Download - Nanotech Bad

Nano Neg – Planet Debate

NanoTech FYI.....................................................................................................................................................5

Inherency Neg.....................................................................................................................................................6

General Solvency Answers.................................................................................................................................7

Nano Solar Solvency Answers............................................................................................................................8

Commercial Nanosolar Isn’t Possible.................................................................................................................9

Competitiveness Advantage Answers...............................................................................................................10


Competitiveness Advantage Answers (Applies to ALL Competitiveness Advantages)..................................12


Competitiveness Advantage Answers (Applies to ALL Competitiveness Advantages)..................................14

Competitiveness Advantage Answers – Ext – Knowledge Spreads Abroad....................................................15

Competitiveness Advantage Answers – Ext: U.S. Leads Now.........................................................................16

Competitiveness Advantage Answers – China or Russia Don’t Threaten the U.S. Nano Lead.......................17

Extensions – Patents Block Nano Development...............................................................................................18




Extensions – Patents Block...............................................................................................................................22

AT: We Solve Bad NanoTech..........................................................................................................................23

AT: We Solve a Nano Arms Race...................................................................................................................24

AT: We Create Military Dominance in Nanotech............................................................................................25



AT: We Create Regs.........................................................................................................................................28

Nanotech Causes Extinction.............................................................................................................................29

Nanotech Causes Extinction.............................................................................................................................30

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NanoExtinction Outweighs Nuclear War..........................................................................................................31

Extensions – Grey Good Causes Extinction.....................................................................................................32

Extensions – Nanotech Causes Extinction........................................................................................................33

Supporting NanoTech Leads to Self-Replication.............................................................................................34

AT: Fat Fingers Stop Self-Replication..............................................................................................................35

AT: Sticky Fingers Stops Self-Replication.......................................................................................................36

AT: Sticky Fingers Stops Self-Replication.......................................................................................................37

Nanotechnology Destroys the Economy...........................................................................................................38



Nanotech Causes Prolif.....................................................................................................................................41

Extension – Nanotech Causes Prolif.................................................................................................................43

Nanotech Causes Arms Races...........................................................................................................................44

Nanotech Causes Arms Races...........................................................................................................................45

Nanotech Undermines Soft Power....................................................................................................................46

Nanotech Destroys Biodiversity.......................................................................................................................47

Nanotech Destroys Biodiversity.......................................................................................................................48

Nanotechnology Causes Space Wars................................................................................................................49

Nanotechnology Causes Disease.......................................................................................................................50

Nanotech Destabilizes the Middle East.............................................................................................................51

Nanotech Threatens the Food Chain.................................................................................................................52

Nanotechnology Causes Terrorism...................................................................................................................53

Nano Threatens the Environment......................................................................................................................54

Nano Threatens Health......................................................................................................................................55

AT: We Establish Regulations..........................................................................................................................56


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States Counterplan............................................................................................................................................73

States Counterplan Solves R &D......................................................................................................................74

States Solve Military.........................................................................................................................................75

Politics -- Plan is Popular in Congress..............................................................................................................77

Heidegger Links................................................................................................................................................78

Heidegger Links................................................................................................................................................79

Heidegger Links................................................................................................................................................80

Heidegger Links................................................................................................................................................83

Coal DA Links..................................................................................................................................................85

Fiscal Discipline DA Links...............................................................................................................................86

Nano Not Inevitable..........................................................................................................................................88

CP – International Regulation...........................................................................................................................90

International Regulation Counterplan...............................................................................................................91

International Regulation Counterplan...............................................................................................................92

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Grey Good Answers..........................................................................................................................................94

AT: NanoTech Inevitable..................................................................................................................................95

Asymmetric Warfare Answers..........................................................................................................................96

Asymmetric Warfare Solvency Answers..........................................................................................................96



Can’t Solve Asymmetric Threats through Military Means.............................................................................100



Extensions: Plan Causes Trade-Offs...............................................................................................................103

Extensions: Plan Causes Trade-Offs...............................................................................................................104

AT: Our Plan Solves the Problems With Fighting Asymmetric Wars............................................................105

Improving Asymmetric Warfare Won’t Solve Terrorism...............................................................................106

Biopower K Links...........................................................................................................................................107

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NanoTech FYI

Nanotech definedDr. Raj Bawa, a biochemist and microbiologist, is a registered patent agent licensed to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), 2007, Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology, “Nanotechnology Patent Proliferation And The Crisis At The U.S. Patent Office”, p. 703-4

One of the problems facing nanotechnology n9 is the confusion, hype, and disagreement among experts about its definition. Nanotechnology is an umbrella term used to define the [properties,] products and processes at the nano/micro scale that have resulted from the convergence of the physical, chemical and life sciences." n

One of the most quoted definitions is the one used by the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI): "nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications." This definition "excludes numerous devices and materials of micrometer dimensions, a scale that is [often] included within the definition of nanotechnology by many nanoscientists." Therefore, some experts have cautioned against an overly rigid definition based on a sub-100 nm size, "emphasizing instead the continuum of scale from the nanoscale to the microscale." n

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Inherency Neg

Military using nano batteries nowE&E News, August 6, 2008

A Reno, Nev.-based nanotechnology company announced today that it would supply the Army with advanced battery technology that the military says could pave the way for wider deployment in electric and hybrid vehicles. Altair Nanotechnology, which manufactures nanomaterials for use in pharmaceuticals, energy and a host of industrial applications, said it signed a $350,000 contract to develop prototype batteries using lithium titanate technology for the Picatinny Arsenal in Denville, N.J. The new batteries will be designed for use in the Army's M119 105mm lightweight towed howitzer, a gun capable of firing six rounds a minute for two minutes at a maximum range of more than 11 miles, according to GlobalSecurity.org. The new technology is a lithium ion system that uses "a nano-lithium titanate" as the material at its anode, or the terminal through which a current travels to an electrolytic cell, Altairnano's Chief Executive Terry Copeland explained in an interview. While he declined to say what part of the weapons system his batteries would power, he described lithium titanate technology as ideally suited for battlefield conditions.

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General Solvency Answers

4 things the plan doesn’t do that are necessary to solveMatthew M. Nordan, Vice President Of Research, Lux Research, Inc, 2005, Hearing, June, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/science/hsy21950.000/hsy21950_0f.htm

What can the U.S. do to maintain and, moreover, extend leadership in nanotechnology? I see five key actions. First, the U.S. must grow federal funding for nanotechnology research. Nanotech is a horizontal enabler most similar to assembly line manufacturing or to electricity that will impact virtually every manufactured good. It is as critical for us to lead in this field now as it was to lead in packet switched networks decades ago, far before the Internet stimulated economic development. Second, we must eliminate regulatory uncertainty surrounding environmental, health, and safety issues in nanotechnology. There are no firm guidelines from the EPA or OSHA today about how those agencies plan to regulate nanomaterials, and as a result, large corporations are beginning to hold back investment, for fear that the ground will shift underneath them. Third, we must attract U.S. students to the physical sciences, but as well, we must retain the foreign students that we import. Nobel laureate Richard Smalley has observed that on current trends, by 2010, 90 percent of physical scientists worldwide will be Asian nationals, 60 percent will be practicing in Asia. The U.S. should strengthen science education in K-12, reconsider the effect of visa tightening on the inflow of foreign science and technology students, and develop economic incentives to retain those researchers when they study here. Quite frankly, we risk becoming a drive-through educational institution for other countries' students. Fourth, we must create financial incentives aligned with desirable applications. Such programs can be coordinated through existing agencies. They require no incremental bureaucracy. Consider NASA's $11 million project with Rice University to develop extremely low loss power cables based on carbon nanotubes. And finally, we must be sensible about export controls in nanotechnology, which could choke commercialization. Export controls in this field, per se, are a dead end. The field is too broad to implement them. Such action would be like trying to impose controls on assembly line manufacturing techniques and equipment. Instead, we believe the U.S. should identify specific nanotech applications with military significance, like nanoparticulate explosives, and impose sensible controls on them within existing frameworks

Research won’t produce new nanotech applicationsJohn Sargent, senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, May 15, 2008,Nanotechnology and U.S. Competitiveness, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/106153.pdf

Basic research in nanotechnology may not translate into viable commercial applications. Though no formal assessment of the composition of the NNI budget has been made, there is general consensus that the NNI investment since its inception has been focused on basic research. The National Science Foundation defines the objective of basic research as seeking “to gain more comprehensive knowledge or understanding of the subject under study without applications in mind.” Therefore, while basic research may underpin applied research, development, and commercialization, that is not its primary focus or intent. In general, basic research can take decades21 to result in commercial applications, and many advances in scientific understanding may not present commercial opportunities

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Nano Solar Solvency Answers

R&D won’t produce nanosolar advances

Cientifica, 2007, A reality check for solar nanotech,”http://cientifica.eu/blog/?p=369)]

In the short term, any solutions will come from making better use of existing resources, not from thin film solar or the still mythical hydrogen economy. The companies using nanotechnology to produce thin film solar systems have burned through a quarter of a billion dollars of venture capital money over six years, and still haven’t cracked the manufacturing and reliability issues which will make the technology economic. In the meantime, the easing of the current silicon shortage coupled with advances in the efficiency of current generation solar cells gives the nanotech based solutions a narrowing window of opportunity to aim at.

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Commercial Nanosolar Isn’t Possible

Transmission, distribution, and contracting prevent widespread nanosolar useSan Francisco Chronicle, July 11, 2007, As solar gets smaller, its future gets brighter,” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/07/11/BUG7IDL1AF1.DTL&type=tech

It remains unclear, however, who would install nanotechnology-based solar components if they become commercially available. "There's no channel to the market," said Nordan, who sees a fragmented solar installation market made up of numerous contractors, which makes adoption of any technology difficult. Nordan also sees obstacles in transmitting solar energy from rooftop collection sites back to electrical grids and other buildings not wired with photovoltaics. Distribution an obstacle "The problem is distribution. Nanomaterials could provide a way to transmit energy as well as capture it." Until the distribution issue is solved, Nordan says, solar energy will not be able to meet its potential of supplying vast amounts of power.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi


Competitiveness Advantage Answers

11 reasons nanotech won’t be commercializedJung Lowe, McNeil, Dean and Professor of Business Management, University of Illinois, September 2007, Barriers To Nanotechnology Commercialization, http://www.ntis.gov/pdf/Report-BarriersNanotechnologyCommercialization.pdf

1. Time between research and commercialization is estimated to be 3 to 10 years. Venture capitalists and other sources of funding find this time factor to be a detriment. 2. The so-called “Valley of Death” is the often fatal interlude between scientific results of the researcher and initial funding for proto-typing and commercialization. The scientists ma y publish results and not be interested in commercialization. As often happens, where there is interest or not in

commercialization, the common comment is that for every dollar invested into basic research, which is critical to the U.S.’s competitive strength, almost one hundred dollars is required for a

competitive product to be produced. The commercialization of nanotechnology scientific investment has little relationship to the hi-tech dot.com, software commercialization paradigm. This is a serious gap between research and commercialization that must be addressed by government agencies and the venture capitalists. 3. Lack of proper infrastructure (labs, equipment, measuring devices, etc.) hinders the growth of small business and researchers. The infrastructure needed is very expensive. Furthermore, equipment becomes quickly outdated due to the major advances in technology. 4. Lack of usage of federal and university laboratories and equipment hurts small businesses that can’t afford this infrastructure. 5. Many of the employees or scientists are foreign nationals. They are not allowed access to federal labs in most cases. 6. Small businesses do not have the capacity to produce products at a large scale. 7. There is a lack of a coherent policy on tech transfer from universities to start-up businesses. 8. Audit control from federal government is a hindrance to small companies. It is very expensive to slow down work to comply with several federal agencies that conduct audits. There needs to be a centralized system. 9. Patent office takes up to 36 months to respond to applications registered. 10. Potential barriers may include the lack of trained scientists, engineers, technicians and researchers in this country. There is no federal policy addressing the deficit in scientific training at all levels of our educational institutions and in improving the workforce with better and improved technical skills. 11. The current tax policy does not assist research and development. There are not enough sufficient tax credits for funding groups. 12. FDA and Patent offices do not have enough qualified staff to assess nanotechnology products. 13. The development of nano tools must increase and be more available to universities and startup businesses. 14. SBIR encourages research and not commercialization. It does not support small companies. 15. Applied research needs to be encouraged more in universities and federal labs. 16. The public perception that nanotechnology products are unsafe must be challenged to insure the public fully understands its potential. 17. Lack of standards and measurements are hindering advancements in nanotechnology. 18. The reduction of research and development funding has been hindering advancement in research. 19. Current immigration policy is adversely affecting research. U.S. - educated foreign nationals are going back to their home countries because of the difficulty of going through the process to stay in the United States. 20. It is also difficult for an individual to obtain a visa to enter the United States. 21. National assistance for nano technology development in foreign countries is more effective than in the United States. It will be a problem for competitiveness. 22. Some academics and researchers fight efforts for commercialization.

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Turn – Companies will conduct research outside the U.S.

John Sargent, senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, May 15, 2008,Nanotechnology and U.S. Competitiveness, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/106153.pdf

U.S.-based companies may conduct production and other work outside of the United States. In today’s economy, supply chains are global and the work required to develop, design, produce, market, sell, and service products is generally conducted where it can be done most efficiently. Even if U.S.-based companies successfully develop and bring nanotechnology materials and products to market, work may be conducted, and the economic value captured, outside of the United States.

Intellectual property rights litigation blocks widespread nano comercializationSemiconductor.net, 2007, http://www.semiconductor.net/article/CA6503878.html

Nanotechnology is advancing at a dizzying rate, but profitable commercialization is being hindered by looming legal issues, as uneven worldwide patent enforcement is forcing companies to resort to trade secrets to protect their hard-won nanotechnology innovations.A panel of industry experts at the recent NanoCon International conference in Santa Clara, Calif., considered several hurdles — ranging from legal considerations to scalability and cost — facing nanomaterials manufacturing.“For nanotech to become a true industry, it must consistently deliver application-tailored quality material in sufficiently large qualities — whether kilogram or kiloton,” said Dave Arthur, CEO of SouthWest Nanotechnologies (SWeNT, Norman, Okla.). “Many potential customers won’t begin product development unless they know that we’ll be able to provide material at those kinds of scales.” Then there is cost. Although nanotech materials deliver high value at small quantities, not many applications can support costs of thousands or even hundreds of dollars per gram. The processes that produce these materials must become more scalable. Manufacturing scalability to a great extent is a matter of achieving sufficiently uniform heat and mass transfer in processes, but there exists a chicken-and-egg situation regarding the needed investment to attain this. “In an academic setting, nanomanufacturing means making one or two,” said Professor Joey Mead, deputy director of the Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing of the Department of Plastics Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, which is part of the National Science Foundation's Nanoscale Science and Engineering organization. “If you toss 99 to get a good one and can publish results, that’s sufficient; not so for commercial manufacturing. For that you must really understand the manufacturing fundamentals to enable industry to develop them for large-scale manufacturing.” Panel moderator Kelly Kordzik, an intellectual property lawyer at Fish & Richardson P.C. (Austin, Texas), said some patents lie dormant like monsters out of an old Japanese sci-fi thriller, waiting to be awakened to wreak havoc. “When the technology was getting started,” he

said, “broad and fundamental patents were filed by both universities and companies.” Since presently there is not enough profit to be had in nanotech patents, there has been no appreciable litigation to entangle development or frighten away venture capitalists. However, there is an unholy race between nanotech’s progress toward high-volume commercialization, and these older patents’ expiration dates. When valuable applications start breaking en masse into the commercial world, making significant profits, many expect that these patent holders will attempt to enforce them, possibly leading to complex and paralyzing patent fights.

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Competitiveness Advantage Answers (Applies to ALL Competitiveness Advantages)

Turn – R&D will inevitable be shared world-wide


Basic research is generally available to all competitors. Even when basic research presents the potential for commercial exploitation, it may not deliver national advantage. Open publication and free exchange of research results are guiding principles of federally funded fundamental research and research conducted by U.S. colleges and universities. This approach may allow for the rapid expansion of global scientific and technical knowledge as new work is built on the scaffolding of previous work. However, the information is available to all competitors, U.S. and foreign alike, and thus may not confer competitive advantage to the United States.

Nanotechnologies will just take developments and relocate abroadJohn Sargent, senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, May 15, 2008,Nanotechnology and U.S. Competitiveness, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/106153.pdf

The data typically used to assess technological competitiveness in mature industries — e.g., revenues, market share, trade — is not available to assess the U.S. position in nanotechnology because it is a new technology, commercial products are just beginning to enter the market in a significant manner, and it is incorporated in wide array of products across many industries. Accordingly, the

federal government currently does not collect this data on nanotechnology, nor do other nations. The number of nanotechnology products in the marketplace is increasing quickly though. Congress may elect to ask federal agencies to assess what data (e.g. economic, labor force, students) would be useful in formulating federal policies and making resource allocation decisions and direct federal statistical agencies to collect, analyze, and make public such data. The federal government may also seek to foster data collection efforts in other nations. In the absence of such data, assessments of nanotechnology depend largely on alternative indicators, such as inputs (e.g., public and private investments) and noneconomic outputs (e.g., scientific papers, patents). By these measures, the United States appears to lead all other nations in nanotechnology, though the U.S. lead in this field may not be as large as it has been in previous emerging technology areas. This is due to increased investments and capabilities of many nations based on recognition that technological leadership and commercialization are primary paths to increased economic growth, improved standards of living,

and job creation. Nevertheless, these alternative indicators may not present an accurate view of technological leadership and economic competitiveness for many reasons. Nor does national technological leadership alone guarantee that the economic value produced by nanotechnology innovations will be captured within a nation’s borders. In today’s global economy, companies have the option of locating work — e.g. research, development, design, engineering, manufacturing, product support — where it can be done most effectively. A variety of federal policy issues may affect the development and commercialization of nanotechnology in the United States, including the magnitude and focus of research and development efforts, the regulatory environment, and science and engineering workforce development. Some support an active federal approach; others believe that a more limited federal involvement is likely to be more successful and equitable. In addition to these factors, U.S. competitiveness in nanotechnology will depend not just on the efforts of the United States, but also on the speed and efficacy of foreign nanotechnology development efforts.

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U.S. leads in nanotech nowJohn Sargent, senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, May 15, 2008,Nanotechnology and U.S. Competitiveness, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/106153.pdf

As with public R&D investments, on a PPP comparison basis, the United States led the world in 2006 in private sector R&D investments in nanotechnology with an estimated $1.9 billion investment, led by companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel, DuPont, General Electric, and IBM. Japan’s $1.7 billion in private investments in nanotechnology R&D — led by companies such as Mitsubishi, NEC, and Hitachi — ranks a close second behind the United States. The private investments of companies headquartered in these two nations account for nearly three-fourths of corporate investment in nanotechnology R&D in 2006. In contrast to its high PPP ranking in public R&D investment, China ranks fifth in corporate investment, accounting for only about 3% of global private R&D investments in nanotechnology. Strength in an existing industry base may be a driver for private investment in nanotechnology innovations. For example, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MCWNTs) offer significant improvements in lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery life. Japan’s strength in Li-ion batteries is seen as a driving force in Japan’s leading position in the manufacture of MWCNTs and Japanese companies’ investments in ton-scale production capabilities. Venture capital investment — early-stage equity investment, generally characterized by high risk and high returns — provides another possible indicator of international competitiveness. In 2007, venture capital for nanotechnology reached an estimated $702 million worldwide of which U.S.-based companies received $632 million (approximately 90%)

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Competitiveness Advantage Answers (Applies to ALL Competitiveness Advantages)

Lack of scientists makes nano leadership impossibleMatthew M. Nordan, Vice President Of Research, Lux Research, Inc, 2005, Hearing, June, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/science/hsy21950.000/hsy21950_0f.htm

The U.S. is not generating enough Science and Engineering Master's degree and Ph.D. holders to maintain leadership in nanotechnology. Tighter controls on student visas since the September 11 attacks have reduced the inflow of Ph.D. students to the United States in favor of Western Europe, and as economies in China, India, and South Korea develop, foreign scientists are less likely to remain in the U.S. for their careers than they were a decade ago. Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley from Rice University has noted that at current rates, by 2010, 90 percent of all physical scientists will be Asian and 50 percent of them will be practicing in Asia.

U.S. ahead on nanotech now

Mike Roco, senior advisor for nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation, 2007, The Future of Nanotechnology, http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=9459

Nanotechnology in the United States is developing at a fast pace and has made significant advances in five years that other technologies in 20th century took 15 or 20 years to achieve. NNI is investing about $1.4 billion annually in 2007, which is about one-quarter of the worldwide government investment in nanotechnology. Industry has already exceeded the investment made by the federal government in the United States. The United States has more than 50 percent of highly cited papers in the field, more than 60 percent of patents related to nanotechnology at USPTO and about 70 percent of start-up companies. That means we are a little bit more efficient, on average, for the investment. This is partly because we organize nanotechnology using a horizontal, multidisciplinary approach that uses the same methods, the same architecture, the same instrumentation and the same principles in different areas. This promotes the exchange of ideas. We are also funding proportionally more fundamental, exploratory research. We leave applications to be picked up by industry. Another reason the United States is doing relatively well in outcomes is because of the better foundation in physics, chemistry and biology in our university system and industrial labs. If you look toward the future, the field is moving very fast from studying simple components – like nanotubes, nanoparticles, quantum dots – to studying active devices and nanosystems. We are also beginning to see investigations into the close integration of these nanosystems for applications, and eventually we'll be developing nanosystems that have very small components that are nanoscale devices and even molecules or macromolecules. At that moment, we will arrive at so-called molecular nanotechnology.

