Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Nanotechnology and the reinvention of the world

By Alan with the help of Jassem and others.

In American English class today a number of students and I from around the world discussed how we might imagine the future economy. Despairing over squandered resources like steel and petroleum, we envisioned a future economy where people provide for each other.

In the future....

Nanotechnology will engineer people who can breath water and live in the sea. Maybe these people will lose their ability to speak or we will forget that they are people. Perhaps, someday, we will call these people "fish" and maybe eat them.

Nanotechnology will create people who have chlorophyll and who can breath carbon dioxide and create oxygen. Maybe these people will lose their ability to speak or we will forget that they are people like us because they look so different, move so slowly, and live so long. Perhaps, someday, we will call these people "trees" and maybe we will chop them down, burn them for heat, and build houses out of them.

Far in the future... there might someday be a world where all of these adapted and carefully engineered people support each other in a brilliant and infinite web of life and death.