"Diamondoid bacteria" nanobots: deadly threat or dead-end? A nanotech investigation
titotal.substack.com
Confidence level: I’m a computational physicist working on nanoscale simulations, so I have some understanding of most of the things discussed here, but I am not specifically an expert on the topics covered, so I can’t promise perfect accuracy. I want to give a huge thanks to Professor Phillip Moriarty of the university of Nottingham for answering my questions about the experimental side of mechanosynthesis research.

https://titotal.substack.com/p/diamondoid-bacteria-nanobots-deadly

I wrote this article a month or two ago, thought people here might be interested. Drexler-style nanotech research appears to be effectively dead at the moment.

Oh, and Yudkowsky responded to the article with characteristic obliviousness:

I broadly endorse this reply and have mostly shifted to trying to talk about “covalently bonded” bacteria, since using the term “diamondoid” (tightly covalently bonded CHON) causes people to panic about the lack of currently known mechanosynthesis pathways for tetrahedral carbon lattices.

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    Bonus: I love the person in the comments who is effectively shouting, “A MILLION SUPERINTELLIGENCES! NANOTECH POSSIBLE! DEBATE ME! I’M VERY SMART!!!” into the void at this point.

    • self@awful.systemsMEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Light LEAKS through the CRACKS. My mind is BRIGHTER than it EVER was. THE HIGHER I RISE THE MORE I SEE.

      then again look at the way these people actually talk:

      Yeah we definitely disagree about that crux. You’ll see. Happy to talk about it more sometime if you like.

      the Cultist Simulator quote is significantly more sane than “nah I disagree, a million AI superintelligences can just poof their way into existence regardless of magical nanotech, infrastructure, the speed of light, or any other physical limitations on the amount of compute we can practically fit into one space”

      e: fucking “you’ll see”, these people are convinced the rapture is almost here

      • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        There should be a cultist simulator mod where the principles are the TREACLES components. Expeditions are deep dives where you fend off scientific consensus to find contrarian blog posts as relics. Followers can take damage from information hazards and must be healed by adderall or nootropics.