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Competitiveness Advantage Answers – Ext – Knowledge Spreads Abroad

Foreigners educated in the U.S. will spread the knowledge abroadJohn Sargent, senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, May 15, 2008,Nanotechnology and U.S. Competitiveness, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/106153.pdf

U.S.-educated foreign students may return home to conduct research and create new businesses. In the era following World War II, many of the most gifted and talented students from around the world were attracted to the science and engineering programs of U.S. colleges and universities. For many years, many of those who graduated from these programs decided to stay in the United States and contributed to U.S. global scientific, engineering, and economic leadership. Today, many foreign students educated in the United States have economic opportunities in their home countries that did not exist for previous generations. Some nations are making strong appeals and offering significant incentives for their students to return home to conduct research and create enterprises. Thus, federal support for universities, in general, and scientific and engineering research activities, in particular, may contribute to the development of leading scientists and engineers who might return to their home countries to exploit the knowledge, capabilities, and networks developed in the United States.

Reverse brain drain nowNewsweek, August 2007, http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/aug2007/sb20070821_920025.htm

For the first time in its history, the U.S. faces the prospect of a reverse brain drain. New research by my team at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University shows that more than 1 million highly skilled professionals such as engineers, scientists, doctors, researchers, and their families are in line for a yearly allotment of only around 120,000 permanent-resident visas for employment-based principals and their families in the three main employment visa categories (EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3). These individuals entered the country legally to study or to work. They contributed to U.S. economic growth and global competitiveness. Now we've set the stage for them to return to countries such as India and China, where the economies are booming and their skills are in great demand. U.S. businesses large and small stand to lose critical talent, and workers who have gained valuable experience and knowledge of American industry may become potential competitors. The problem is simple. There aren't enough permanent-resident visas available each year for skilled workers and their families. And there is a limit of fewer than 10,000 visas that can be issued to immigrants from any single country. So countries with the largest populations such as India and China are allocated the same number of visas as Iceland and Mongolia.

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Competitiveness Advantage Answers – Ext: U.S. Leads Now

U.S. leads in peer reviewed nanoresearch


The United States leads all other nations in peer-reviewed nanotechnology papers published in scientific journals. A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) analysis reported that the United States’ 24% share of global publication output was more than double that of the next most prolific nation, China. However, this share represents a decline from the early 1990s when the United States accounted for approximately 40% of nanotechnology papers. The NBER working paper concludes, “Taken as a whole these data confirm that the strength and depth of the American science base points to the United States being the dominant player in nanotechnology for some time to come, while the United States also faces significant and increasing international competition.”

U.S. leads in nanopatents


Patent counts — assessments of how many patents are issued to individuals or institutions of a particular country — are another indicator used to assess a nation’s competitive position. According to the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO), a patent grants ownership rights to a person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” By this definition, patents may be an indicator of future value and national strength in a technology, product, or industry. By this measure the United States position appears to be very strong. United States assignees dominate all other countries in patents issued by the USPTO. According to an analysis by the USPTO of patents in the United States and in other nations, U.S. origin inventors and assignees/owners have: the most nanotechnology-related U.S. patents by a wide margin; the most nanotechnology-related patent publications globally, but by a narrower margin (followed closely by Japan); and the most nanotechnology-related inventions that have patent publications in three or more countries, 31.7% — an indication of a more aggressive pursuit of international intellectual property protection and, by inference, of its perceived potential value. By this measurement, the United States is followed by Japan (26.9%), Germany (11.3%), Korea (6.6%), and France (3.6%).43

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Competitiveness Advantage Answers – China or Russia Don’t Threaten the U.S. Nano Lead

China is nowhere near the U.S. in nanotech. NanoChina, 2007, Multinational Move on Nanotech, http://www.nanochina.cn/english/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=771&Itemid=182]

In a story headlined, "China Second to U.S. in Nano," which citied a report this month from Lux Research, UPI said that "several countries, including China, are beginning to gain on the top nations of the United States and Japan." But a closer look at the Lux report shows that things are a little more nuanced and a lot less sensational. The U.S. remains the big spender in nanotechnology. Even if VCs and the IPO market have been cold, federal and state spending, as well as big companies like General Electric and DuPont, are more than picking up the slack. China was ranked sixth in government funding (although it was even with Japan when Lux factored in how much that spending could purchase in local markets) and fifth in corporate spending. China's focus was also on low-cost areas like materials and chemicals that hold out less profit potential than fields such as bioscience.

The Russian nanotech program sucks – corruption, inexperience, and lack of transparency.

Nature, October 12, 2007, p. 4

In what could be the biggest windfall for science since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian parliament last week gave the green light to a massive US$7-billion investment in nanotechnology over five years. The Russian government hopes the programme will make the country a world leader in nanoscale technologies with a wide range of military and civilian uses. However, the move has been criticized as poorly prepared and unlikely to yield results. Nano-devices, designed from single atoms and molecules, are predicted to have applications in fields as diverse as consumer electronics and biomedicine. All research and development activities will be coordinated by Rosnanotekh, a new tax exempt body with far-reaching freedom to set up institutes, put work out to tender and commercialize results. But no details have been announced about the precise structure, goals and content of the initiative. It is unclear, for example, how projects will be selected for funding. Some Russian scientists, sceptical about fair allocation of funds, have given the announcement a lukewarm response. The country has hardly any competence in nanotechnology, they say. And given the widespread absence of efficient quality control in Russian science funding, many fear the scheme will be poisoned by corruption. “Our government just doesn’t understand anything about science,” says one high level Russian physicist who asked not to be named. “They think if they throw enough money at it they’ll get some nice exploitable results in return. But we don’t even have the experts.” The programme is the brainchild of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is keen to reduce the country’s dependence on oil and gas. Putin recently compared the importance of nanotechnology to that of nuclear science. He is said to have secretly recruited Mikhail Kovalchuk, the director the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, to head Rosnanotekh. Kovalchuk, who is not an expert in nanotechnology, is the brother of Yuri Kovalchuk, a banker and businessman with close ties to Putin. The independent Russian media has poured scorn on Russia’s foray into what some call the “banano” technology business. “Lack of transparency and programme abuse for personal goals are the usual Russian dangers,” says former science minister Boris Saltykov, an expert in science management.

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Extensions – Patents Block Nano Development

Pattent bottlenecks block nanotech developmentDr. Raj Bawa, a biochemist and microbiologist, is a registered patent agent licensed to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), 2007, Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology, “Nanotechnology Patent Proliferation And The Crisis At The U.S. Patent Office”, p. 699-700

There is enormous excitement and expectation regarding nanotechnology's potential impact. However, securing valid and defensible patent protection will be critical here. Although early forecasts for nanotechnology commercialization are encouraging, there are bottlenecks as well. One of the major hurdles is an emerging thicket of patent claims, resulting primarily from patent proliferation, but also because of issuance of surprisingly broad patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Adding to this confusion is the fact that the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative's widely-cited definition of nanotechnology is inaccurate and irrelevant. This has also resulted in the PTO's flawed nanotechnology patent classification system. All of this is creating a chaotic, tangled patent landscape in various sectors of nanotechnology (e.g., nanoelectronics and nanomedicine) in which the competing players are unsure as to the validity and enforceability of numerous issued patents. If this trend continues, it could stifle competition, limit access to some inventions, and simply grind commercialization efforts to a halt. Therefore, reforms are urgently needed at the PTO to address problems ranging from poor patent quality and questionable examination practices to inadequate search capabilities, rising attrition, poor employee morale, and a skyrocketing patent application backlog. Only a robust patent system will stimulate the development of commercially viable nanotechnology products.

Patents critical to nanotech development

Dr. Raj Bawa, a biochemist and microbiologist, is a registered patent agent licensed to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), 2007, Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology, “Nanotechnology Patent Proliferation And The Crisis At The U.S. Patent Office”, p. 719-20 Patents are critical to the nanotechnology "revolution." When investors or companies consider the merits of their investment, patent issues are one of the most important items they review. For example, "there is ample evidence that companies, start-ups, and research universities of all sizes are ascribing greater value and importance to patents. [Increasingly], they are willing to risk a larger part of their budgets to acquire, exercise, and defend patents." The process of converting basic research in nanoscience into commercially viable products is likely to be long and difficult. Because development of nanotech-related technologies is extremely research-intensive, without the market exclusivity offered by a patent, development of these products and their commercial viability in the marketplace would be significantly hampered. Patents are especially important for start-ups and smaller companies because they may help in negotiations over infringement during competitive posturing with larger corporations. "In fact, patents may also protect the clients of a patent owner because they may prevent a competitor from infringing or replicating the client's products made under license from the patentee." n91 Furthermore, patents provide inventors "credibility ... with [their] backers, shareholders, and venture capitalists - groups that may not fully understand the science behind the technology."

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Extensions – Patents Block Nano DevelopmentProtections through trade secrets won’t attract ventura capital

Dr. Raj Bawa, a biochemist and microbiologist, is a registered patent agent licensed to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), 2007, Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology, “Nanotechnology Patent Proliferation And The Crisis At The U.S. Patent Office”, p. 720-1

Generally, patents precede funding from a venture capital firm. For a start-up company, patents are not only a means of attracting investment, but also "validating the company's foundational technology ... ." Therefore, "start-up companies are more aggressively seeking patents as a source of significant revenue. They cite the potential for licensing patents and the power to control emerging sectors of nanotechnology as major reasons for seeking patents on nanotech-related technologies." Additionally, "few venture capitalists are likely to support a start-up that relies on trade secrets [alone]." In sum, investors are unlikely to invest in a start-up that has failed to construct adequate defenses around its IP via valid, enforceable patents.

Onslaught of nano patent applications nowDr. Raj Bawa, a biochemist and microbiologist, is a registered patent agent licensed to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), 2007, Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology, “Nanotechnology Patent Proliferation And The Crisis At The U.S. Patent Office”, p. 721-2

Federal agencies continue to grapple with nanotechnology. The U.S. Patent and trademark Office (PTO) is no exception. In fact, "for more than a decade, all the major patent offices of the world have faced an onslaught of [nanoscience and nanotech-related] patent applications." At the PTO, the situation is likely to worsen as more applications are filed and pendency rates further skyrocket. As companies develop products and processes and begin to seek commercial applications for their inventions, securing valid and defensible patent protection will be vital to their long-term survival. In the decades to come, with certain areas of nanotechnology further maturing and promised breakthroughs accruing, patents will generate licensing revenue, provide leverage in deals and mergers, and reduce the likelihood of infringement. The development of nanotech-related products, which is extremely research-intensive, will be significantly hampered in the absence of the market exclusivity offered by a patent.

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PTO has no plan to handle the explosion of patents


The overburdened and inefficient PTO "has yet to implement a [solid] plan to handle the soaring number of nanotechnology patent applications being filed." This has resulted in additional time to review patent applications (i.e., an increase in patent pendency) and concerns about the validity and enforceability of numerous issued patents (which reflects a decrease in patent quality). nA recent report puts the average nanotechnology patent pendency at four years [Figure 4], a period that is simply too long for certain nanotechnologies that peak and then become obsolete in a few short years. Furthermore, surprisingly broad nano-patents continue to be issued by the PTO. Obviously, this is partly the result of court decisions in the past two decades that have made it easier to secure broad patents. Laws have also tilted the table in favor of patent holders, no matter how broad or tenuous their claims." As a result, the PTO faces an uphill task as its attempts to handle the enormous backlog in applications filed. It also faces a torrent of improperly granted patents, many of which are likely to be "re-examined." The entire U.S. patent system is under enormous scrutiny and strain. Various examination problems continue to haunt the PTO. nSome shortcomings specific to nanotechnology patent examination beset the PTO: At present, the agency lacks a dedicated examining group (called the "Technology Center" or TC) to handle applications on nanotechnology. Few examiners have experience in this rapidly evolving field of nanotechnology. n123 Since "nanotechnology is interdisciplinary in nature, patent applications that are searched, examined and prosecuted in one center could and should be examined more effectively by a coordinated review in more than one [TC]." In reality, applications are being dealt with differently within each center. n125 This approach results in non-uniform examination of applications because examiners in different TCs review patent applications in light of the case law and prior art unique to their own TC.

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PTO can’t attract knowledgeable nanopatent reviewers


The PTO continues to be under-staffed in numerous TCs and it is plagued by high attrition. The agency's inability to attract and retain a talented pool of patent examiners is creating havoc. Each year, at hearings on Capitol Hill and in its annual report, the PTO brass proudly touts hiring over 1,200 new patent examiners to alleviate the backlog that is clogging the patent system. However, it fails to focus on the critical issue of "brain drain" resulting from an exodus of so many experienced patent examiners. It would be wise for PTO Commissioners to focus on retaining some of its employees and not putting all its efforts on hiring new ones. Some experts believe that these attrition rates are likely to be further exacerbated by decreasing morale and work conditions, including poorly designed quality initiatives and inefficient electronic search software. According to many experts, patent examiners are underpaid (relative to law firm salaries) and overworked (as compared to their colleagues at the European Patent Office). They also have to review applications under unreasonable time pressures and skyrocketing patent pendency. Arguably, the internal quality review process that monitors quality of patents that have been allowed by patent examiners is fraught with a general lack of legal and scientific expertise on the part of reviewer.

PTO has a nanotech information deficit

Dr. Raj Bawa, a biochemist and microbiologist, is a registered patent agent licensed to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), 2007, Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology, “Nanotechnology Patent Proliferation And The Crisis At The U.S. Patent Office”, p. 727

The PTO has failed to effectively engage outside legal or technology experts. For example, "only a handful of experts from industry or academia have lectured on nanotechnology at the PTO." This reluctance to use outside expertise has further added to the information deficit. It is clear that the PTO lacks internal expertise in nanotechnology and its isolationist policy only compounds the problem. Moreover, patent examiners are not required to have advanced degrees in science or engineering. Even if they have such credentials (e.g., PhD, JD, PharmD, etc.), they are often "overruled" by those with much lesser legal and/or scientific expertise. In other words, possessing advanced degrees or advanced training, by and large, go unrecognized at the PTO. "[Few] training modules or examination guidelines have been developed to educate patent examiners in the complexities and subtleties of nanotechnology." Similarly, no written guidelines specific to nanotechnology are available for patent practitioners.

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Extensions – Patents Block

Overlapping issues block patentsMichael A. Van Lente, B.S., Chemistry, Hope College (1980); Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Minnesota/Minneapolis (1987); J.D. expected, Case Western Reserve University School of Law , Case Western Law Review, 2006, p. 195-6

Apart from patents with claims that may be too broad from the standpoint of optimally encouraging the development of nanotechnology and may lock up large application areas, observers and participants also see a problem with patents that may not have met the required non-obviousness standard and may therefore be in conflict. The patent statute provides: A patent may not be obtained . . . if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Commentators have opined that the maze of dominant and overlapping patents in nanotechnology will be likely to lead to litigation as new companies attempt to stake out their beachheads on previously claimed continents. Matthew Nordan calls the problem of overlapping issued patents with their potential for extensive litigation "[t]he biggest threat to commercialization" of nanotechnology.

Many barriers to nanotech patents

Michael A. Van Lente, B.S., Chemistry, Hope College (1980); Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Minnesota/Minneapolis (1987); J.D.

expected, Case Western Reserve University School of Law , Case Western Law Review, 2006, p. 200-1

Mr. Miller and coauthors present a clear picture of what they perceive are the problems with the present system, some of which are discussed above. The perception of a patent thicket has been incorporated into the list of problems that they see at the PTO. The problems include rejection of valid claims, issuance of broad and overlapping claims, a fragmented and chaotic IP landscape, insufficient expertise at the PTO, lack of centralized review of nanotechnology applications, non-comprehensive searching of the prior art, a high backlog of applications, issuance of patents that are too broad, and issuance of too many patents in a given technology area. Other difficulties that they perceive are caused by patent holders acting with improper motivations. These include the use of patents to strangle competitors, the use of patents by start-ups to block other start-ups, and the use of patents by established corporations having market dominance to keep out new technology with potential for displacing their own.

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AT: We Solve Bad NanoTech

Military won’t adhere to nanotech limits in battleJohn Robert Matthew, member of the Scientific Advisory Board @ NanoNow, 2004,, http://www.nanotech-now.com/John-Marlow-Superswarm-interview-Feb04.htm

Lastly, there are the proposed prohibition on self-replication in open environments, the proposed restriction on self-evolution, and the requirement that replicating nanites be dependent upon one of three things: a) an artificial energy source; b) an artificial vitamin, or; c) a broadcast transmission. All of these seem quite rational at first glance-though such restrictions would make superswarm implementation (as currently envisioned) impossible. The problem is that wars do not take place in sealed laboratories, and no military establishment is going to pay much attention to these guidelines because following them renders nanoweapons useless. If nanites cannot replicate on the battlefield, they will be less effective than those which can, and become vulnerable to destruction; if they rely upon an artificial vitamin or energy source, their battlefield usefulness is compromised or destroyed, and they will be inferior to those operating with no such hindrance; if they depend upon a broadcast signal, that signal can be duplicated or jammed. Further, the development of such safeguards, even if desired, would slow deployment-for which reason they're not likely to be implemented. So the military-ours as well those of other nations-is basically going to throw this guidebook out the window. Which is not to say it doesn't have its uses; it does. But the most likely source of a large-scale nanoevent is nanoweaponry-and the institutions developing it are precisely those which are least likely to concern themselves with cumbersome safeguards. They are also those most likely to be conducting research and development activities under the all-concealing cloak of national security.

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AT: We Solve a Nano Arms Race

It is not possible to solve a nano arms raceMark Gubrud, Research Associate, Center for Superconductivity Research Physics, University of Maryland, 1997, Nanotechnology and International Security, http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

* The prospect of revolutionary advances in military capabilities will stimulate competition to develop and apply the new technologies toward war preparations, as falling behind would imply an intolerable security risk. Indeed, it is plausible that a nation which gained a sufficient lead in molecular nanotechnology would at some point be in a position to simply disarm any potential competitors. * If two or more technologically advanced nations or blocs exist in de facto confrontation, regardless of political differences or other substantial conflicts of interest, then competition to apply the advanced technologies could segue directly into an uncontrolled arms race — unless restraints have been put in place before the new technologies can be applied. * A race to develop early military applications of molecular manufacturing could yield sudden breakthroughs, leading to the abrupt emergence of new and unfamiliar threats, and provoking political and military reactions which further reinforce a cycle of competition and confrontation.

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AT: We Create Military Dominance in Nanotech

Turn – Developing a military lead in nanotech causes first strikesMark Avram, Research Associate, Center for Superconductivity Research Physics, University of Maryland, Nanotechnology and International Security, 2007, http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

First strike instability. Even if two sides are evenly matched, high levels of deployed armaments may be militarily unstable, in that a surprise attack could perhaps decimate the opposing force before it could respond. This is especially likely in co-occupied environments, i.e. space, the oceans, and along land lines of confrontation. Forces based in protected areas may remain survivable, but serious competitors would not cede vast stretches of "no man's land" to enemy control in advance of a fight, and whoever strikes first in the co-occupied environments may gain an irreversible advantage. The greater the density of interpenetrating forces, the shorter the strike time. Thus a crisis becomes progressively less stable as a buildup proceeds. A perfect balance of technical and material resources is unrealistic in any case, which leads to a new type of strategic instability: o Early advantage instability. If one has an early lead in a replicator-based crisis arms buildup, the fact that a competitor may have somewhat faster replicators or superior weaponry, or may have access to a larger primary resource base, provides another strong stimulus to an early first strike. Moreover, it is unlikely that one actually knows the performance of an enemy's weapons or production base, particularly after a long peace.

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Can’t deter nanotech developmentCenter for Responsible Nanotechnology, 2004, Nanofactory Proliferation,” http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/07/nanofactory_pro.html

This study will explore the challenge of preventing black markets, independent development, etc. Subquestion A: How easy will it be to detect a development program? Preliminary answer: Probably quite difficult. Development does not require exotic materials or massive industrial activity. It may require mainly off-the-shelf technology. Researchers will be from diverse and common fields like software engineering and computational chemistry, not concentrated in one exotic field. Depending on the bootstrapping 'recipe', the design effort might be dispersed (networked/teleconferenced), and the entire physical operation might be carried out in one moderate-sized laboratory. And most of the research would not require world-class talent, though a successful program today might well require world-class leadership. Subquestion B: How much easier will it be to develop a second nanofactory, compared with developing the first one? Preliminary answer: Reverse engineering will give hints as to which path to take. The definite knowledge that it can be done at all will reduce institutional friction. General technology advances will give a second program more to work with. Any leaks of know-how or software will further reduce the difficulty. It seems likely that the second nanofactory will be an order of magnitude less costly. Subquestion C: How can nanoscale products be detected? Preliminary answer: Unknown. Nanoporous filters can trap them. Non proximal sub-wavelength optics, if they work as claimed, may be able to scan for them at a distance—but there are lots of natural nanoparticles, so recognition is also a problem. MRI may be able to detect at a distance, though resolution is a problem and there may be a theoretical limit. Subquestion D: How easy will it be to smuggle nanofactories? Preliminary answer: A fully functional nanofactory, able (given a supply of feedstock, energy, and blueprint software) to make one twice as big (and so on) and thus recreate a full manufacturing capacity, could be just a few microns on a side—small enough to hide inside a human cell. Or any convenient size in between. We don't know of any way to detect something like that without total intrusion of the volume being searched, which probably implies destruction. Subquestion E: How easy will it be to detect proliferation-related activity? Preliminary answer: Quite difficult. Especially once the 'recipe' is known, it will be very hard to spot a project—R&D for a nanofactory project may require only a single small lab and a few computers. (For comparison, consider Zyvex.) Subquestion F: How effective will deterrence be? Preliminary answer: To someone lacking a comparable capability, a nanofactory would be incredibly valuable. This implies that deterrence will not be successful. Provisional conclusion: It will be very difficult to limit proliferation of nanofactory technology and possession of bootleg nanofactories.

