Should Nanoscience Bail Us Out?

What about OIL Eating Bacteria

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=oil+eating+bacteria&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7DKUK_en-GB&redir_esc=&ei=sYH1S92fEJmImwOm8eHQCA

One of the purposes of technology is to ease our lives. This includes "bailing us out" of situations from which we need bailing.

The situations don't arise until we need bailing, however. We hardly ever develop "fixes" until we have understood that there are problems or potential problems that need fixing or find some technology that will have some additional usefulness that could include a fix (such as the discovery of bugs that eat oil and their potential employment on oil spills).

That we sometimes find ourselves in difficulty and then find a way out of the difficulty by use of technology or any other means would only be capable of being judged in terms of values if we reinvented ourselves as human beings.

We take our risks. Nothing frees us up to take them or not take them. "Freedom" to take them is a consideration that arises before they are taken, usually based upon calculated risk assessment, infatuation with adventure and exploration, or a profit motive. Only as an adjunctive theoretical use to a new technology: e.g. "can an application of nanotechnology be useful on cleaning up oil slicks?", or after an old one backfires do we develop our fixes to contain them as well as we can. The development of one fix often contributes to the development of the next, either by a deductive or inductive reasoning processes, so remedial solutions can pay off in more ways than by just offering a solution to a current conundrum.

"...should technology free us up to take risks under the assumption that we can fix whatever problems arise?" --The question is not useful. We don't take risks based upon being "freed up" by technology.

Mark

Only on a nanoscience blog would it be "natural" to posit whether or not an as yet undeveloped, nonexistent technology "should" or "might" ride to our rescue.

<scowls>

Technology is a means to an end. What ends should we pursue and by what means is the critical issue, not whether fantasy technologies might swoop down on their unicorns to save the maiden.

If a technology doesn't yet exist, how could it possibly "should" rescue us?

Milo