Lessons from Biowar

from the wow-Glenn-writes-really-fast dept.
Senior Associate/law professor Glenn Reynolds has been busy — here's another media article he co-authored, responding to Bill Joy's comments on nanotechnology: "…given that research into nanotechnology — like the cruder forms of biological and chemical warfare — can be conducted clandestinely on small budgets and in difficult-to-spot facilities, the likelihood of such research going on is rather high. Terrorists would have the greatest incentive possible to develop nanotechnologies far more deadly than old-fashioned biological warfare. This makes Joy's relinquishment argument hard to swallow. At the very least, it suggests that Joy and those who agree with him need to step up to the plate and make some more sophisticated arguments. No one doubts that Joy and the rest have good intentions. But as the example of biological warfare illustrates, good intentions, even when embodied in popular agreements to abandon a technology, don't necessarily have good consequences." (Glenn points out that the anti-trust comment in the article was not his.)