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It is not possible to create military dominance in nanotechMark Gubrud, Research Associate, Center for Superconductivity Research Physics, University of Maryland, 1997, Nanotechnology and International Security, http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

With the advent of nanotechnology, the qualitative advances in weapons technology will be enormous and compelling; no country will want to maintain armies that are effectively impotent against a potential threat. Molecular manufacturing based on self-replicating systems, and superautomation by artificial intelligence, will also profoundly alter the issue of cost. A nation's military potential will depend first on its position in the technology race. A second factor will be its natural resource base, but most nations have access to sufficient natural resources to support an arsenal many times larger

than any which has ever existed on Earth. Currently the development of nanoelectronics and nanofabrication, biotechnology, supramolecular chemistry, and other steps toward molecular nanotechnology is a worldwide academic and industrial enterprise. No country can be said to have a lead in the race to develop assemblers, because there isn't any race and no

one is even close. But when and if it becomes clear that something like molecular manufacturing based on self-replicating assemblers lies within reach of, say, a five-year effort, it is likely that a race

will begin. Industry will be heavily involved, but national efforts will be stimulated and coordinated by government and military initiatives. The leading competitors will be those with the greatest concentration of advanced technology: the United States, Japan and Europe. However, the race will also be joined by countries such as Russia, China, India, Israel, and others that have a strong technology base, a lot of resources, or both. A race to be the first to develop and apply assemblers could be expensive. Such a

project could probably absorb the efforts of as many teams of designers, experimenters and theorists as could be mustered. Practical molecular manufacturing systems will be enormously complicated, compared with the modest accomplishments of contemporary molecular engineering. Although there is good reason to believe that our capabilities are expanding rapidly enough to be able to meet this task within a few decades, it would be foolish to think that the task is one that can be accomplished by a small team in the near term. A serious, focused effort to develop molecular nanotechnology would be funded at the multi-billion dollar level, and would expand to a major industry in the race to develop applications. The cost of such an effort is probably a steep function of its earliness; thus it would cost, say, the United States, quite a large amount to gain an advantage of a few years over its closest rivals. If the potential significance of molecular manufacturing were well understood, a very large budget for its development would perhaps be warranted. But in the absence of a compelling threat, such as motivated the US atom-bomb project in its early stages, it is likely that skepticism will rule the day, and so nanotechnology research will have to prove its worth by providing immediate payoffs. The size of the research effort will be tied to the size of the industry it generates. That industry is likely to grow up simultaneously in several countries of the world. Another corollary of the steep cost function is that even countries that cannot afford a "Manhattan Project" may not be too

far behind the leading powers in crossing the threshold of molecular manufacturing. Thus if the United States, or another nation, decides to pull out all the stops and beat the rest of the world to advanced nanotechnology, and is successful in that effort, it will have at most a few years to decide whether to use its advantage to impose a world order that prevents the rise of a competitor, or to face the prospect of a nanotechnic confrontation. However, it seems unlikely that any nation will ever gain such a decisive lead. Nuclear weapons will remain a powerful deterrent until nanosystems have reached a very refined state of development, and even then it is doubtful whether politicians would have the nerve to risk an attack on a large nuclear arsenal. Even the thought of initiating a non-nuclear war with a nuclear-disarmed but large and resourceful power, in the absence of any immediate provocation, would probably be anathema to decisionmakers in a democratic state. In the mean time, the potential targets will be hurrying to catch up. It is most reasonable to expect the more or less simultaneous emergence of advanced nanotechnology in a number of industrial and potential military competitors, and its more or less simultaneous application by several states to military systems and to their manufacture. Even if one nation gains an early lead, it seems very likely that, under the assumption of peaceful armed coexistence, there would soon emerge a world in which several sovereign states or blocs possessed a molecular manufacturing capability.

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AT: We Create Regs

Military Won’t Follow the Regs

John Robert Marlow, member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Nanotechnow, 2004, Interview on the Superswarm Option Nanotechnology Now, http://www.nanotech-now.com/John-Marlow-Superswarm-interview-Feb04.htm

First, there's the issue of enforcement: who's in charge here-and who will watch the watchers? Who's going to tell the United States: "Hey-you can't do that…?" Self-regulation may be a bit optimistic when dealing with something which can destroy the planet if mishandled. Active shields might be one approach; the superswarm option is another. A second potential problem is the prohibition on independently-functioning subassemblies, which are crucial to superswarm implementation. Lastly, there are the proposed prohibition on self-replication in open environments, the proposed restriction on self-evolution, and the requirement that replicating nanites be dependent upon one of three things: a) an artificial energy source; b) an artificial vitamin, or; c) a broadcast transmission. All of these seem quite rational at first glance-though such restrictions would make superswarm implementation (as currently envisioned) impossible. The problem is that wars do not take place in sealed laboratories, and no military establishment is going to pay much attention to these guidelines because following them renders nanoweapons useless. If nanites cannot replicate on the battlefield, they will be less effective than those which can, and become vulnerable to destruction; if they rely upon an artificial vitamin or energy source, their battlefield usefulness is compromised or destroyed, and they will be inferior to those operating with no such hindrance; if they depend upon a broadcast signal, that signal can be duplicated or jammed. Further, the development of such safeguards, even if desired, would slow deployment-for which reason they're not likely to be implemented. So the military-ours as well those of other nations-is basically going to throw this guidebook out the window. Which is not to say it doesn't have its uses; it does. But the most likely source of a large-scale nanoevent is nanoweaponry-and the institutions developing it are precisely those which are least likely to concern themselves with cumbersome safeguards. They are also those most likely to be conducting research and development activities under the all-concealing cloak of national security.

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Nanotech Causes Extinction

Nanotech results in gray goo & extinctionEric, Drexler, 1986, Chief Technical Advisor to Nanorex, Engines of Creation, http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Chapter_11.html#section01of05

In Chapter 4, I described some of what replicating assemblers will do for us if we handle them properly. Powered by fuels or sunlight, they will be able to make almost anything (including more of themselves) from common materials. Living organisms are also powered by fuels or sunlight, and also make more of themselves from ordinary materials. But unlike assembler-based systems, they cannot make "almost anything". Genetic evolution has limited life to a system based on DNA, RNA, and ribosomes, but memetic evolution will bring life-like machines based on nanocomputers and assemblers. I have already described how assembler-built molecular machines will differ from the ribosome-built machinery of life. Assemblers will be able to build all that ribosomes can, and more; assembler-based replicators will therefore be able to do all that life can, and more. From an evolutionary point of view, this poses an obvious threat to otters, people, cacti, and ferns - to the rich fabric of the biosphere and all that we prize. The early transistorized computers soon beat the most advanced vacuum-tube computers because they were based on superior devices. For the same reason, early assembler-based replicators could beat the most advanced modern organisms. "Plants" with "leaves" no more efficient than today's solar cells could out-compete real plants, crowding the biosphere with an inedible foliage. Tough, omnivorous "bacteria" could out-compete real bacteria: they could spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days. Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop - at least if we made no preparation. We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies. Among the cognoscenti of nanotechnology, this threat has become known as the "gray goo problem." Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term "gray goo" emphasizes that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be "superior" in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable. We have evolved to love a world rich in living things, ideas, and diversity, so there is no reason to value gray goo merely because it could spread. Indeed, if we prevent it we will thereby prove our evolutionary superiority. The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: we cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers. In Chapter 5, I described some of what advanced AI systems will do for us, if we handle them properly. Ultimately, they will embody the patterns of thought and make them flow at a pace no mammal's brain can match. AI systems that work together as people do will be able to out-think not just individuals, but whole societies. Again, the evolution of genes has left life stuck. Again, the evolution of memes by human beings - and eventually by machines - will advance our hardware far beyond the limits of life. And again, from an evolutionary point of view this poses an obvious threat. Knowledge can bring power, and power can bring knowledge. Depending on their natures and their goals, advanced AI systems might accumulate enough knowledge and power to displace us, if we don't prepare properly. And as with replicators, mere evolutionary "superiority" need not make the victors better than the vanquished by any standard but brute competitive ability.

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Nanotech Causes Extinction

Grey goo destroys the universeHoward Rheingold Stanford, Editor Emeritus of Whole Earth Review, 1992, At the beginning of the twentieth century - computational biology – Column,”www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n76/ai_12635777

It looks as if something even more powerful than thermonuclear weaponry is emanating from that same, strangely fated corner of New Mexico where nuclear physicists first knew sin. Those who follow the progress of artificial-life research know that the effects of messing with the engines of evolution might lead to forces even more regrettable than the demons unleashed at Alamogordo. At least nuclear weaponry and biocidal technologies only threaten life on Earth, and don't threaten to contaminate the rest of the universe. That's the larger ethical problem of a-life. The technology of self-replicating machines that could emerge in future decades from today's a-life research might escape from human or even terrestrial control, infest the solar system, and, given time, break out into the galaxy. If there are other intelligent species out there, they might not react benevolently to evidence that humans have dispersed interstellar strip-mining robots that breed, multiply, and evolve. If there are no other intelligent species in existence, maybe we will end up creating God, or the Devil, depending on how our minds' children evolve a billion years from now. The entire story of life on earth thus far might be just the wetware prologue to a longer, larger, drier tale, etched in silicon rather than carbon, and blasted to the stars -- purposive spores programmed to seek, grow, evolve, expand. That's what a few people think they are on the verge of inventing. Scenarios like that make the potential for global thermonuclear war or destruction of the biosphere look like a relatively local problem. Biocide of a few hundred thousand species (including ourselves) is one kind of ethical problem; turning something like the Alien loose on the cosmos is a whole new level of ethical lapse. The human species has precious little time to gain the wisdom necessary to handle the knowledge scientists have discovered. Artificial life is too important to remain an esoteric specialty. The time to think about what it might mean is now, while we still have a choice. Military applications of autonomous, self-reproducing robots might lead to worse fates than mere annihilation. There's some question about whether it is ever possible to put knowledge back in the bottle, but there is no question that we still have time to make sure that the self-reproducing increasingly intelligent, interstellar lifeforms that we are about to create are more closely modeled on E.T. than on the Alien.

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NanoExtinction Outweighs Nuclear War

Nanobots are more likely to kill us all than nuclear war.Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, August 2004, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html

What was different in the 20th century? Certainly, the technologies underlying the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) - were powerful, and the weapons an enormous threat. But building nuclear weapons required, at least for a time, access to both rare - indeed, effectively unavailable - raw materials and highly protected information; biological and chemical weapons programs also tended to require large-scale activities. The 21st-century technologies - genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) - are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them. Thus we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication. I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

Replicators and AI have more destructive capability than nuclear warEric, Drexler, 1986, Chief Technical Advisor to Nanorex, Engines of Creation, http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Chapter_11.html#section01of05

States could use advanced AI systems to similar ends. Automated engineering systems will facilitate design-ahead and speed assembler development. Al systems able to build better AI systems will allow an explosion of capability with effects hard to anticipate. Both AI systems and replicating assemblers will enable states to expand their military capabilities by orders of magnitude in a brief time. Replicators can be more potent than nuclear weapons: to devastate Earth with bombs would require masses of exotic hardware and rare isotopes, but to destroy all life with replicators would require only a single speck made of ordinary elements. Replicators give nuclear war some company as a potential cause of extinction, giving a broader context to extinction as a moral concern. Despite their potential as engines of destruction, nanotechnology and AI systems will lend themselves to more subtle uses than do nuclear weapons. A bomb can only blast things, but nanomachines and AI systems could be used to infiltrate, seize, change, and govern a territory or a world. Even the most ruthless police have no use for nuclear weapons, but they do have use for bugs, drugs, assassins, and other flexible engines of power. With advanced technology, states will be able to consolidate their power over people.

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Extensions – Grey Good Causes Extinction

Gray goo results in extinction.Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, August 2004, Why the Future Doesn’t need Us,” http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html

Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term "gray goo" emphasizes that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be superior in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable. The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: We cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers. Gray goo would surely be a depressing ending to our human adventure on Earth, far worse than mere fire or ice, and one that could stem from a simple laboratory accident.6 Oops. It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause. Self-replication is the modus operandi of genetic engineering, which uses the machinery of the cell to replicate its designs, and the prime danger underlying gray goo in nanotechnology. Stories of run-amok robots like the Borg, replicating or mutating to escape from the ethical constraints imposed on them by their creators, are well established in our science fiction books and movies. It is even possible that self-replication may be more fundamental than we thought, and hence harder - or even impossible - to control. A recent article by Stuart Kauffman inNature titled "Self-Replication: Even Peptides Do It" discusses the discovery that a 32-amino-acid peptide can "autocatalyse its own synthesis." We don't know how widespread this ability is, but Kauffman notes that it may hint at "a route to self-reproducing molecular systems on a basis far wider than Watson-Crick base-pairing."7 In truth, we have had in hand for years clear warnings of the dangers inherent in widespread knowledge of GNR technologies - of the possibility of knowledge alone enabling mass destruction. But these warnings haven't been widely publicized; the public discussions have been clearly inadequate. There is no profit in publicizing the dangers. The nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) technologies used in 20th-century weapons of mass destruction were and are largely military, developed in government laboratories. In sharp contrast, the 21st-century GNR technologies have clear commercial uses and are being developed almost exclusively by corporate enterprises. In this age of triumphant commercialism, technology - with science as its handmaiden - is delivering a series of almost magical inventions that are the most phenomenally lucrative ever seen. We are aggressively pursuing the promises of these new technologies within the now-unchallenged system of global capitalism and its manifold financial incentives and competitive pressures. This is the first moment in the history of our planet when any species, by its own voluntary actions, has become a danger to itself - as well as to vast numbers of others.

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Extensions – Nanotech Causes Extinction

Nanotech innovation allows for accidental extinction.Eric Drexler Chief Technical Advisor to Nanorex, 1991, Unbounding the Nanotechnology Revolution,” http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_12.html

The previous section discussed ordinary accidents that would occur during the use of nanotechnology by generally responsible, yet fallible, human beings. Nanotechnology also raises the specter, however, of what have been termed "extraordinary accidents": accidents involving runaway self-replicating machines. One can imagine building a device about the size of a bacterium but tougher and more nearly omnivorous. Such runaways might blow like pollen and reproduce like bacteria, eating any of a wide range of organic materials: an ecological disaster of unprecedented magnitude—indeed, one that could destroy the biosphere as we know it. This may be worth worrying about, but can this happen by accident? How to Prepare a Big Mistake The so-called "Star Trek scenario" (named after an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that featured runaway "nanites") is perhaps the most commonly imagined problem. In this scenario, someone first invests considerable engineering effort in designing and building devices almost exactly like the one just described: bacterial-sized, omnivorous, able to survive in a wide range of natural environments, able to build copies of themselves, and made with just a few built-in safeguards—perhaps a clock that shuts them off after a time, perhaps something else. Then, accidentally, the clock fails, or one of these dangerous replicators builds a copy with a defective clock, and away we go with an unprecedented ecological disaster.

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Supporting NanoTech Leads to Self-Replication

Nanotech will be developed using self-replication

Mike Roco, 2007, senior advisor for nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation, Nanotechnology: Genesis of Semiconductor's Future,”http://www.semiconductor.net/article/CA476295.html

We're currently researching all four. The integration level will be incredible, and there will be more systems of nanosystems than few separate devices for electronic circuits and transistors. We may have various pathways to larger systems such as nanorobotics with emerging behavior, biomimetics, guided self-assembly, and evolutionary approaches. We're beginning to build different types and new assemblies of molecules.I can see a transistor being like amacromolecule, doing all the functions, or as a macrocrystal. The key change will be the integration of these components. Today we speak of a single transistor integrated with a microwire. Even on the nanoscale, you need a typical means of integration. I see a system where you begin with nanotransistors and other nanosystems, building the final product in situ, without later assembly. Self-assembly will be the core of most processes to build nanostructures. It allows you to create molecules that create macromolecules that, in turn, allow the bottom-up creation of devices with the desired properties and functions, in precise and economical ways.

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AT: Fat Fingers Stop Self-Replication

Fat fingers won’t stop self-replicationEric Drexler Chief Technical Advisor to Nanorex, 1991, Unbounding the Nanotechnology Revolution,” http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_12.html

As noted elsewhere, if steric constraints near the tool tip make it unexpectedly difficult to manipulate particular individual atoms or small molecules with sufficient reliability, a simple alternative is to rely upon conventional solution or gas phase chemistry for the bulk synthesis of nanoparts consisting of 10-100 atoms. These much larger nanoparts can then be bound to a positional device and assembled into larger (molecularly precise) structures without further significant steric constraints. This is the approach taken by the ribosome in the synthesis of proteins. Individual amino acids are sequentially assembled into an atomically precise polypeptide without the need to manipulate individual atoms. “Atomically precise” is a description of the precision of the final product, not a description of the manufacturing method. Complete control of every aspect of a chemical reaction is not actually required to build a nanorobot. Effective control that delivers a precise product is what is necessary. The “fat fingers” problem is not a fundamental barrier to the development of molecular assemblers or the nanorobots they enable.

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AT: Sticky Fingers Stops Self-Replication

Biological assemblers disprove Sticky FingersEric Drexler, 2001, Chief Technical Advisor to Nanorex, On Physics, Fundamentals, and Nanorobots: A Rebuttal to Smalley’s Assertion that Self-Replicating Mechanical Nanorobots Are Simply Not Possible,” http://www.imm.org/publications/sciamdebate2/smalley/

Smalley also advances the “sticky fingers” problem, which is the claim that: “…the atoms of the manipulator hands will adhere to the atom that is being moved. So it will often be impossible to release this minuscule building block in precisely the right spot….these problems are fundamental….” The existence of some reactions that don’t work still leaves plenty of room for reactions that do. To argue that the “sticky fingers” problem is a fundamental barrier to building mechanical assemblers and nanorobots, Smalley must show that no set of reactions exists which allows the synthesis of a useful range of precise molecular structures. To consider but one approach, application of a voltage between a manipulator tool and the workpiece can cause the target atom or moiety to move to the desired position. Again, Ho and Lee have provided an experimental existence proof. For a biological example, consider the ribosome. This ubiquitous biological molecular assembler suffers from neither the “fat finger” nor the “sticky finger” problem. If, as Smalley argues, both problems are “fundamental,” then why would they prevent the development of mechanical assemblers and not biological assemblers? If the class of molecular structures known as proteins can be synthesized using positional techniques, then why would we expect there to be no other classes of molecular structures that can be synthesized using positional techniques? Upon observing experimentally that polymers such as proteins can be synthesized under programmatic control, what convincing evidence do we have that the programmatic synthesis of stiffer polycyclic structures such as diamond is “fundamentally” impossible, and that mechanical assemblers will never be built?

36


AT: Sticky Fingers Stops Self-Replication

Fingers irrelevant to grey good

Eric Drexler, 2001, Chief Technical Advisor to Nanorex, On Physics, Fundamentals, and Nanorobots: A Rebuttal to Smalley’s Assertion that Self-Replicating Mechanical Nanorobots Are Simply Not Possible,” http://www.imm.org/publications/sciamdebate2/smalley/

You have attempted to dismiss my work in this field by misrepresenting it. From what I hear of a press conference at the recent NNI conference, you continue to do so. In particular, you have described molecular assemblers as having multiple "fingers" that manipulate individual atoms and suffer from so-called "fat finger" and "sticky finger" problems, and you have dismissed their feasibility on this basis. I find this puzzling because, like enzymes and ribosomes, proposed assemblers neither have nor need these "Smalley fingers.” The task of positioning reactive molecules simply doesn't require them. I have a twenty year history of technical publications in this area and consistently describe systems quite unlike the straw man you attack. My proposal is, and always has been, to guide the chemical synthesis of complex structures by mechanically positioning reactive molecules, not by manipulating individual atoms. This proposal has been defended successfully again and again, in journal articles, in my MIT doctoral thesis, and before scientific audiences around the world. It rests on well-established physical principles. The impossibility of "Smalley fingers" has raised no concern in the research community because these fingers solve no problems and thus appear in no proposals. Your reliance on this straw-man attack might lead a thoughtful observer to suspect that no one has identified a valid criticism of my work. For this I should, perhaps, thank you. You apparently fear that my warnings of long-term dangers will hinder funding of current research, stating that "We should not let this fuzzy-minded nightmare dream scare us away from nanotechnology....NNI should go forward.” However, I have from the beginning argued that the potential for abuse of advanced nanotechnologies makes vigorous research by the U.S and its allies imperative Many have found these arguments persuasive. In an open discussion, I believe they will prevail. In contrast, your attempt to calm the public through false claims of impossibility will inevitably fail, placing your colleagues at risk of a destructive backlash.

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Nanotechnology Destroys the Economy

Nanosector breakthroughs will destroy the economy

John Robert, Marlow 04, John Robert: member of the Scientific Advisory Board, 2004, Nanosecurity and the Future (if Any)” http://www.johnrobertmarlow.com/sa__art-nanosecurity%20and%20the%20future%20if%20any.html

Even a purely commercial nanobreakthrough, however, could be enormously destabilizing. "With the advent of automated self-contained local manufacturing," notes Phoenix, "shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing jobs will all be lost." And that could be only the beginning: what happens when one company, one industry—or one nation-is suddenly able to reduce production costs to near-zero? Competitors will find themselves insolvent overnight. Millions of people may awaken to find their jobs being performed by nanodevices. Cities, built as they are around conventional job concentrations, may become insupportable. Non-nanoeconomies will collapse. Under such circumstances, the source of the breakthrough—or the technology itself—may be blamed for the sudden woes of the world, resulting in a wave of global nanoluddism. Fading nations may consider such a staggering economic advance to be an act of war—surely the results could be as devastating—and lash out militarily before effective defenses can be put into place. All of these issues and others are fully addressable with a comprehensive nanotechnology the benefits of which are widely distributed-but for the moment, profit dominates, altruism seems in short supply, and the societal and ethical implications of nanotechnology are taking a distant backseat. This is in itself a security issue.

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Nano will wipe-out many sectors of the economy

Mike Treder, Executive Director, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, Bridges to Safety, and Bridges to Progress,” http://www.crnano.org/Bridges.htm

Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital, editor of the Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report, says, "Quite simply, the world is about to be rebuilt (and improved) from the atom up. That means tens of trillions of dollars to be spent on everything: clothing, food, cars, housing, medicine, the devices we use to communicate and recreate, the quality of the air we breathe, and the water we drink—all are about to undergo profound and fundamental change. And as a result, so will the socio and economic structure of the world. Nanotechnology will shake up just about every business on the planet." Low-cost local manufacturing and duplication of designs could lead to economic upheaval, as major economic sectors contract or even collapse. To give one example, the global steel industry is worth over $700 billion. What will happen to the millions of jobs associated with that industry -- and to the capital supporting it -- when materials many times stronger than steel can be produced quickly and cheaply wherever they are needed? Advanced nanotechnology could make solar power a realistic and preferable alternative to traditional energy sources. Around the world, individual energy consumers pay over $600 billion a year for utility bills and fuel supplies. Commercial and industrial use drives the figures higher still. When much of this spending can be permanently replaced with off-grid solar energy, many more jobs will be displaced. The worldwide semiconductor industry produces annual billings of over $150 billion. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the industry employs a domestic workforce of nearly 300,000 people. Additionally, U.S. retail distribution of electronics products amounts to almost $300 billion annually. All of these areas will be significantly impacted if customized electronics products can be produced at home for about dollar a pound, the likely cost of raw materials. If molecular manufacturing allows any individual to make products containing computing power a million times greater than today’s PCs, where will those jobs go? Other nations will be affected as well. For example, the Chinese government may welcome the advent of exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing for several reasons, including its potential to radically reduce poverty and reduce catastrophic environmental problems. But at the same time, China relies on foreign direct investment (FDI) of over $40 billion annually for much of its current economic strength. When those dollars to purchase Chinese manufactured goods stop flowing in, the required adjustments may not be easy and could result in violent struggles.

39



Nano will displace critical commodities, destroying the economyAzoNano, April 29, 2008, The A-to-Z of Nanotechnology, Nanotechnology Led Changes To Manufacturing, Defence, Farming, Human Development and the Possibility of Large Scale Social Disruption As Predicted By The Friends of The Earth, http://www.azonano.com/Details.asp?ArticleID=1876

In the short-medium term, novel nanomaterials could replace markets for existing commodities, disrupt trade and eliminate jobs in nearly every industry. Industry analysts Lux Research Inc. have warned that nanotechnology will result in large-scale disruption to commodity markets and to all supply and value chains: “Just as the British industrial revolution knocked hand spinners and hand weavers out of business, nanotechnology will disrupt a slew of multi billion dollar companies and industries”. Technological change and the social disruption it brings has been with us for millennia. What will be different this time is that we are confronting the potentially near simultaneous demise of a number of key commodity markets where raw resources (eg cotton, rubber, copper, platinum) may be replaced by nanomaterials, with subsequent structural change to many industry sectors. The displacement of existing commodities by new nanomaterials would have profound impacts for economies everywhere. However it would have the most devastating impact on people in the Global South whose countries are dependent on trade in raw resources - 95 out of 141 developing countries depend on commodities for at least 50% of their export earnings.

40


Nanotech Causes Prolif

Nanotech development sparks proliferation and war.Mark Gubrud, Research Associate, Center for Superconductivity Research Physics, University of Maryland, 1997, Nanotechnology and International Security, http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

Whereas the perfection of nuclear explosives established a strategic stalemate, advanced molecular manufacturing based on self-replicating systems, or any military production system fully automated by advanced artificial intelligence, would lead to instability in a confrontation between rough equals. Rivals would feel pressured to preempt, if possible, in initiating a full-scale military buildup, and certainly not to be caught behind. As the rearmament reached high levels, close contact between forces at sea and in space would give an advantage to the first to strike. The greatest danger coincides with the emergence of these powerful technologies: A quickening succession of "revolutions" may spark a new arms race involving a number of potential competitors. Older systems, including nuclear weapons, would become vulnerable to novel forms of attack or neutralization. Rapidly evolving, untested, secret, and even "virtual" arsenals would undermine confidence in the ability to retaliate or resist aggression. Warning and decision times would shrink. Covert infiltration of intelligence and sabotage devices would blur the distinction between confrontation and war. Overt deployment of ultramodern weapons, perhaps on a massive scale, would alarm technological laggards. Actual and perceived power balances would shift dramatically and abruptly. Accompanied by economic upheaval, general uncertainty and disputes over the future of major resources and of humanity itself, such a runaway crisis would likely erupt into large-scale rearmament and warfare well before another technological plateau was reached.

Prolif causes extinction

Victor Utgoff, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, & Resources Division of Institute for Defense Analysis, Survival, Summer 2002, p. 87-90

Escalation of violence is also basic human nature. Once the violence starts, retaliatory exchanges of violent acts can escalate to levels unimagined by the participants before hand. Intense and blinding anger is a common response to fear or humiliation or abuse. And such anger can lead us to impose on our opponents whatever levels of violence are readily accessible. In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear ‘six-shooters’ on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations.

41


Extension – Nanotech Causes Prolif

States will seek defenses against nanotech, triggering proliferationMark Gubrud, Research Associate, Center for Superconductivity Research Physics, University of Maryland, 1997, Nanotechnology and International Security, http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

An increase of nuclear arsenals, deployment in more secure, covert basing modes, and development of new delivery systems designed to penetrate defenses, would prolong the reign of nuclear deterrence and postpone the day of possible vulnerability to nanotechnic aggression. Thus a nuclear power or potential nuclear power, especially one that was behind in the technology race, might want to retain its nuclear options or even expand its nuclear arsenal. Advanced nanotechnology should also facilitate a possible nuclear rearmament to levels manyfold higher than those of the Cold War. Thus it is possible that the result of a nanotechnic arms race will be rampant nuclear proliferation and the expansion of major nuclear arsenals to warhead counts in the hundred thousands or millions — A new "balance of terror," but note that a balance is not necessarily stable.

Nanotech results in global arms races and instability.Nick Bostrom, Professor of Philosophy and Global Studies at Yale, 2002, “Existential Risks,” Journal of Evolution and Technology, p. http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html

Even if effective defenses against a limited nanotech attack are developed before dangerous replicators are designed and acquired by suicidal regimes or terrorists, there will still be the danger of an arms race between states possessing nanotechnology. It has been argued that molecular manufacturing would lead to both arms race instability and crisis instability, to a higher degree than was the case with nuclear weapons. Arms race instability means that there would be dominant incentives for each competitor to escalate its armaments, leading to a runaway arms race. Crisis instability means that there would be dominant incentives for striking first. Two roughly balanced rivals acquiring nanotechnology would, on this view, begin a massive buildup of armaments and weapons development programs that would continue until a crisis occurs and war breaks out, potentially causing global terminal destruction. That the arms race could have been predicted is no guarantee that an international security system will be created ahead of time to prevent this disaster from happening. The nuclear arms race between the US and the USSR was predicted but occurred nevertheless.

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Nanotech Causes Arms Races

Nanotech results in an arms race.Mark Gubrud, Research Associate, Center for Superconductivity Research Physics, University of Maryland, 1997, Nanotechnology and International Security, http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

The possibility that assembler-based molecular nanotechnology (Drexler 1986, 1992) and advanced artificial general intelligence may be developed within the first few decades of the 21st century presages a potential for disruption and chaos in the world system. The key areas of concern are: The prospect of revolutionary advances in military capabilities will stimulate competition to develop and apply the new technologies toward war preparations, as falling behind would imply an intolerable security risk. Indeed, it is plausible that a nation which gained a sufficient lead in molecular nanotechnology would at some point be in a position to simply disarm any potential competitors. If two or more technologically advanced nations or blocs exist in de facto confrontation, regardless of political differences or other substantial conflicts of interest, then competition to apply the advanced technologies could segue directly into an uncontrolled arms race — unless restraints have been put in place before the new technologies can be applied. A race to develop early military applications of molecular manufacturing could yield sudden breakthroughs, leading to the abrupt emergence of new and unfamiliar threats, and provoking political and military reactions which further reinforce a cycle of competition and confrontation.

43


Nanotech Causes Arms Races

Nanotech will trigger an arms raceMark Gubrud, Research Associate, Center for Superconductivity Research Physics, University of Maryland, 1997, Nanotechnology and International Security, http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

If nuclear weapons remain limited in number, advanced nanotechnology could facilitate extensive civil defense construction, and provide active defense and counterforce weapons, undermining the nuclear "balance of terror" and creating the appearance of a possibility of victory in a war between major powers. From a purely military perspective, in the absence of a "balance of terror," a confrontation between more or less equally advanced terrestrial nanotechnology powers could be unstable to preemption — in both of the traditional senses: Arms race instability. A large imbalance in deployed hardware could allow one side to strike with impunity, and even a few-to-one imbalance could be enough to provide assurance of victory. If military production is based on a self-replicating capital base with a short generation time, the danger of falling behind on an exponential curve, or the opportunity to trump, would create unprecedentedly strong pressures to initiate or join and to maintain or gain the lead in a quantitative arms race. Unprecedentedly large masses of military hardware could be produced in an unprecedentedly short time. First strike instability. Even if two sides are evenly matched, high levels of deployed armaments may be militarily unstable, in that a surprise attack could perhaps decimate the opposing force before it could respond. This is especially likely in co-occupied environments, i.e. space, the oceans, and along land lines of confrontation. Forces based in protected areas may remain survivable, but serious competitors would not cede vast stretches of "no man's land" to enemy control in advance of a fight, and whoever strikes first in the co-occupied environments may gain an irreversible advantage. The greater the density of interpenetrating forces, the shorter the strike time. Thus a crisis becomes progressively less stable as a buildup proceeds. A perfect balance of technical and material resources is unrealistic in any case, which leads to a new type of strategic instability: Early advantage instability. If one has an early lead in a replicator-based crisis arms buildup, the fact that a competitor may have somewhat faster replicators or superior weaponry, or may have access to a larger primary resource base, provides another strong stimulus to an early first strike. Moreover, it is unlikely that one actually knows the performance of an enemy's weapons or production base, particularly after a long peace. Thus, a runaway nanotechnic arms race may be a race to nowhere; there may be no further island of stable military balance out there, even if we could manage to avoid war along the way. A very rapid pace of technological change destabilizes the political-military balance. Revolutionary new types of weaponry, fear of what a competitor may be doing in secret, tense nerves and worst-case analyses, the complexity of technical issues, the unfamiliarity of new circumstances and resistance to the demands they make, may overwhelm the cumbersome processes of diplomacy and arms control, or even of intelligence gathering and assessment, formulation of measured responses and establishment of political consensus behind them. A runaway military technological revolution must at some point escape the grasp of even wise decisionmakers.

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Nanotech Undermines Soft Power

Nanotech eliminates dependence relationships, collapsing soft power

John McCarthy, 2000, Molecular Technologies and the World Systems, http://www.mccarthy.cx/WorldSystem/intro.htm

The advent of MNT will not only cause disruption in power relationships by adding power to some states; it will also cause a loss of power for some. Not all power depends on military strength. Some is based on dependency, and that power can be utilized by either withholding what the dependent state needs, or by threatening to do so. This is usually referred to as "soft power," as opposed to the "hard power" of military action (or threat of it) (4). As an example of soft power, consider the U.S.-Japan trade relationship. Japan is dependent on the U.S. market, the largest single market in the world, as an outlet for its goods. Without access to that market, the prices for many of its goods would be too high (since the per unit cost would increase as the number of units produced decreased), and Japan would experience a lower standard of living and massive unemployment, at least in the short term. Thus, the potential to withhold something Japan wants gives the U.S. extra leverage in negotiations with that country. To be sure, the U.S. needs Japanese goods, but Japan would be hurt more by the closing of the American market to its goods than would the U.S., and it is this difference in relative dependency that gives the U.S. its advantage. (5) But should molecular manufacturing make trade obsolete (the reasons this may be the case will be presented later), then this advantage will vanish. Indeed, if MNT makes states more independent of each other (this will also be explored in detail later), then many other relationships based on dependency will change radically, making the soft power that is derived from manipulation of dependency less effective. The elimination of this source of power will change the power structure in many parts of the world in the same way that changes in absolute power will: by changing the relative levels of state power in the international system.

45


Nanotech Destroys Biodiversity

Nanotech kills crucial river bacteria, which is the base of the food chain.San Francisco Chronicle, 2005,, Nanotechnology may hold risks, scientists warn,” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/20/MNGREFB1S71.DTL

The U.S. government should spend more money investigating potential health and environmental hazards of nanotechnology, a leading environmental group says. New types of materials and chemicals that are invisibly small -- i.e., with diameters measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter -- have many possible valuable uses in medicine, environmental cleanups, water treatment, energy production, technology and other areas, representatives of the Washington-based group Environmental Defense acknowledged at a news conference Wednesday. However, uncertainties linger over the possible harm of nanomaterials and nanoparticles on human health and the environment, they cautioned. For example, nanoparticles used as anti-tumor agents are so small that they might slip inside the human brain and perhaps damage it. Likewise, if leaked from a factory, the particles might destroy river bacteria, which lie at the base of much of the food chain. Because the toxic aspects of nanotechnology remain a frontier subject of research, "our traditional ways of thinking about hazardous materials are going to have to broaden a bit," said Dr. John Balbus, the organization's health program director. He and three colleagues wrote an article about the potential downsides of nanotechnology for a recent issue of the journal Issues in Science and Technology, a joint publication of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the University of Texas.

Nanoparticles kill crucial bacteriaAzoNano, The April 29, 2008, -to-Z of Nanotechnology, Too Much Good Nanotechnology May Be Bad for the Environment With Silver Nanoparticles Killing Beneficial Bacteria,” http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=6351

Too much of a good thing could be harmful to the environment. For years, scientists have known about silver’s ability to kill harmful bacteria and, recently, have used this knowledge to create consumer products containing silver nanoparticles. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that silver nanoparticles also may destroy benign bacteria that are used to remove ammonia from wastewater treatment systems. The study was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Several products containing silver nanoparticles already are on the market, including socks containing silver nanoparticles designed to inhibit odor-causing bacteria and high-tech, energy-efficient washing machines that disinfect clothes by generating the tiny particles. The positive effects of that technology may be overshadowed by the potential negative environmental impact. “Because of the increasing use of silver nanoparticles in consumer products, the risk that this material will be released into sewage lines, wastewater treatment facilities, and, eventually, to rivers, streams and lakes is of concern,” said Zhiqiang Hu, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in MU’s College of Engineering. “We found that silver nanoparticles are extremely toxic. The nanoparticles destroy the benign species of bacteria that are used for wastewater treatment. It basically halts the reproduction activity of the good bacteria.”

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Nanotech Destroys Biodiversity

Nanotechnology destroys biodiversity, causing extinction.Katrina Arabe, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 2004, The Risks and Rewards of Nanotechnology, http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2004/03/the_risks_rewar.html

Also disturbing is the possible health effects of engineered nanoparticles. "The smaller the particles, the more toxic they become," says Vyvyan Howard, a University of Liverpool pathologist who analyzes environmental aerosols. Already, the first two studies examining nanoparticles' impact on health have not yielded reassuring results, reporting a different and more serious lung damage than that caused by conventional toxic dusts. In the first study, which was sponsored by NASA, three kinds of carbon nanotubes—microscopic carbon cylinders—were found to cause lung abnormalities in mice after these particles were washed into the animals' lungs. And the lesions worsened over time, with some resulting in tissue death. In the second study, rats were given similar exposures, and in a startling result, 15% of the animals receiving the biggest amount died from lung blockages within 24 hours—something the researchers had never before observed for any lung toxin. And the damage may not stop at the lungs. University of Rochester toxicologist Gunter Oberdoerster has illustrated through experiments that inhaled nanoparticles can spread to a rat's brain. Some are also concerned about nanoparticles accumulating in animal organs. Researchers at Rice University's CBEN have demonstrated that particles at the nanoscale—like many other non-biodegradable pollutants—build up in living things over time. They accumulate in microbes, in the worms that feed on those microbes and in animals higher up the food chain. CBEN researchers stress that this doesn't mean that nanoparticles pose a safety threat. Some scientists, however, believe that particles at the nanoscale could burn up soil microbes, disturbing soil chemistry and its ability to sustain plant life. Others are even convinced that nanotechnology could bring about the end of the world. They believe a well-known article written in 2000 by Bill Joy, co-founder of the computer giant Sun Microsystems, who theorized that self-replicating nanomachines could amass beyond our control and destroy the living world. Not all scientists dismiss this scenario.

47


Nanotechnology Causes Space Wars

Nanotech development triggers wars in spaceMark Gubrud, Research Associate, Center for Superconductivity Research Physics, University of Maryland, 1997, Nanotechnology and International Security, http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

Large-scale development of space, beyond the near-Earth environment, would complicate the question of military instability by possibly providing refuge for survivable forces. It is unclear, however, whether this would fundamentally alter the picture drawn above. In the near-term, at least, and even after the development of molecular manufacturing, it is likely that space development will occur under national auspices and under claims of national sovereignty extended by otherwise earthbound nations. From this perspective, space settlements and space-based weapons deployments would seem only to extend an Earth-centered confrontation, and extend it into an arena of potentially lightspeed weapons and maximal military instability. In the longer term, however, far-flung settlements would be outside the reach of any reasonable first-strike order, so that the danger of such an attack would be somewhat defused. Long before that time, the issue of territory in space is likely to be a powerful source of competition and conflict between the leading technological nations of the Earth. Would-be sooners who hope to escape into outer space before terrestrial stick-in-the-muds blow themselves up are engaging in unrealistic fantasy. Any attempt to seize control of an extraterrestrial empire can only provoke a war that will not fail to pursue the pioneer settlers; indeed, it may target them first.

48


Nanotechnology Causes Disease

Nanotechnology causes disease mutationsETC group on Erosion, Technology, and Concentration Group, 2002, No Small Matter! Nanotech Particles Penetrate Living Cells and Accumulate in Animal Organs, http://online.sfsu.edu/%7Erone/Nanotech/nosmallmatter.html

Again, what’s the big deal? The big deal is uncertainty, but scientists see two potential problems specific to these forms of carbon–one problem has to do with their shape and one, apparently, has to do with their size. It turns out that Dr. Wiesner’s comparison of carbon nanotubes with asbestos is not merely rhetorical, highlighting the need to assess the dangers of a material before it becomes ubiquitous. Carbon nanotubes resemble asbestos fibers in shape: they are long and needle-like. According to Dr. Wiesner, carbon nanotubes cannot pose much of a threat at present because, in our environment, they tend to clump together rather than exist as single fibers (which have the potential to cause serious respiratory problems as asbestos fibers have). However, an intensive area of research is to figure out a way to solubilize nanotubes–in effect, to de-clump them–so that they can be more easily used as single, detached fibers.. Two patents on methods of solubilizing nanotubes in organic solutions have issued in the last year to the University of Kentucky (USA).24. Very few studies have been done to learn what might happen if nanotube fibers were breathed in or if they were used in drug delivery or disease diagnoses or as biosensors. Immunologist Silvana Fiorito has discovered in preliminary research that when a 1 micrometer-wide particle of pure carbon (in the form of graphite) is introduced into a cell, the cell responds by producing nitric oxide, which indicates that the immune system is working and the body is fighting back against an invading foreign substance.. When a nano-sized particle of the same substance — pure carbon — is added to cells (in the form of either nanotubes or fullerenes), the cells fail to produce an immune response–they welcome the alien carbon like a long lost relative. The ability to slip past the immune system may be desirable for drug delivery, but what happens when uninvited nanoparticles come calling? In other words, once nanotechnologists have figured out how to distract the bouncer guarding the door, how can you be sure you’re still keeping out the riff-raff?

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Nanotech Destabilizes the Middle EastNanotech destabilizes the Middle East

Thomas McCarthy, 2000, Shaffer Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Molecular Technologies and the World Systems,” http://www.mccarthy.cx/WorldSystem/intro.htm

We can expect molecular nanotechnology to be opposed, whether openly or secretly, by any state that expects to suffer a loss of relative power. Perhaps no loss of relative power among states will be greater than that suffered by the oil-producing states of the Middle East. Molecular nanotechnology poses a challenge to the primacy of fossil fuel as an energy source on several fronts. For one thing, manufacturing on a molecular scale should be extremely efficient, without the wasteful processing associated with bulk manufacturing techniques. This alone would lower the value of oil by lowering energy requirements for manufacturing a given product. However, the efficiency of manufacturing has been increasing since oil started to become widely used in industry, and the world's appetite for energy has only continued to grow, so greater energy efficiency alone will not make oil obsolete. But what might do it is the fact that molecular nanotechnology may lower the level of energy need in manufacturing to a point low enough that solar power, even if collected by the inefficient cells we use today rather than a nanotechnological version, would be sufficient. If molecular nanotechnology can do this, and it appears likely that it can, then oil would no longer be in demand in any great quantity, and that would mean a great loss of power for the Middle East. Again, it is not absolute power that is the only concern. Molecular nanotechnology, if adopted by Middle Eastern states, could make everyone in the region far richer than today's richest sheik, with choices that are not available today at any price, such as extremely long lifespans. Nonetheless, it may be actively opposed by many in the Middle East because it will lead to a loss of relative power, in this case control of the world's supply of energy. As OPEC demonstrated during the 1970s, this is an important lever to have one's hand on; by decreasing the supply of crude in 1973, the OPEC nations were able to throw the economies of all the industrialized world into deep recession, causing massive loss of jobs and lowered standards of living for millions of people. The dependency of North America, Japan, Europe and most of the rest of the world on a resource that is only found in abundance in one region of the planet and is controlled by a handful of decision-makers is an incredible weakness, and one that was easily exploited. Although OPEC is no longer a force, the dependency is real, and in some states (such as the U.S.) has even grown deeper. Dependency means vulnerability, vulnerability to the decisions of others, and it demands that attention be paid to a region of the world that otherwise would hold little significance. Were it not for oil, the Middle East would go mostly unnoticed by much of the world. The oil-producing states are well aware of the source of their power, having already flexed their muscle once. Molecular nanotechnology is not likely to receive a warm welcome from these states, and many of them (notably Iran, Iraq and Libya) are practitioners of the lowest form of violence: terrorism. The seriousness of an anti-nanotech terrorism, especially in a world where nuclear materials are becoming easier to obtain, should not be lost on anyone.

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Nanotech Threatens the Food Chain

Nanotech threatens the basis of the food chain, threatening ecosystemsDuke Law & Technology Review, 2008, p. 2

The same novel properties making nanomaterials commercially appealing also pose potentially serious risks to human health and to the environment. Nanoparticles can enter the human body through skin absorption, ingestion or inhalation. Once they enter the body, because of their size, nanoparticles can be carried past the blood-brain barrier into brain cells and can pass through lung and liver tissue. Studies indicate that unique attributes of insoluble nanoparticles--a small diameter and large surface area--significantly increase toxicity. Some nanomaterials cause oxidative stress and localized immune lesions, and may lead to other tissue and cellular damage. Nanoparticles are also linked to dangerous air, soil and water pollutants. A Rice University study showed that certain individual insoluble nanoparticles become very water-soluble and bacteriocidal when they aggregate. The study raised concerns that nanoparticle properties can endanger ecosystems by killing bacteria constituting the base of the food chain. The existing methods of filtering and removing nanoparticles from water and air are very cost intensive and generally unreliable.

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Nanotechnology Causes Terrorism

Nanotech development triggers terrorism

Nanoethics, April 27, 2008, The Bad, http://www.nanoethics.org/bad.html

Privacy: As products shrink in size, eavesdropping devices too can become invisible to the naked eye and more mobile, making it easier to invade our privacy. Small enough to plant into our bodies, mind-controlling nanodevices may be able to affect our thoughts by manipulating brain-processes. Terrorism: Capabilities of terrorists go hand in hand with military advances, so as weapons become more powerful and portable, these devices can also be turned against us. Nanotech may create new, unimaginable forms of torture – disassembling a person at the molecular level or worse. Radical groups could let loose nanodevices targeting to kill anyone with a certain skin color or even a specific person.

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Nano Threatens the Environment

Release of nanoparticles threatens the environment

Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 2008, “Regulating the Impacts of Engineered Nanoparticles under TSCA: Shifting Authority from Industry to Government,” p. 219-20

The manufacture, processing, and use of nanoparticles, or the degradation of nano-enabled products, may disperse free nanoparticles throughout the environment. n23 The rapid adotption of nanoparticles' manufacture, use, and disposal inevitably will lead [*220] to unintended consequences in ecosystems and organisms. n24 The potential use of nanoparticles for groundwater remediation and air and water filtration, n25 for example, may expose humans and the environment to hazardous concentrations of metal nanoparticles (e.g., nanoiron and titanium dioxide). n26 The release of nanoparticles into the environment also may disrupt abiotic conditions, such as atmospheric, soil, or water chemistry. n27

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Nano Threatens Health

Nanoparticles threaten human health

Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 2008, “Regulating the Impacts of Engineered Nanoparticles under TSCA: Shifting Authority from Industry to Government,” p. 220-1

In addition to causing adverse environmental impacts, nanoparticles may affect human health. Nanoparticles move easily across cell membranes to the brain or other organs following inhalation. n28 The Royal Society of Engineering has warned manufacturers that nanoparticles are hazardous to humans and should not be released into the environment. n29 Clinical and experimental studies indicate that nanoparticles' small size, large surface area, and ability to generate reactive oxygen species may cause the particles to induce lung injury. Exposure to small, toxic, airborne particles may cause lung cancer, heart disease, asthma, increased mortality, and cellular damage.

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AT: We Establish Regulations

Nanotech regulations failDuke Law & Technology Review, 2008,

P21 Clarence Davies, a senior advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, recently suggested a new law as the appropriate regulatory response. n60 Davies argues that existing laws and agencies have significant flaws making them inapplicable to nanotechnology. His most ardent criticisms of existing regulatory laws include: (1) inability to account for the uniqueness of nanomaterial behavior, (2) shortcomings in legal authority to monitor nanotechnology adequately, and (3) under-funding by the federal government of enforcement and measurement mechanisms.

No political support for aggressive nanotech regulationsDuke Law & Technology Review, 2008,

P22 The proposed law focuses on products rather than the environment, and shifts the burden from the regulatory agencies to the manufacturers. The law requires manufacturers to prove that newly developed nanomaterials are safe to consumers and manufacturers. Davies concedes that an effective, coordinated, intra-agency program, similar to the framework established for biotechnology, may be viable. n63 He notes, however, that given the current political climate, passing a new law or adjusting existing laws regulating commercial products is highly unlikely. His proposal is not without substantive opposition, with many arguing that it could harm small businesses and hinder innovation.

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Regulations failJames Hughes, 2001, Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Relinquishment or Regulation,” http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/RelReg.pdf

To regulate the new technologies at the depth required to prevent apocalyptic outcomes, we need to create new global regulatory institutions. Enormous forces will be arrayed in opposition to their creation. The first will be the alliance of corporate interests who stand to profit from less fettered research and development. The second will the various citizen and consumer beneficiaries of the new technologies, from patients receiving new treatments to those receiving cheaper dwellings, new clothes, better food and better educations. Every step forward with biotechnology, molecular engineering, robotics and information technology will create enormous popular as well as corporate constituencies. Any effort to slow scientific progress will be vigorously fought. Occasionally Luddite forces, such the right-to-life movement in the case of stem cell research, may erect road blocks. But in the end their efforts will prove meaningless, as research continues in other countries, such as England which is publicly financing embryonic stem cell and therapeutic cloning research. Even cloning, which has inspired paranoiac hysteria far out of proportion to any actual threats it poses, may be impossible for international regulators to prevent as offshore havens shelter experimenters. As we slowly create transnational regulatory institutions, a third source of resistance will come from the less developed world, seeing that invasive safety regulation will make it more difficult for them to benefit from the new technologies. One of the most contentious issues in global climate talks has been the impact of environmental regulation on economic and industrial progress in the less developed world. Even if we could coerce or convince developing nations to cooperate with bans on technologies, it would only force the research underground, making it impossible to monitor and regulate. I believe we will build strong global institutions in the next couple of decades capable of technology regulation. But there will be no support for global governance that attempts to deny consumers, patients, corporations and developing countries the right to benefit from the emerging technologies at all.

UPI Doesn’t conclude affirmativeUPI, November 06, 2004, http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041104-010910-7296r.htm

Shipman thinks as soon as a federal agency such as the EPA or the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration enacts a nanotech regulation, "it would probably have a domino effect -- you would see other agencies start to pass similar regulations. In biotech, once some regulations started coming out, other agencies (would follow)."

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Empirically, nanotech regulations do not follow with incentives

Albert C. Lin, Professor of Law, University of California at Davis, The Harvard Environmental Law Review, 2007, p. 362

Despite the concerns discussed in the preceding Part, the manufacture and use of nanotechnology products are not specifically regulated. The 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003, n86 the only federal statute specifically focused on nanotechnology, aims only to develop and promote nanotechnology. There is no federal law specifically regulating the health and environmental effects of nanotechnology, nor are there any specific state laws in the area. n87 In the eyes of some manufacturers, this is as it should be. Their view is that nanomaterials should be regulated no differently from the conventional substances from which they are manufactured.

Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) will fail to regulate nanotech

Albert C. Lin, Professor of Law, University of California at Davis, The Harvard Environmental Law Review, 2007, p. 362-3

Given its breadth and purpose, TSCA is the most likely source of authority for addressing possible risks associated with nanomaterials. In contrast to many other environmental laws, which govern only the release of pollutants into the environment, TSCA gives the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") the broad authority to regulate the entire life cycle of a chemical substance. Moreover, TSCA's purpose--addressing the concern that humans and the environment are exposed to thousands of chemical substances and mixtures that may pose unknown or unreasonable risks --seems well-suited to the nanotechnology challenge. Nevertheless, among the major environmental statutes, TSCA has been relatively neglected, and the difficulties encountered in its implementation stem from fundamental deficiencies in the substance of the statute itself. TSCA provides EPA with regulatory authority in three key areas: regulating chemicals that present health or environmental risks; screening new chemicals and significant new uses of existing chemicals; and testing chemicals where risks are unknown. First, under section 6 of TSCA, EPA has the authority to regulate the manufacture, processing, distribution, use, or disposal of any chemical substance if it finds that there is a "reasonable basis to conclude" that such an activity "presents or will present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment." This standard requires both a factual finding of risk and a normative finding that such risk is unreasonable. In determining whether a demonstrated risk is unreasonable, EPA must balance the health and environmental effects with the benefits arising from use of the substance. Furthermore, under a leading judicial interpretation of section 6, EPA must evaluate the availability of substitutes for the chemical in question, it must apply only the least burdensome regulatory measure that provides adequate protection, and its decision to regulate must be supported by substantial evidence. Second, for new chemicals, section 5 of TSCA requires manufacturers to provide a premanufacture notice ("PMN") and to submit any available health and safety data to EPA. n98 EPA may take action to control unreasonable risks, but if EPA takes no action on the PMN within ninety days, manufacture of the chemical can proceed. n99 Section 5 of TSCA also gives EPA the authority to evaluate significant new uses of existing chemicals. n100 In order to determine that there is a significant new use, however, EPA must

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promulgate a rule pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act. n101 A company subject to such a rule must provide a significant new use notice ("SNUN"), which is similar to a PMN. Third, although TSCA itself does not require manufacturers to conduct testing that would generate any health and safety data, section 4 of TSCA authorizes EPA to require such testing to be done. n103 EPA must make certain statutory findings--that a chemical "may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment," or that a chemical "will be produced in substantial quantities," resulting in substantial human exposure or entry of substantial quantities into the environment --and EPA must promulgate a rule to require such testing. Notwithstanding TSCA's potential applicability, little attention has been paid to the statute as nanotechnology applications have come to market. Hundreds of nanomaterial-containing products have become available in recent years, but not until October 2005 did EPA review its first application under TSCA to make a product composed of nanomaterials. Several factors explain not only why TSCA has been ignored, but also why the statute is inadequate to address the potential hazards of nanotechnology. First, although TSCA is broad in scope, it leaves important regulatory gaps. Some products containing nanomaterials, such as cosmetics and sunscreens, lie beyond EPA's regulatory authority under TSCA. Whether agencies other than EPA have adequate authority over these items is doubtful in many instances, as will be explained below. Second, TSCA has turned out to be a very weak source of authority because of the burdens it places on EPA before EPA can limit the manufacture, processing, or distribution of a chemical substance. As noted above, EPA must demonstrate the existence of unreasonable risk, it must choose the least burdensome regulatory measure that provides adequate protection, and its decision to regulate must be supported by substantial evidence. n114 This unreasonable risk standard has been deemed "a failure" by one commentator because "[i]t has imposed huge information demands, invited contention and judicial intervention, and thwarted regulatory action." Given the uncertainty that tends to surround the effects of chemical exposure, the burden of proof is often too difficult to meet. Furthermore, as another critic has noted, the requirement that regulatory action be supported by "substantial evidence ... is very difficult to meet, and . . . contrasts with the much easier 'arbitrary and capricious' standard" applied under most other environmental statutes. Similarly, even before EPA can require testing of a substance, it must demonstrate the existence of potential risk--yet such information may not be available if no testing has been done. Third, the implicit assumption behind TSCA is that no information on the risk of a chemical means that there is no risk. Substances whose effects are uncertain are treated the same as substances that demonstrably pose no unreasonable risks. This presents a particularly difficult challenge to the regulation of nanotechnology because of the vast uncertainty regarding its impact on health and safety. The difficulty of that challenge is compounded by the rapid pace of developments in the field. Given the variety of engineered nanoparticles likely to be produced, and their differing properties, it will be virtually impossible for the government to determine under TSCA whether or not each type of particle presents an unreasonable risk before products containing those particles are put on the market. Fourth, TSCA's PMN regulations contain an exemption for new chemicals or significant new uses of chemicals produced in volumes of ten thousand kilograms or less per year. This threshold would exclude most nanomaterials. The exemption does not apply if EPA determines that a chemical may cause serious acute, chronic, or significant environmental effects, but the regulation places the burden on EPA to make such a showing.

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Biotech proves adequate regulatory regimes will not develop


Many commentators have suggested parallels between the development of biotechnology--the use of recombinant DNA techniques to transfer genetic material from one species to another n-and the challenge presented by nanotechnology today. Although the full ramifications of the spread of biotechnology are not yet known, commentators identify the failure to anticipate the controversy surrounding genetically modified organisms ("GMOs") as a mistake for the nanotechnology industry to avoid. A comparison of the two fields reveals a striking similarity in the government's approach to each: minimal oversight and a stubborn insistence on the adequacy of regulatory schemes that do not account for the unique problems posed by new technologies. Both biotechnology and nanotechnology offer the prospect of revolutionary benefits, with advances cutting across a wide range of products and industries. Both fields, however, involve new and unpredictable technologies that have the potential for catastrophic consequences should thing go awry. The uncertainty accompanying each technology is substantial, with potentially vast and irreparable impacts on human health and the environment. Furthermore, existing health and environmental statutes are an imperfect fit for addressing the unique challenges posed by biotechnology and nanotechnology because these statutes were not drafted with the potential risks of these new technologies in mind. Just as the rapid development of biotechnology has tested the regulatory system, nanotechnology threatens to overwhelm the government's ability to identify and address risks. And although the tort system is available as a backstop to deal with the shortcomings of regulatory statutes, it at best offers an incomplete solution because the negative effects of these new technologies may be latent, irreversible, and difficult to trace. The federal government's approach to biotechnology has been largely hands-off. A 1974 report issued by a National Academy of Sciences committee called for general oversight of genetic engineering by the National Institutes of Health ("NIH"). In response, the NIH established an advisory committee composed primarily of scientists to review all research proposals for compliance with applicable guidelines. This approach established some oversight to account for health and environmental concerns, but left the regulation of the field to the scientific community. Controversy grew over the inadequacy of this approach, and in 1986, the federal government adopted the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology. The Coordinated Framework essentially declared that EPA, the FDA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture ("USDA") already possessed adequate legal authority to regulate biotechnology. Rather than calling for new regulatory authority, the Coordinated Framework established mechanisms designed to facilitate interagency coordination. Under-girding the Coordinated Framework--and the determination that biotechnology could be addressed under existing statutes and regulations--were two critical assumptions: first, that the techniques of biotechnology are not riskier than traditional breeding techniques; and second, that GMOs are not fundamentally different from other organisms. Supported by a scientific community that was increasingly confident about the safety of genetic engineering, the Coordinated Framework enabled the government to promote the growth of the biotechnology industry while maintaining the appearance of regulatory control. n206

The Coordinated Framework also seemed to be the easiest way to deal with what critics perceived to be a complex and rapidly developing problem. As the government admitted, "there did not appear to be an

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alternative, unitary, statutory approach since the very broad spectrum of products obtained with genetic engineering cut[s] across many product uses regulated by different agencies." Today, the government continues to follow a general approach of promoting genetically modified ("GM") foods. Although a few commentators assess the government's approach to biotechnology in a positive light, criticism has persisted. Scientists continue to worry about negative impacts on genetic and biological diversity, food chains, and ecological communities. The unintended out-crossing of GM crops, for example, could transfer herbicide and insect resistance to weedy relatives. n211 Furthermore, many commentators have faulted the exclusion of public input from biotechnology policymaking. Professor Sheila Jasanoff contends, for instance, that "biotechnology ceased to be a matter for broad participatory politics and became instead an object of bureaucratic decision making under the guidance of technical experts." The lack of public input laid the foundation for a public backlash triggered by incidents that suggested that government oversight of GM foods had been inadequate. In 2000, for example, GM StarLink corn, which had been approved for commercial use only as animal feed, was discovered in corn products sold to consumers. This discovery led to cancellation of the StarLink registration, product recalls, rejection of U.S. corn shipments, and class-action lawsuits. It also helped to fuel a growing grassroots movement to ban or restrict GMOs.

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Attempts to regulate nano fail


The biotechnology experience also offers further parallels and lessons for nanotechnology that are worth noting. The Coordinated Framework rested on the questionable assumption that biotechnology's techniques and products posed risks no different in nature or degree from conventional breeding techniques. The lack of regulation of nanotechnology reflects a similar assumption that nanotechnology's potential risks are no different than those posed by ordinary materials. The little that we do know about nano-materials suggests that they are likely to pose hazards that are substantially different from those posed by conventional materials. Unlike biotechnology, the potential hazards of which are primarily ecological, nanotechnology's potential hazards directly threaten both human health and the environment. In addition, nanotechnology will likely enable the production of entire classes of materials whose risks could not have been anticipated when existing statutes were drafted. The attempt to regulate biotechnology under the Coordinated Framework also illustrates the difficulties involved in relying on general statutes to address the unique risks posed by emerging technologies. Various commentators have identified gaps and inconsistencies in the regulation of GM products resulting from the attempt to apply legislation enacted long before such products were conceivable. Government agencies have had difficulty responding to technological advances, and the division of authority among agencies has unnecessarily exposed the public and the environment to adverse risks. Attempting to regulate nanotechnology through existing statutes likely would result in similar problems. Indeed, the range of potential nanotechnology applications suggests that the difficulties will be even greater. Already, the commercial proliferation of cosmetics and other products containing nanomaterials--with little or no regulatory oversight--points to the existence of regulatory gaps and the need for an approach specific to nanomaterials.

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Regulatory category schemes do not apply to nano

University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy, Fall, 2006, “Nanoscale Materials: Can (and Should) We Regulate the Next Industrial Revolution?”, p. 314-5

Furthermore, the ability of existing regulatory schemes to deal with the unique physical and chemical hazards posed by these new commercially valuable nanomaterials has been challenged. n11 The current relevant regulatory regimes classify materials either by physical particle size or chemical composition. n12 Unfortunately, because the inherent reactivity of many chemical compositions dramatically increases as the physical size of the nanoparticles decreases, neither categorization scheme alone is likely to be very useful in accurately assessing the health and environmental impacts of these new materials.

Past federal incentives did not include regulations

Mme Sass, [email protected], est une scientifique senior a Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC), Sustainable Development Law & Policy, Summer, 2007, p. 4-5

Despite these early warnings, government response thus far to the potential risks has been woefully inadequate. In spring 2005, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued its five year review of the interagency National Nanotechnology Initiative, established in 1991 to direct federal research activities on nanotechnology. Although the text of the report is 46 pages long, the section addressing "Environmental, Health and Safety" does not appear until page 35 and is less than one page long. According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, only four percent of the fiscal year ("FY") 2006 federal nanotechnology funding was earmarked for research on health and environmental effects, and another four percent on social implications and education. Meanwhile, federal funding for nanotechnology research and development has soared from $ 464 million in 2001 to $ 1.2 billion in FY 2007. n18 Of this investment, the National Science Foundation will get $ 373 million. More than $ 600 million is earmarked for the U.S. Departments of Defense ($ 345 million) and Energy ($ 258 million). By comparison, only $ 142 million is slated for the human health and environment protection branches of the federal government, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") ($ 9 million), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ($ 133 million), which includes the National Institutes of Health. With this disparity in funding priorities, it is hard to imagine how safety testing could ever catch up with research and development.

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Development won’t lead to industry regulations

Mme Sass, [email protected], est une scientifique senior a Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC), Sustainable Development Law & Policy, Summer, 2007, p. 5

The private sector response to potential health and environment threats has been mixed. Some corporations seem concerned only about public perception and hope to disavow actual risk by avoiding safety testing, keeping safety data confidential, and providing empty reassurances to the public. Fearing actual or perceived risks, insurance companies such as Swiss Re, and financial investment advisers such as Innovest and Allianz, have called for safety testing and regulatory oversight of nanomaterials. Other large corporations and many small startup companies also would welcome safety testing and regulations if they were not overly costly or burdensome, because they would contribute to market stability by reducing future risks of liabilities and consumer rejection.

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We control the uniqueness of this question-no existing regulationsNell Greenfieldboyce 2006 (1/11, "Report Finds Regulation of Nanotech Inadequate", NPR, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5148949)

Davies says officials should develop regulations now to identify any potential problems. “The existing system is not well tailored to deal with nanotechnology,” he says. His analysis of existing laws was done for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan research institute for advanced study that was established by Congress. There's been relatively little money spent on studying the safety of nanomaterials, Davies says, or on research into environmental effects. “We know so little about the hazards, to the extent that there are any, from nanotechnology,” Davies says. “What that means is that you need to have a regulatory system that provides incentives to generate the information.” So far, no federal agency has put in place any nano-specific regulations.

Regulation of nano will fail-8 reasonsDavid Forrest 1989 (23 March, Foresight Nanotech Institute, "Regulating Nanotechnology Development", http://www.foresight.org/nano/Forrest1989.html)

But regulatory control has its share of problems as well: 1. in the appointments process, the people best-qualified to handle regulatory responsibilities are not always chosen [23], 2. regulatory commissions often have an imbalanced representation of members with various backgrounds, talents, and outlook [23], 3. the current mechanisms for public participation in the regulatory process result in low participation rates; this in turn results in a reduced range of ideas and information, and heavy domination of rulemaking and adjudicatory proceedings by the regulated industries [24], 4. commissions of co-equal members have difficulty making general policy rules, manage bureaucracies inefficiently, and don't effectively coordinate their efforts with other regulatory agencies [25], 5. administrative procedures are slow and cumbersome [25, 26, 27], 6. there is often redundancy of effort and lack of coordination between agencies with overlapping areas of jurisdiction [28, 29], 7. because (a) regulators tend to be specialists in particular areas and (b) their time is often consumed with rulemaking, adjudications, and administrative tasks, regulators generally do not consider broad policy issues or the effects of new technology on future regulation [30, 31], 8. mechanistic application of regulations by inspectors tends to alienate those who are fundamentally law-abiding and discourages cooperation; flexible enforcement (for example, disregarding trivial violations, or getting a firm to remedy an obvious hazard not covered in the regulations) ". . . vests an extraordinary degree of discretion in public officials, generates opportunities for bribery or favoritism, and provides agency critics with examples of overlooked violations."

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Only one dissident kills the entire regulatory netK. Drexler, nanotechnologist, 1986 ("Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology")

The unilateral suppression of nanotechnology and AI, in contrast, would amount to unilateral disarmament in a situation where resistance cannot work. An aggressive state could use these technologies to seize and rule (or exterminate) even a nation of Gandhis, or of armed and dedicated freedom fighters. This deserves emphasis. Without some novel way to reform the world's oppressive states, simple research-suppression movements cannot have total success. Without a total success, a major success would mean disaster for the democracies. Even if they got nowhere, efforts of this sort would absorb the work and passion of activists, wasting scarce human resources on a futile strategy. Further, efforts at suppression would alienate concerned researchers, stirring fights between potential allies and wasting further human resources. Its futility and divisiveness make this a strategy to be shunned.

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http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Glossary.html#NANOTECHNOLOGY



Regulation empirically fails and is impossible to define, verify, or enforce K. Drexler, nanotechnologist, 1986 ("Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology")

In a more promising approach, we could apply local pressure for the negotiation of a verifiable, worldwide ban. A similar strategy might have a

chance in the control of nuclear weapons. But stopping nanotechnology and artificial intelligence would pose problems of a different order, for at least two reasons. First, these technologies are less well-defined than

nuclear weapons: because current nuclear technology demands certain isotopes of rare metals, it is distinct from other activities. It can be defined and

(in principle) banned. But modern biochemistry leads in small steps to nanotechnology, and modern computer technology leads in small steps to AI. No line defines a natural stopping point. And since each small advance will bring medical, military, and economic benefits, how could we negotiate a worldwide agreement on where to stop? Second, these technologies are more potent than nuclear weapons: because reactors and weapons systems are fairly large, inspection could limit the size of a secret force and thus limit its strength. But dangerous replicators will be microscopic, and AI software will be intangible. How could anyone be sure that some laboratory somewhere isn't on the verge of a strategic breakthrough? In the long run, how could

anyone even be sure that some hacker in a basement isn't on the verge of a strategic breakthrough? Ordinary verification measures won't work, and this makes negotiation and enforcement of a worldwide ban almost impossible. Pressure for the right kinds of international agreements will make our path safer, but agreements simply to suppress dangerous advances apparently won't work. Again, local pressure must be part of a workable strategy. Global

Suppression by Force If peaceful agreements won't work, one might consider using military force to suppress dangerous advances. But because of verification problems, military pressure alone would not be enough. To suppress advances by force would instead require that one power conquer and occupy hostile powers armed with nuclear weapons-hardly a safe policy. Further, the conquering power would itself be a major technological force with massive military power and a demonstrated willingness to use it. Could this power then be trusted to suppress its own advances? And even if so, could it be trusted to maintain unending, omnipresent vigilance over the whole world? If not, then threats will eventually emerge in secret, and in a world where open work on active shields has been prevented. The likely result would be disaster. Military strength in the democracies has great benefits, but military strength alone cannot solve our problem. We cannot win safety through a strategy of conquest and research suppression.

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http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_References.html#0213

http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Glossary.html#ARTIFICIAL_INTELLIGENCE_(AI)



And, industry won’t regulate itself-any attempt is self-serving and distracts from the lack of federal action Michelle Chen 2007 (April 16, "Nanotech Critics Warn Against Industry Self-Regulation", The New Standard, http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/4677)

As the science of tiny particles seeps into commercial markets, controversy is swelling over whether the nanotechnology industry can be trusted to regulate itself. Nanotechnology, which involves using extremely small particles

to make electronics, cosmetics and other products, is considered as a potential watershed for various industries ? and a potential ecological hazard. But

one recent attempt to forge a partnership between environmental advocates and nanotech-business interests has bred fears that the appearance of industry self-regulation could trump government oversight. In an open letter issued last Thursday, several

environmental groups, unions and other organizations blasted a safety-research plan called the "Nano Risk Framework" proposed by Environmental Defense, a conservation group, in partnership with DuPont, one of the firms leading nanotechnology development. The critics, which include the International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA), Greenpeace, the AFL-CIO, Friends of the Earth and the United Steelworkers of America,

said the Framework reflects corporate interests and is "at best, a public-relations campaign that detracts from urgent worldwide oversight priorities." The problem, they say, is that the Framework prioritizes voluntary standards dictated by private interests, rather than government regulatory systems. The Food and Drug Administration?s current regulations do not target nanotechnology specifically, aside from conventional review and surveillance of drugs and other products.

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Regulations fail to keep up with the technology

Food Chemical News, March 17, 2008, p. 5

Despite a spate of publicity about nanotechnology, a regulatory regime is not yet in place, Mark Mansour, a partner in the Washington law firm Foley & Lardner, told a March 4 forum on new technologies sponsored by the American Society of International Law. "The pace of change far exceeds the ability to keep up," Mansour said. "There's no impartial arbiter out there except for government. Consumer organizations don't have the mantle of officialdom. How do you imbue government agencies with the ability to manage change?" Mansour noted that, unlike biotech, regulators could see nanotech coming. "There's no excuse [for inaction]," he said, citing potentialsqueamishness on the part of consumers, little understanding of output traits and "controversy swirling around it." Regulators are "trying to get their arms around" nanotechnology, Mansour continued, praising the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for doing the best job, especially regarding aircraft production. "FDA and EPA are woefully under-resourced; FDA can't deal with the problems it already has. I don't think nano is a major issue for food production, except for packaging," he added. Industry understood the need for self-regulation, Mansour said, noting that DuPont has worked with Environmental Defense on the issue. The European Union has also been proactive, engaging with the WoodrowWilson Center for Scholars and others "to avoid what happened with biotech." Stressing that the most important use of nanotechnology is military, Mansour said worker safety regimes are needed. "Still, there are lots of imponderables," he said. "You can't complete a safety regime because it's a bunch of industries. These are retail regulatory regimes, and principles are needed to guide the flow of products. "Industry would like to give government the tools to do the job," he concluded. "They don't want to go the way of biotech and see consumer confidence go down the drain."

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Regulation won’t follow nano development; regulation failsChicago-Kent Law Review, 2008, p. 1065-6

The availability of funding and the potential financial rewards combine to create a significant incentive to undertake nanotechnology research and development. In the rush to capitalize, the government has not given adequate consideration to the risks that nanotechnology-related products and inventions may pose to public health and safety. Nanotechnology is special in that it is applicable across many fields, but it is this very trait that makes nanotechnology so difficult to regulate. Although the government is largely funding research efforts in the United States, it has not done enough to ensure that these efforts will ultimately benefit, and not harm, its citizens. As one critic stated, the government "has acted as a cheerleader, not a regulator, in addressing the nanotech revolution." In fact, of all the money the federal government has invested in nanotechnology, only about 5% is expressly allocated for environmental, health, and safety research in 2009.

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FDA regulatory approach inadequateChicago-Kent Law Review, 2008, p. 1072-3

The FDA's mission, by its very nature, is to engage in a balancing test whereby strict regulatory controls are pitted against the need to get useful and often life-saving products on the market in a timely fashion. The FDA's regulatory scheme is therefore designed for adaptability, and it is built on the recognition that different products require different levels of regulation to ensure the public safety. General adaptability, however, can be stretched only so far before it breaks down, and despite the demonstrably unique properties of nanotechnology-containing products, the FDA states that "existing requirements may be adequate for most nanotechnology products that [the FDA] will regulate." The FDA expresses this view because it believes that a new nanotechnology material would be the same size "as the cells and molecules with which FDA reviewers and scientists associate every day. In particular, every degradable medical device or injectable pharmaceutical generates particulates that pass through this size range during the processes of their absorption and elimination by the body." While this may be true, the FDA's conclusion that its current regulatory scheme is adequate does not logically follow. First, as illustrated above, the size of a product does not dictate the product's behavior or safety. Size does not necessarily give rise to a particular property; instead, a certain size (on the order of nanometers) provides a strong indication that novel properties may also exist. Second, the nanoscale products with which the FDA claims familiarity are medical devices and pharmaceuticals - products that are often designed to specifically pass through the nanoscale. Some new drugs, for example, are constructed to fit into a protein's "active site" and thereby to either increase or decrease the protein's activity. These active sites can be even smaller than the nanoscale, on the order of angstroms (or one-tenth as small as a nanometer). But the pharmaceutical particulates and degradable devices that are approved by the FDA and go on to be successful products are those that survived the FDA's regulatory process - had safety issues arisen due to properties resulting from the product's nanoscale size, that product theoretically would not have received FDA approval. The fact that some products successfully withstood FDA review does not mean that all nanotechnology-related products will likewise be able to withstand such review. Finally, the FDA's regulatory measures for drugs and medical devices are much more rigorous than for other types of products, such as cosmetics and food supplements, that are just as likely to contain nanomaterials. Any doubts expressed about the adequacy of the FDA's regulatory scheme become even more pressing once one considers that the FDA has little to no regulatory power over these types of products - products that, if they contain nanomaterials, present the same hazards that exist for pharmaceutical or medical device products. n6 For example, some of the most prominent nanotechnology products on the U.S. market are cosmetics, n67 which make up more than 15% of the nanotechnology-product market. n68 These include, for example anti-wrinkle creams such as L'Oreal RevitaLift Double Lifting treatment, which contains "nanosomes" of Pro-Retinol A; Lancome's Hydra Zen cream, which contains "nano-encapsulated Triceramides;" and Zelens's name-brand face cream, which contains C<60> molecules. n71 Although cosmetics ostensibly fall under the FDA's regulatory umbrella, they are primarily regulated by the manufacturers themselves. Indeed, with the exception of color additives, the FDA has no statutory authority to subject cosmetic products to pre-market oversight. n73 The FDA states that "manufacturers are not required to register their cosmetic establishments, file data on ingredients, or report cosmetic-related injuries to [the] FDA." n74 The FDA cannot authorize a cosmetic product recall, and must depend in large part on the

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manufacturer to voluntarily remove a dangerous product from the marketplace. n75 Instead, the FDA attempts to use its misbranding authority to encourage proper substantiation of product safety. If the FDA concludes, through its own examination, that a particular cosmetic product is not safe, the best it can do is use its labeling authority to inform the consumer: "Warning - The safety of this product has not been determined." n76

Products that combine cosmetics and drugs (sometimes called "cosmeceuticals") may slip through the regulatory cracks, because although the FDA claims that "such products must comply with the requirements for both cosmetics and drugs," the fact of the matter is that cosmetics that claim to contain nanoparticles "intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease [or] articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals" n78 have not been subjected to pre-market review.

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States CounterplanText: The 50 United States and relevant U.S. territories should (insert plan mandates)

The states can solve Matthew M. Nordan, Vice President Of Research, Lux Research, Inc, 2005, Hearing, June, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/science/hsy21950.000/hsy21950_0f.htm

As the NNAP report notes, the states are playing an increasing role in nanotechnology. In 2004, State funding for nanotechnology-related projects was $400 million, or approximately 40 percent of the total federal investment. To date, State funding for nanotechnology has been focused on infrastructure—particularly the construction of new facilities—with some research support being provided in the form of matching funds to public universities that receive federal research dollars. In addition to receiving State support, universities and national laboratories also leverage federal investments through industry contributions of funds or in-kind donations of equipment and expertise. The NNAP report lists 15 examples of nanotechnology infrastructure investments at the State and local levels, and further details on non-federal initiatives can be found in the recent report on a 2003 NNI workshop on regional, State, and local nanotechnology activities.

State action encourages nanotech development—current policies prove

FDI, 2005, Foreign Direct Investment, premier Financial Times Group publication for the business of globalization, “The Next Big Thing?” http://www.fdimagazine.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/1364/The_next_big_thing_.html

The US is by far the world’s largest supporter of nanotechnology. Besides federal initiatives, today many states are incorporating nanotechnology into their economic development efforts. In 2004, about $400m was poured into research, facilities and business incubation programmes. York State is a big player in the industry. Four years ago, New York governor George E. Pataki included nanotechnology in the ‘Centers of Excellence’ effort to create a powerhouse of activity. Today, corporations match these funds by two to three times. Small Times magazine recently cited the University at Albany’s Center of Excellence in Nanoelectronics as first in the nation in nanotechnology facilities, as well as first in microtechnology and nanotechnology industry outreach. “Companies like IBM, Micron, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola are anchor partners at the centre,” says Michael Fancher, director of economic outreach at Albany NanoTech and associate professor of nanoeconomics at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Other states that play a strong role in the sector include California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, New Jersey, Michigan, Texas, Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina and Ohio. Much of the activity in Virginia is government and defence related.

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States Counterplan Solves R &D

State governments can do nanotech researchMichael A. Van Lente, B.S., Chemistry, Hope College (1980); Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Minnesota/Minneapolis (1987); J.D. expected, Case Western Reserve University School of Law , Case Western Law Review, 2006, p. 181

States and numerous companies are also investing in nanotechnologies. The fifty state governments combined invested more than $ 400 million in nanotechnology research and development in 2004. n49 Statistics rate Massachusetts as the number one nanotechnology state "in terms of the per capita number of nanotech companies, patents, research activity, commercial applications and other factors." n50 In California, a major nanotech research facility known as the California Nanosystems Institute is being built on the UCLA campus. n51 The State of New York will contribute $ 150 million to support a new semiconductor plant that IBM is building along the Hudson River and related nanotechnology research. n52 Other examples are numerous. n53

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States Solve Military

States solve: the private sector R&D that they spur will shape the future of the military.

James Carafano, Senior Research Fellow for National Security and Homeland Security for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, 2005, Rethinking the Principles of War CH13: “Preponderance in Power,” p228-229, ttp://books.google.com/books?id=zvUAXd18pJkC&pg=PA223&lpg=PA223&dq=%22 Preponderance+in+Power%22&source=web&ots=Nx1CUKuZDs&sig=79DADCBfm7MuEbgcXBbpJODWQ64&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result]

Technology has always been a factor in shaping the future of war, but its impact is En from deterministic. Much contemporary discussion on military history and the impact of technology on military transformation misses the mark. Technology does not define future ways of war. As Williamson Murray and MacCregor Knox concluded in an anthology of the dynamics of military revolution, scientific development and new weapons systems may stimulate change, but the conduct of warfare is shaped by larger economic, political, and geostrategic factors. IS The impact of future technologies will likely be the same. They might unleash or accelerate social and cultural changes that reshape the nature of war, but it is unlikely they will simplify or define how combat is conducted. Technology will always be a "wild card" in war's future. Future technological change, however, will diverge in character from the experiences of the last century. Since World War II, militaries have largely pioneered the technologies that were the most critical to military competition. In the United States, for example, from jet aircraft and nuclear weapons to stealth technologies and precision-guided weapons, the Pentagon largely set the course of investments in science and technology, shaped research and development programs, and determined how disruptive new technologies would be applied to battle. The impact of the public sector defense research effort was pervasive and dramatic. The twenty first century will be different. In the future, the private sector, not the government, will likely make the largest investments in the basic science research and product development that create the technologies with the greatest capacity to change the nature of combat. In turn, how the private sector chooses to develop these technologies, apart from the guidance or prohibitions established by governments, may determine how future conflicts are fought. Trends in information technology development offer a clear example. During the Cold War, the government financed much of the cutting-edge research on computers and related electronics that resulted in new combat capabilities. Today, the government is virtually dependent on the private sector for advances in information technology. One of the emerging operational concepts of twenty-first-century warfare is often called "network-centric operations. Network centric operations generate increased operational effectiveness by networking sensors, decision makers, and forces to achieve shared awareness, increased speed of command, higher tempo of operations, greater efficiency, and a degree of self-synchronization. Network-centric capabilities, [end page 228] however, are being assembled with systems integration technologies, many of which are already widely commercially available, including technologies that facilitate passing high volumes of secure digital data, create ad hoc networks, integrate disparate databases, and link various communication systems over cable, fiber-optic wireless, and satellite networks. In effect, many of the concepts for network-centric warfare and how it is being implemented are significantly influenced by how the private sector has evolved in a twenty-first-century knowledge economy. The growing

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dependence of modern militaries on commercial information technologies illustrates one way in which war in the twenty-first century will be different. Emerging technologies with the greatest potential to change the nature of military competition are being spearheaded not by defense departments and ministries, but by individual entrepreneurs, multinational conglomerates, start-up companies, investors, stockholders, and Wal-Mart shoppers. Militaries are already grappling with understanding and harnessing information technologies and the prospects for cyber-warfare, but these challenges may represent merely the dawn of an age in which military competition is defined by commercial research and development and consumer choice. Several candidate technologies have already emerged that may shape the character of war beyond the capacity of the public sphere to control or even influence, understanding how they might impact military competition could provide tar more insight into fighting in the future than mastering the principles of war.

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Politics -- Plan is Popular in Congress

The National Nanotech Initiative was overwhelmingly bipartisan.Industry Week, June 9, 2008, http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=16491

NanoBusiness Alliance Executive Chairman Sean Murdock on June 5 commended the House of Representatives for passing the National Nanotechnology Initiative Amendments Act of 2008 (H.R. 5940). The bill, which reauthorizes and updates the successful federal interagency nanotechnology research and development program, passed by an overwhelming, bipartisan margin. "We are pleased that Congress continues to recognize the importance of nanotechnology," said Murdock. "It is imperative that the United States maintain its lead in the global nanotechnology race, and this bill will help make that happen."

Nanotech is overwhelmingly bipartisan.


Nanotechnology is the concept of molecular manufacturing.The federal government has played a central role in catalyzing U.S. R&D efforts. In 2000, President Clinton launched the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the world’s first integrated national effort focused on nanotechnology. The NNI has enjoyed strong, bipartisan support from the executive branch, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Each year, the President has proposed increased funding for federal nanotechnology R&D, and each year Congress has provided additional funding. Since the inception of the NNI, Congress has appropriated a total of $8.4 billion for nanotechnology R&D intended to foster continued U.S. technological leadership and to support the technology’s development, with the long-term goals of: creating high-wage jobs, economic growth, and wealth creation; addressing critical national needs; renewing U.S. manufacturing leadership; and improving health, the environment, and the overall quality of life.

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Heidegger Links

Nanotech transforms atoms into a standing reserveGyorgy Scrinis, 2007, research associate at RMIT University's Globalism Institute; Kristen Lyons: rural sociologist at Griffith, THE EMERGING NANO-CORPORATE PARADIGM: NANOTECHNOLOGY AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE, FOOD AND AGRI-FOOD SYSTEMS,” http://www.csafe.org.nz/ijsaf/archive/vol15(2)-07/articles/2%20-%20Scrinis-Lyons.pdf

These techno-scientific characteristics will in turn constitute or enable the extension and continued transformation of the ecological relations of the contemporary food system. Nanotechnology greatly extends the ability to engage with, transform and reconstitute nature at the atomic and molecular levels, including the engineering of thoroughly novel organisms, materials and final food products. While this level of engagement with nature is not in itself new, its reach and the ability to apply it in a wider range of situations is being radically enhanced. This mode of engagement involves encountering nature — ie. plants, animals, microorganisms, wholefoods — as being constructed from a set of standardised and increasingly interchangeable nano-molecular components (Scrinis, 2006a). There is little respect here for the integrity of the objects of nature in their received form, for all are encountered as plastic and malleable, a standing-reserve of raw material (Heidegger, 1977) ready to provide useful components, to be re-engineered from the atom up, or whose self- assembling properties at the molecular level are to be harnessed, in order to meet the requirements of — and to be smoothly integrated into — the dominant agri-food system (Dupuy, 2007). This more abstract mode of encountering nature will increasingly define the character of food production practices and products as it works its way through the system, including plant and animal breeding and production practices, food processing techniques and products, and consumption practices.

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Heidegger Links

Nanotechnology transforms our natural understanding, constructing life as part of the infrastructure of industry to be exploited.Gyorgy Scrinis, 2007, research associate at RMIT University's Globalism Institute; Kristen Lyons: rural sociologist at Griffith, THE EMERGING NANO-CORPORATE PARADIGM: NANOTECHNOLOGY AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE, FOOD AND AGRI-FOOD SYSTEMS,” http://www.csafe.org.nz/ijsaf/archive/vol15(2)-07/articles/2%20-%20Scrinis-Lyons.pdf

Nano-biotechnology refers to the use of nanotechnology to manipulate living organisms, as well as to enable the merging of biological and non-biological materials. This includes the use of nanotechnology to facilitate genetic engineering breeding programs, the incorporation of synthetic materials into biological organisms, and ultimately the creation new life forms. The ETC Group refer to the creation of new life forms through the development of ‘synthetic biology’ as one of the ultimate goals of nano-biotechnology research (ETC Group, 2007). Synthetic biology entails going beyond merely cutting and pasting existing gene sequences between organisms — and the current imprecision, randomness and other limitations of these techniques — and instead involves constructing DNA itself out of atomic building blocks, with the aim of creating novel organisms that are able to be ‘programmed’ to more precise specifications. Rodney Brooks from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology puts forward this vision of a nano-biotech future: “Much of what we manufacture now will be grown in the future, through the use of genetically engineered organisms that carry out molecular manipulation under our digital control. Our bodies and the material in our factories will be the same...we will begin to see ourselves as simply a part of the infrastructure of industry” (ETC Group, 2005b: 13). In these ways, atomic elements and molecular structures become the Lego-style building blocks for producing a wide range of materials and products across all industrial sectors. Nanotechnology extends the reconstitutive rationality that has characterised the contemporary techno-sciences, and which can be defined as where the objects of nature are not merely used and exploited in their received form, but increasingly encountered as malleable and available for reconstruction from the ground up — or in this case, from the atom up.1 Nanotechnology can also be understood as constituting a materially more abstract level, or mode, of engagement with nature — a way of taking hold of and transforming nature that is further abstracted from the objects of everyday sensible and practical experience (Sharp, 1992).

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Heidegger Links

Nanotechnology allows for unprecedented exploitation of nature by changing what nature is at the atomic turning nature into a standing reserveKeekok Lee, 1999 Visiting Chair in Philosophy at the Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy at Lancaster University The Natural and the Artefactual: The Implications of Deep Science and Deep Technology for Environmental Philosophy, p. 30-33

Like all positivists, Hobbes was fundamentally interested in understanding and generating order in the world, not by means of the theological or metaphysical mode of thought, but by the application of scientific method to the study of both natural and social phenomena as well as moral and legal ones. The theological mode did secure order in the world, or at least Europe, for a long time, by relying on supernatural entities, superstitious beliefs and practices. The metaphysical mode, usually in conjunction with the former, was but another attempt to use unreason to procure order in human thought and behavior. The superiority of the positive mode over the other two lies precisely in its use of reason and science to achieve order. In other words, positivism, while disagreeing with the earlier modes about the means to achieve order, nevertheless, is in agreement with them on the end they all aim at attaining. That is why it may be distinguished from them by calling it the scientific philosophy of order. The order which both the physical and social worlds exhibit is not God-decreed; rather, it is the outcome of an attempt by the human intellect to grapple with the complexities of physical and social life using the methodology of positivism, that is, of science. Order in the study of natural phenomena takes the form of systematically structuring sense experience into a coherent interconnected body of knowledge so that knowledge about one phenomenon could ultimately be understood by being derived from knowledge about others within it.54 Not only does such an axiomatic structure allow explanation, prediction and theory testing to take place, as we have seen, but it also enables us in the end to control nature (in the strong sense earlier identified). And this bears out the Baconian dictum that "knowledge is power." In the light of the above, it would be fair to conclude that built into the new scientific method and its accompanying philosophy from the seventeenth century onward is the aspiration to control and manipulate (and in that way to dominate) nature. Bacon, Descartes and Hobbes all unhesitatingly declared it to be so. It does not look as if the ideal of knowledge for its own sake, what Einstein called "the holy curiosity of inquiry," ever existed in its neat purity at the inception of modernity (or at any time, later, for that matter). The philosophical as well as the ideological requirements of the new philosophy ensure that science as technology and science as theoretical knowledge go hand in hand. While humans had used and controlled nature in the past, modem science makes it possible for them, more systematically than ever before, to control (to exploit) nature. This new opportunity for manipulating nature has prompted several radically different responses. The majority holds that the exploitation of nature redounds to the good of all humans. Some argue that the possibility of exploiting nature would displace the exploitation of men by fellow men only when capitalism has been superseded, and envisage, thereafter, a cornucopia for all humans. Others hold that the exploitation of nature is yet another means to sustain the exploitation by some humans of others (whether capitalism is dislodged or not) and that the exploitation of nature and of humans must together be overcome. Yet others recognize even the possibility of exploiting certain humans while emancipating nature from exploitation. Those who subscribe to Adam Smith's "invisible hand" argument represent the first (which is the dominant) attitude. Marx stands for the second, utopian socialists for the third, and the so-called eco-fascists for the fourth. The crucially built-in goal of controlling nature in modern

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science has taken on another dimension in the last thirty years or so with the establishment of molecular genetics as a theoretical discipline and its accompanying technology called biotechnology, a form of genetic engineering. Apart from this significant actual development, promises of more spectacular ones are already on offer, such as (molecular) nanotechnology. The next chapter will argue that this involves a deeper kind of control of nature than the earlier types of scientific theories and their associatcd technologies were capable of. This, surprisingly, in turn permits the dramatic reimposition of teleology upon the world, the restoration of formal and final causes, two of the four Aristotelian causes which modernity from the seventeenth century onward has cast into the outer darkness. But before the next chapter can go on to demonstrate this, one needs first to clarify the notion of teleology, to distinguish between its different forms and, in turn, to relate these to the four causes. Furthermore, one needs to draw the distinction between what may be called old teleology on the one hand and new teleology on the other; the former embodies pre-modernity and a more passive form of anthropocentrism while the latter, modernity and a correspondingly more aggressive form of anthropocentrism. Teleology, Its Forms, and Their Fortunes The relegation of the formal and final causes to the realm of the superstitious or the 'metaphysical' is often regarded as constituting the definitive break from the medieval worldview or the hallmark of modernity. As already commented upon, the theological and metaphysical modes of explanation are considered to be redundant. But to say that the rejection of the formal and final causes is synonymous with the rejection of the teleological worldview may be too simplistic and, hence, misleading. 55 To begin with, the rejection of the former was accompanied at the same time with the establishment of strong anthropocentrism, the claims that only humans have intrinsic value, and nonhuman naturally-occurring beings, therefore, have only instrumental value for humans. But this view is held to be remarkably similar to that of Aristotle (and Aristotelians). It is indeed true that for Aristotle, in his hierarchy of beings, humans are higher than animals because they possess reason to a greater degree. Furthermore, he also believed that the purpose of beings further down the hierarchy of rationality is to serve those higher up: [W]e may infer that, after the birth of animals, plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist for the sake of man, the tame for use and food, the wild, if not at all, at least the greater part of them, for food, and for the provision of clothing and various instruments. Now if nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake of man.56 Kant said something quite similar, that "so far as animals are concerned, we have no direct duties. Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man. We can ask, 'Why do animals exist?' but to ask, 'Why does man exist?' is a meaningless question." So it is held that Aristotle as well as the moderns share the view that other nonhuman naturally-occurring beings are for the benefit and use of man. This, however, amounts to a form of teleology. There might or might not be a God who created the world especially for humans, but it appears that an unbroken dominant tradition runs through the history of Western thought from Aristotle via the Aristotelians to modernity, that the nonhuman natural world exists for the sake of humans. And yet it is also commonly claimed that modernity broke with the medieval worldview precisely by its rejection of teleology. Perhaps what has led to the confusion is the ambiguity within the notion of teleology itself. In the first instance, one may have to distinguish between two possible theses, external teleology on the one hand and intrinsic/immanent teleology on the other. The latter is what may be involved with formal and final causes (which will be examined later). The former is about perceived hierarchy in the world ordered in terms of certain criteria or attributes, with the superior beings at the top, and the related belief that those further down exist to sustain and maintain those above them. Aristotle chose rationality as the appropriate attribute to order his hierarchy, Kant, self-consciousness, and Descartes, linguistic capacity or soul. This set of related characteristics unsurprisingly, according to their critics-like Routley and Routley61-enthrones humans at the summit of the pyramid. From this perspective, external

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teleology and anthropocentrism go hand in hand. This conjunct holds true in modernity no less than it did in the medieval cosmology. But while modernity requires the rejection of intrinsic/immanent teleology, medieval cosmology did not. The difference may be traced to the goal of controlling nature built into the methodology and ideology of modem science. Its ontology of materialism and mechanism, pioneered by Galileo and philosophically systematized by Hobbes, Descartes and others, which renders matter inert and dead, entails the rejection of intrinsic/immanent teleology, at the same time extolling anthropocentrism. If matter were truly inert, then clearly, humans need not be constrained by its telos and may, therefore, do what they please with it entirely to suit human ends and purposes, including re-fashioning and re-modeling it. While the predecessors of modernity simply held nature, as they found it, by and large, to be ordained for the use of man, their successors in the modem era go one beyond, and consciously aspire through their scientific method to control (dead) nature by molding it in accordance with their own ends. For instance, as already observed, the scientific developments of the last twenty years, in particular, molecular genetics and its accompanying genetic engineering,62 as well as nanotechnology on the horizon, embody the ultimate truiumph of this aspiration. One may conclude that the conception of nature as dead matter is what constitutes the definitive break between modernity and its medieval past in European thought.

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Heidegger Links

Nanotechnology reduces nature to a standing reserve and destroys our relationship to Being – we have a moral obligation to stop dominating the natural world.

Keekok Lee , 1999 Visiting Chair in Philosophy at the Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy at Lancaster University The Natural and the Artefactual: The Implications of Deep Science and Deep Technology for Environmental Philosophy, p. 30-33

In other words, nanotechnology may be seen as an instance of the long awaited fulfillment of the ultimate promise given by modern science at its inception in the seventeenth century, but, which it has taken four centuries to make good. As we have seen, according to the metaphysics of Scientific Naturalism, matter is uniformly dead or inert, consisting of mere extension, and is itself devoid of form or telos. Such metaphysics is in keeping with the view that there is a general process of production which consists ultimately of the rearrangement of the elements of such matter to serve solely human ends. Hence modern science and its technology become the study of the manipulation of nature. Nanotechnology cannot, and does not, dispense with elementary matter as atoms of the various elements which exist in nature, the analogue of what Aristotle called first or prime matter. Instead, its implied claim amounts to being able only to dispense with second matter, that is to say, natural kinds, be these biotic like species of plants and animals, or abiotic like diamond or granite. These are forms of low entropic structures which are scarce because humans may render extinct or use biotic kinds far faster than they can replace themselves. In the case of certain abiotic kinds, they are simply nonrenewable, at least in the time-span which could be relevant to the sustainability of our industrial civilization. But in a nanotechnological world, such scarcity would not be worrying. Nanotechnology appears to be able to bypass most, if not all, abiotic natural kinds, by rendering them irrelevant to the process of production. In their place, it will be able to construct new forms of second matter, new synthetic kinds. By this maneuver, not only is the scarcity of natural kinds rendered irrelevant to the industrial processes of production but the artefactual kinds may be said to supersede them. Such supersession, in turn, as we shall see, would lead to both the ontological and the physical elimination of natural kinds. Natural kinds are entities which come into existence and continue to exist independent of human volition and agency; artefactual kinds, in contrast, are entities whose existence and maintenance are the intended outcome of human volition and agency. They come into, or go out of, existence entirely at human bidding. Technological products are artefacts, and artefacts are the material embodiment of human intentional structures. Nanotechnology, by allowing humans to assemble objects (or to disassemble them), atom by atom, with absolute precision, embodies the perfect technique for the manipulation of nature. Such manipulation amounts to near perfect, if not perfect, control and, therefore, near perfect or perfect mastery of nature. Whether such control and mastery are considered as domination is immaterial. If the notion of domination conjures up physical conquest, such as disemboweling the earth as in current mining, tearing out part of the earth as in quarrying, disfiguring the earth's landscape as in surface waste disposal, cutting down trees and destroying habitats and whole ecosystems as in massive deforestation, then such images of laying waste the land through the equivalent of scorch-earth policies are clearly irrelevant in the context of nanotechnology. But if domination is to be understood in terms of a relationship between two parties where one party (the dominator) totally and successfully imposes its will on the second party (the dominated), then the notion could be said to be appropriate. Humans in possession of nanotechnology are in a position systematically to

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replace natural abiotic by artefactual kinds if and when it suits their purposes to do so-humans are in total charge, the master of their own destinies, whereas natural kinds are, powerless, at their mercies. Such a situation justifies the political image of domination with which modem science has been associated. This image is reinforced by another matter, that of the ultimate humanization of nature.23 Under extant technologies, the process of humanization is, relatively speaking, not as profound as it could be when compared with nanotechnology. Up to now, natural kinds may have been transformed by extant technologies, to some extent, into artefacts but their degree of artefacticity is, relatively speaking, still not very deep, although biotechnology, in respect of biotic nature, is capable of" increasing such depth by crossing the species boundaries, Nanotechnology claims to be able to construct de novo synthetic, abiotic kinds, from the design board, using the right arrangement of atoms. In conjunction with biotechnology, it could also redesign existing biotic kinds, turning them into near total artefacts. The serpent which haunts the new Garden of Eden is not so much the serpent of pollution. On the contrary, the more perfect the control and mastery over nature, the less likely is the technology to produce polluting effects. After all, pollution has been referred to as the "naturally mediated unintended and unforeseen consequences of specific practices of activity upon nature."24 On this criterion of perfect mastery, the more perfect the technology, the less polluting it is-perfect precision and control mean that only whatever is intended comes to be and all that is unintended, as far as possible, is eliminated.25 If the most fundamental environmental value is not to undermine the functioning and integrity of the biosphere via polluting processes and pace of production, then nanotechnology must be considered to be environmentally benign and, therefore, the ultimate green technology. It is possible, as we have just seen, for such a technology in combination with another like biotechnology, to ensure that the biosphere carries out its public service functions, namely, to act as a sink to absorb waste, to continue the great carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen cycles. But if the most fundamental environmental value is not merely that, but the preservation of natural kinds together with the processes at work in nature which ensure that natural kinds continue to exist, to change and to evolve, to maintain themselves autonomously, then nanotechnology (in conjunction with biotechnology) seems to pose a severe threat to the preservation of the natural, as it possesses the potential to humanize the whole of nature. It is to be resisted then on grounds that the natural (meaning natural kinds and the processes which generate and sustain them) could be made redundant and replaced entirely by the artefactual (synthetic kinds, whether biotic or abiotic and the processes manufacturing them). As we have seen, the natural and the artefactual belong to two very different ontological categories, The natural constitutes 'the Otherness' for what is human. By rendering the natural redundant in principle, nanotechnology is in danger of destroying 'the Other.' To put it minimally, it is compatible with ontological impoverishment even if it does not entail either a permission or a duty to eliminate the natural, both empirically and as an ontological category. Ontological impoverishment is to be deplored not merely because in the end it amounts to human impoverishment. It is that of course, but more importantly, it is to be deplored as yet another expression of strong anthropocentrism and of a purely instrumental attitude to nature on the part of humans. It amounts to the denial, in yet another context, of the claim that nature can be a locus, if not also a source, of intrinsic value." I t is morally wrong of us humans to eliminate nature (by rendering it redundant, making it over to our image to serve our purposes), not simply because it diminishes ourselves as moral beings, but because the diminishment lies precisely in our moral blindness to something other than ourselves which deserve moral consideration, or could be said to be the bearer of intrinsic value. In other words, although moral blindness is clearly a human failing, it is not merely to be deplored because it constitutes a human failing, but because ontological elimination, loss or supersession is constitutive of that failing.

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Coal DA Links

Solar nanotech will replace coal.Celsias, 2007, http://www.celsias.com/article/nanosolars-breakthrough-technology-solar-now-cheap/

Their mission: to deliver cost-efficient solar electricity. The Nanosolar company was founded in 2002 and is working to build the world's largest solar cell factory in California and the world's largest panel-assembly factory in Germany. They have successfully created a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient solar energy source ever. Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt. This makes, for the first time in history, solar power cheaper than burning coal.

Solar nanotech will replace coalNatural News, June 7, 2008, http://www.naturalnews.com/023389.html

A new combination of nano and solar technology has made it possible for solar electric generation to be cheaper than burning coal. Nanosolar, Inc. has developed a way to produce a type of ink that absorbs solar radiation and converts into electric current. Photovoltaic (PV) sheets are produced by a machine similar to a printing press, which rolls out the PV ink onto sheets approximately the width of aluminum foil. These PV sheets can be produced at a rate of hundreds of feet per minute. "It's 100 times thinner than existing solar panels, and we can deposit the semiconductors 100 times faster," said Nanosolar's cofounder and chief executive officer, R. Martin Roscheisen. "It's a combination that drives down costs dramatically." Because of their light weight and flexibility, the PV sheets (dubbed PowerSheets) are much more versatile than current PV panels, which must be mounted on sturdy surfaces like roofs or the ground. In addition, because there is no silicon used in the production of the sheets, they cost only 30 cents per watt of power produced.Traditional PV cells cost approximately $3 per watt, while burning coal costs about $1 per watt. "This is the first time that we can actually drop the cost of solar electricity down to a level that would be competitive with grid electricity in most industrialized nations," said Nanosolar co-founder Brian Sager.

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Fiscal Discipline DA Links

Funding for nanotech is perceived as unnecessary and useless.Wayne Crews, director of technology policy at the CATO Institute, 2003, Nanotech funding seen as useless, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3110]

But now Republican advocacy of science pork is back. Exhibit A for 2003 is nanotechnology, the cutting-edge science of direct manipulation of matter at the molecular level. Government wants to get involved in a big way, despite companies such as IBM, Hewlett Packard and Intel -- and numerous venture capitalists -- already taking the lead. Promised applications include smaller and cheaper computer chips, nano-scale "punch cards" to boost computer storage, stronger-than-steel carbon "nanotubes" with myriad applications, and new materials and coatings including responsive clothing. The field sports its share of hype: Surely, promised "nanobots" to attack cancers and other human ailments-or even repair cellular damage and revive cryogenically frozen human beings-remain in the far-distant future. Similarly, the proposed "Starlight Express" carbon-nanotube elevator to outer space-from a NASA-funded outfit called Highlift Systems-belongs to the realm of science fiction. Perhaps more representative are today's uses in cosmetics and sunscreens, and "NanoTitanium" fishing rods that incorporate nano-particle titanium and carbon fiber. Regardless, the little technology has clearly reached the big time. Michael Crichton's best-selling novel "Prey," the story of destructive, out-of-control nanobots is surely only the latest in pop culture's speculations on the dark side of micro-engineering. Meanwhile, the ETC Group, while alarmed about the potential hazards of unrestrained nanotechnology, points out that yearly scientific citations to "nano" have grown nearly 40-fold, the number of nano-related patents is surging, and nine nanotechnology-related Nobel prizes have been awarded since 1990. To many in Congress, what's needed is not a free hand for technology entrepreneurs to explore this blossoming field, but government money. President' Bush's proposed 2004 fiscal year budget for the National Nanotechnology Initiative is $847 million, a 9.5 percent increase over 2003. The NNI was created by the Bush administration in 2001. In addition, the House Science Committee authorized a $2.4 billion funding program for nanotechnology, and the full House approved it last week. That's not huge by Washington standards, but such programs only grow. Politicians have no innate ability to pick among competing technologies, whether nano, macro or otherwise. If they did, they'd be entrepreneurs themselves. And they're particularly bad at the job when using taxpayer money. Politicians can merely transfer wealth, which automatically invites wasteful pork-barreling to propel funds to one's home state. Scientific merit need not carry the day. But even if it did, taxpayers should get to decide for themselves which technologies to invest in. Nanotechnology is plainly viable on its own, moving forward on fronts too numerous to catalog, all seeking to make breakthroughs before others. Nanotech venture capitalist Josh Wolfe told Wired that most business proposals he sees now have "nano" in the title. Venture capitalists have plowed in hundreds of millions of dollars over the past five years. And according to the National Science Foundation, the market in nanotech products could be $1 trillion a year by 2015. That's nearly 10 percent the size of today's gross domestic product. The vigorous calls for government research seem in part a reaction to the technology market downturn. But we ought not look for a technology savior in emergent biotech or nanotech spawned in government labs. Forthcoming technologies should be products of capitalism and entrepreneurship, not central planning, government R&D, and pork barrel. Tomorrow's nanotechnology markets have

too much potential and are too important be creatures of government.

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Trillions in nanotech development by 2014Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 2008, “Regulating the Impacts of Engineered Nanoparticles under TSCA: Shifting Authority from Industry to Government,” p. 218-9

The commercial manufacture of nanoparticles is part of a "nanotechnology value chain." n8 Engineered nanoparticles provide manufacturing raw materials, ingredients, or additives n9 for intermediate products with nanoscale features (e.g., coatings) that eventually are processed with other materials or intermediate products to yield finished, "nano-enabled" goods. n10 Manufacturers also combine engineered nanoparticles with larger, bulk-type materials or other nanoparticles to improve the properties and commercial uses of traditional materials n11 and to stimulate improvements in productivity during the composition, synthesis, or purification of products. n12 Nanoparticles have been added to products ranging from auto parts to packaging materials in order "to enhance mechanical, thermal, barrier, and flame-retardant properties." n13 Commercial applications of currently available or forthcoming nanoparticles include titania nanoparticles for sunscreens and paints; carbon nanotube composites in tires, tennis rackets, and video screens; fullerene cages in cosmetics; and, silica nanoparticles as solid lubricants. n14 Nanoparticles also show promising "green" applications in the context of marketable alternatives for the remediation of environmental hazards, water [*219] quality and filtering improvements, renewable energy systems, and processes for reducing and replacing the use of raw materials. n15 Lux Research, a nanotechnology research and advocacy firm, projects that industry will produce $ 2.6 trillion of manufactured goods incorporating nanomaterials by 2014. n16

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Nano Not Inevitable

Lack of public confidence will collapse nanotech absent regulationColumbia Journal of Environmental Law, 2008, “Regulating the Impacts of Engineered Nanoparticles under TSCA: Shifting Authority from Industry to Government,” p. 308-9

As discussed above, nano-based products are already on the market and the numbers have increased considerably over the last [*309] two years. n113 Workers in nanotech manufacturing facilities and laboratories are potentially being exposed to nanomaterials, and consumers are already using products that rely on various types of engineered nanoparticles. Even though nano-based industries are at an early stage of growth, it is likely that nanomaterials are already being emitted into the air, discharged into the water, disposed of, and shipped through the domestic and global economy with minimal, if any, federal or state review and little available research about the possible effects on human health and the environment. n114 Unless significantly more resources are devoted to this effort in the near term, nanotechnologies could fail to realize their potential and unnecessary harm to the public and environment could result. Such a scenario would be particularly unfortunate, because nanotechnology presents the opportunity to apply lessons learned from experiences in analogous situations, such as the regulation of biotechnology, where in some countries public trust in the technology was undercut. n115 It also would be regrettable because some new nano-based products and manufacturing processes promise enormous health and environmental improvements over existing medical, energy, and industrial applications. Finally, an effective governance structure for nanotechnology also could be useful in the future when new scientific advancements and greater technological convergence, discussed above, present similar challenges.

States can regulate nanotechColumbia Journal of Environmental Law, 2008, “Regulating the Impacts of Engineered Nanoparticles under TSCA: Shifting Authority from Industry to Government,” p. 322-4

Lux Research estimates that state and local governments invested [*323] more than $ 400 million in nanotechnology research, facilities, and business incubation programs in 2004. n154 Although several states have enacted legislation encouraging or promoting nanotechnologies, n155 no states have enacted regulatory authorities. [*324] Under most of the major environmental statutes, the states also have a potential role in regulating nanotechnologies through delegated federal programs. In addition, states may have existing statutes that could be used to regulate nanotechnologies, such as the Massachusetts Toxic Use Reduction Act. n156 Issues to consider include: the appropriate role of state governments in regulating nanotechnologies; whether states are likely to step forward to regulate nanotechnologies in the absence of pervasive and specific federal regulation and, if so, the advantages and disadvantages of such a proactive state role; and whether a federal-state dialogue would be helpful in securing the benefits of state-level thinking and minimizing later potential conflicts.

Nanotech threatens the foundation of the food webColumbia Science and Technology Law Review, 2007, p. 3

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Putting the amazing properties of these products aside, however, the unpredictability and novelty of manufactured nanoparticles has also seen commentators, such as Balbus et al., suggest that:

these novel properties may pose new risks to workers, consumers, the public, and the environment. The few data now available give cause for concern: Some nanomaterials appear to have the potential to damage skin, brain, and lung tissue, to be mobile or persistent in the environment, or to kill micro-organisms (potentially including ones that constitute the base of the food web). n16

Voluntary nanotechnology regulations won’t solve

Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, 2007p. 19-20

While it appears that the United States is intent on treating nano-based products as the substantial equivalent of conventional products, the government is not, however, unaware of the increasing concern over nanoparticles. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for instance is currently considering the implementation of a voluntary nanotechnology stewardship program in order to get a better understanding of existing chemicals being manufactured at the nanoscale, which fail to trigger the notification of the TSCA. n74 While such a voluntary approach is interesting, it is unlikely that the [*20] program by itself will prevent increasingly large regulatory gaps from occurring within the United States in the near future.

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CP – International Regulation

Nanotech regulations should be developed internationallyColumbia Science and Technology Law Review, 2007p. 26-7

It is important to recognise that for a regulatory framework to evolve at the international or national level some degree of "technical standardisation" must first occur. Without consensus on definitions, common nomenclature and standards for classification and testing of nanotechnology and nanomaterials, it is extremely difficult to define or classify the objects or processes to be regulated. In recognition of the need for a common language for nanotechnology, the International Standards Organisation (ISO), a voluntary standards development body, established the ISO/TC 229 Nanotechnologies technical committee in 2005. n103 The aim of the technical committee, which comprises three working groups convened by Canada, Japan and the United States, is to develop "[i]nternational [s]tandards for nanotechnologies." n104 The ISO believes that "by giving [*27] nanotechnologists a common language and processes, standardisation will facilitate safer and faster product development and will enable interoperable end-products." n105 It is likely that the work of several national and international standards development bodies, including the British Standards Institute (BSI), American Nationals Standards Institute (ANSI), ASTM International and the Taiwan Accreditation Foundation (TAF), each of which has already initiated voluntary standards development for nanotechnology, will assist the ISO in establishing "norms" for nanotechnology and thus start to meet the standardisation challenges posed by nanotechnology. n106 This work on standards represents an important first stage in both national and international regulatory development processes. Intergovernmental dialogue on the challenges and risks posed by manufactured nanoparticles has, to date, primarily occurred within the confines of the OECD. This transnational forum comprises thirty countries that "work together to address the economic, social and governance challenges of globalisation." n107 Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States are all OECD member countries, and this forum provides an opportunity for each of these players to exert their influence on international nanotechnology research and regulatory programs. The history of OECD initiatives has been generally to disseminate information freely to non-OECD countries, n108 and their focus on harmonization is likely to see the OECD emerge as a key player in the development of any international regulatory framework for nanotechnology. The locus of activity regarding nanotechnology within the OECD has been driven by the network of multidisciplinary experts within the Chemicals Committee who hosted the first OECD Workshop on the Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials in December of 2005. n110 The workshop provided "one of the first opportunities for governments to discuss [the] topic at the international level, together with other stakeholders." n111 A key initiative to come out of the Workshop was the establishment of the Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (WPMN), whose role will be to "promote international co-operation in health and environmental safety related aspects of manufactured nanomaterials (MN), in order to assist in the safe development of manufactured nanomaterials, while avoiding non-tariff barriers to trade." n11 The first meeting of the WPNM in October 2006 resulted in the development of a Draft Program of Work 2006-2008. In prioritising the OECD's role in addressing policy, risks and challenges posed by nanotechnology, the program has been designed to focus on three key work areas, specifically: 1) "Identification, Characterisation, Definitions, Terminology and Standards;" 2) "Testing Methods and Risk Assessment;" and 3) "Information Sharing, Co-operation and Dissemination." n113 Importantly, the subsequent development of guidelines and principles by the Working Group, or more generally the Chemical Committee, will not be binding on member countries. They would nonetheless represent prima facie a member country's commitment to implement the guidelines or recommendations within their national regulatory framework. Arguably, the non-binding, soft law "norms" established by the OECD, including an internationally agreed instrument, may become a foundation for any emerging consensus on global regulatory frameworks.

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International Regulation Counterplan

International regulation solvesColumbia Science and Technology Law Review, 2007p. 32-3

At the supranational level, the European Union and its member states have turned their attention to the issue of nanotechnology and the need for safeguards against potential risks posed by nanotechnology. While the European Union is yet to enact any regulations specifically addressing the production and use of nanotechnology, the European Commission is funding a range of research projects examining epidemiological studies looking at nanoparticle toxicity and risk. In conjunction with these activities, "the European Commission [has sought] international debate on nanotechnology-related issues such as public health, safety, environment, consumer protection, risk assessment, metrology, [and] norms." nMoreover, the European Union has recently articulated the need for governments and industry to develop an international "code of good conduct" for the responsible development of nanotechnology. While it appears unlikely that the European Union will be able to negotiate an enforceable "code of good conduct" in the short to medium term, societal pressures, primarily from within the European Union itself, may result in the development of a set of guiding principles for the responsible development of nanotechnology. As with the development of international environmental regulation, this form of soft law initially could be broad in its scope, with the potential to evolve as the technology develops. Similar to the OECD process, Bowman and Gilligan note that a "code of good conduct" developed primarily by the European Union could establish norms for the international conduct and regulatory behaviour for nanotechnology, while offering an alternative to the extension of formal international and national regulatory frameworks.

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International Regulation Counterplan

International regulatory regimes superior to national regulatory regimes

Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, 2007p. 34-5

While this paper has noted several current frameworks that will be employed in regulating nanotechnology within the international sphere, it is apparent that a number of institutions, instruments and actors will be involved in regulating nanotechnology. It is also clear that much regulation will also occur in an ad hoc, decentralised manner. As well, it is likely that in the short to medium term regulatory oversight will occur by default -- if we learn from the case of biotechnology. In other words, the evolving regulatory regime will in large part simply be the result of nano-products falling within the existing scope of these existing institutions and instruments. A central question here is the degree to which any gaps or "regulatory fissures" might exist in national and international regimes. On this matter, there is again much work to be done including the mapping of existing regulations within the nation state, reviewing their interpretation and assessing the adequacy of any softer guidelines, codes and practices presently in existence. To illustrate this point, take the case of the rapid commercialisation of pure carbon molecules, most notably CNTs. Simply put, CNTs are naturally-occurring hollow tubes of rolled carbon sheets (graphene sheets), which have potential applications across the fields of nano-electronics, fuel cells, biosensors and drug delivery mechanisms. As CNTs consist only of carbon molecules, n144 under existing national regulatory frameworks such as those found in the United States or Australia, they are not automatically defined as "new" chemicals. This is because the chemical composition of the CNT is equivalent to that of macro or micro carbon particles, and existing regulations do not take into account the novel properties exhibited by CNTs, including their potential toxicity. Moreover, given the potential applications of CNTs across fields such as industrial chemicals, therapeutic goods and devices, and veterinary chemicals, it appears likely that CNTs will fall within the regulatory scope of multiple national agencies, thereby increasing the likelihood of products falling into a regulatory fissure. The patchwork approach within the international sphere presents additional obstacles, magnified by a lack of comprehensive standards, oversight, specialised bodies, risk assessment frameworks and universally accepted regulatory frameworks. Likewise, within the international sphere, issues of implementation, enforcement and politics become problematic. Without a doubt, the rapid growth forecasted for nanotechnology will result in an increasingly diverse and complex application of nanotechnology across numerous sectors and jurisdictions. Powered by its likely economic importance, the regulatory fissures observed with CNTs at the national level, including issues of occupational health and safety, product safety and human and environmental health and safety, appear destined to be magnified within the international sphere in the absence of a rigorous and collective approach to addressing the potential risks posed. This paper investigated the current domestic and international regulatory frameworks into which nanotechnology is now being thrust. It observed that the regulation of nanotechnology manufacturing processes and products presents a myriad of complex policy and regulatory challenges for public and private sector actors. Conceptually, we conclude that regulatory discussion, debate and development will grow on six frontiers -- product safety, privacy and civil liberties, occupational health and safety, intellectual property, international law and environmental law. And within each of these areas, mechanisms ranging from soft law to hard law will have a role to play in the future. Looking briefly at the regulatory terrain into which nanotechnologies will be thrust for three of these frontiers across four jurisdictions, we observe that existing regulatory

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frameworks will form the immediate basis for regulating nanotechnologies. Looking further afield, we also observe that there have been no nanotechnology-specific regulatory responses thus far. As a result, a range of serious regulatory fissures are now emerging. In countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and the United States, regulation of nanotechnologies continues to rely primarily on the trigger of "new chemicals" being identified. Critically though, existing chemicals now being produced at the nanoscale are not considered to be "new" for purposes of these regulatory frameworks, despite the unpredictability and novelty of manufactured nanoparticles. The failure to address this gap is of increasing concern. Both escalating commercialisation of products containing manufactured nano-particles as well as our embryonic understanding of technological impacts, such as human and environmental toxicology, suggest that the emerging regulatory debate on nanotechnology has now become urgent. While national responses to the question of new arrangements for regulating nanotechnologies have generally been slow, two further points can be made at present. It is likely that we will face a choice of regulatory path if we learn from the various regulatory responses to GMOs, where a continuum has been observed from the product-based response of the United States through to the process-based response of the European Union. As well, it appears that of the four jurisdictions reviewed in this paper, the United Kingdom is presently the most advanced in leading the development and implementation of a nano-specific regulatory regime. We can also conclude that it will be a careful and targeted approach in the short to medium term rather than anything more comprehensive or grandiose. Notwithstanding this, it is recognised that this could, of course, change in an instant given a single industrial accident involving nano-particles and the knee-jerk regulatory reaction that would probably follow. Within the international context, a patchwork of existing institutions and instruments will play a role in regulating future nanotechnologies. Likewise, it is evident from this review that traditional nano-products are likely to fall within the pre-existing international regulatory frameworks. Importantly, the next step forward in this arena appears to be the work of the international standards-setting bodies -- for both national and international regulation. Additionally, the OECD's effort to establish guidelines (i.e., forms of "soft law") is likely to become a foundation for any emerging consensus on global frameworks and codes of conduct. Importantly, though, the potential scope of nanotechnology will result in this framework being incomplete and inconsistent in effectively regulating the technology. It is therefore likely that the regulatory fissures that are beginning to appear at the national level are destined to be magnified at the international level. The consequence of this is that nanotechnology is likely to fall between the regulatory cracks of ad hoc, incomplete and decentralised regulatory regimes. It is also likely that transnational NGOs will play an increasingly important and visible role in future policy and regulatory debates, and their involvement will challenge the social, democratic and jurisdictional legitimacy of the coming nano-age.

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Grey Good Answers

No real risk of grey gooAlbert C. Lin, Professor of Law, University of California at Davis, The Harvard Environmental Law Review, 2007, p. 355-6

Finally, replicators, the most advanced form of nanotechnology--and the furthest from being realized--are devices that would contain a set of processing and fabrication mechanisms sufficient to replicate themselves. Simply put, these nanomachines could reproduce themselves, and the instructions for their own construction, from relatively simple parts in a process akin to cell division. One hypothesized danger of self-replication is that nanomachines might proliferate in an uncontrollable manner and ultimately consume the earth. The term "gray goo" refers to the material resulting from such a scenario of self-replication run amok. Like any significant new technology, nanotechnology offers the potential for tremendous benefits as well as risks. Some of these risks--the "gray goo" scenario, for instance--are remote and unlikely. Others--in particular, the unknown effects of exposure to free manufactured nanoparticles--raise more significant concerns that confront us today. It is these more immediate risks that are the focus of this article.

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AT: NanoTech Inevitable

Nanotech at an early state of development nowMario Salerno , MIT, October 2008, p. online “Designing foresight studies for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (NST) future developments”

During the last few decades, there has been increasing interest in science and technology at the nanometre scale. Significant resources are being invested in this direction by governmental institutions, public research centres, universities and firms throughout the world. At the same time, nanotechnology is still at an early stage of development and future scientific and technological results are difficult to foresee and pursue, given the broad extent of the disciplines involved and the possible technological advancements. In this context, foresight methodologies can play a pivotal role by individuating, inside this wide spectrum of nano-research, the most promising fields of enquiry and exploitation for nations, firms, research centres etc.

Regulatory failure will collapse support for nanotech, killing its development

Chicago-Kent Law Review, 2008, p. 1092-3

Another concern is that if the FDA does not act quickly to regulate nanotechnology products, the public will lose confidence in the products' safety. Ensuring that the public gets accurate information about nanotechnology is not only important for consumers, but key for manufacturers as well, because public perception can dictate whether a market will exist for the products of nanotechnology. The FDA's mission is more than simply regulating new products and protecting the public health. The FDA is also responsible for "helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health." Public confidence in the FDA as an administrative agency has fallen over the last few years. The FDA must counter this perception with regard to nanotechnology products in particular, because "perceived risks may very well constitute the tipping point that will decide whether nanotechnology succeeds." One has only to think back to genetically modified corn to realize the impact that public perception has on product success. In that case, the EPA approved a strain of corn that was resistant to a particularly threatening insect, but was not harmful to other insects, humans, or animals. Four years later, a paper in the journal Nature claimed that the genetically modified corn pollen harmed monarch butterfly larvae. Immediate public outcry followed, and the European Union banned the corn entirely. Later studies contradicted the earlier results, but neither publication of those studies nor the EPA's statement of confidence in the safety of the corn could save it. n181 In the regulatory vacuum that exists at the FDA, there is the risk that a single negative incident like that seen with genetically modified corn could completely undermine public confidence in nanotechnology and derail future efforts at new product development. The now-infamous incident with "Magic Nano" underscores the point. Magic Nano was an aerosol glass and ceramic tile sealant marketed in Germany. It was recalled just three days after being released on the market, after approximately 100 consumers reported symptoms such as difficulty with breathing and chest pains. A few weeks later, German regulatory authorities released tests showing that Magic Nano contained no nanoparticles whatsoever. By that point, however, nanotechnology's reputation had taken a hit. As yet, no American product has created a similar scare. One could easily occur, and regardless of whether that scare is justified or not, it will impact the public's willingness to use nanotechnology products. Even though there may be no "inherent risks or toxicities associated with nanomaterials, the public's perception of that is not going to be realized until ... studies are promoted in concert transparently with the development of novel materials." If the FDA creates a strong regulatory network and can assure the public that nanotechnology products are being carefully monitored, nanotechnology will be able to survive and thrive where genetically modified foods could not.

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Asymmetric Warfare Answers

Urban warfare investments nowNational Defense,. July 1, 2008, p. online

See that spider crawling along the sidewalk? In five years, you might want to take a closer look to see if it has a nanocomposite exoskeleton or cameras and infrared sensors for its eyes. No, you haven't stumbled upon a Hollywood set filming the sequel to "Minority Report," the Tom Cruise sci-fi flick in which tarantula-like police 'bots scuttle through buildings to identify, people by scanning their irises. But you will have happened upon a technology thatwas inspired in part by the movie. The Army Research Laboratory in April awarded a $37 million contract to BAE Systems to develop biologically based surveillance and reconnaissance robots to help soldiers conduct urban warfare. The terrestrial and aerial unmanned systems are part of a recent spate of Defense Department initiatives to spur miniature robotics innovations for troops on the ground. Officials believe these insect-and bird-sized robots will help close the gap on surveillance needs not being met by the larger drones flying in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan. "You can't always get a Predator over there fast enough or with the right sensors on it to provide the surveillance, particularly if troops want to know what is inside a building," says Aaron Penkacik, chief technology officer for electronics and integrated solutions at BAE Systems. The company will lead an alliance of scientists and researchers from government, academic and industry laboratories to design and build collaborative robots that will provide troops intelligence whenever and wherever they require it, he says. Imagine a Marine or soldier patrolling a city block when he suspects there might be insurgents in one of the buildings ahead. He stops,pulls several small robots out of his backpack and deploys them intothe air and on the ground. They fly and scramble ahead, sending backimages and audio to a handheld device monitored from the safety of his vehicle or under protection of his comrades.

Future Combat Systems developments transform warfighting

Asymmetric Warfare Solvency Answers

Turn -- Focusing on asymmetric warfare traps the U.S. in wars we cannot win and collapses U.S. readiness

Michael Mazaar, professor of National Security, U.S. National War College, former debater, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2008, http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf

The rapidly emerging conventional wisdom in U.S. defense policy suggests that the dominant threats we face today and will face over the coming decades are nontraditional, asymmetrical, and insurgent-terrorist in character, rather than the large-scale, interstate wars about which U.S. defense planners obsessed from the 1930s until about 1989. According to this line of thinking, U.S. force structure, doctrine, planning, and procurement programs ought to shift to meet this new series of threats, toward combating terrorism, insurgencies, “fourth generation wars,” and the like. This conventional wisdom builds on thoughtful concepts of the future of warfare and has the best interests of the United States very much at heart but,

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http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf


if taken seriously, would distort U.S. defense priorities for years to come and trap the U.S. armed forces in endless conflicts that military power cannot win.

Turn – focusing on asymmetric warfare undermines deterrence, ignores the defense revolution, and forfeits a major role for U.S. military power in deterring conflict


Redirecting U.S. military forces substantially to an asymmetric threat is misguided for three reasons. First, it allows U.S. national security officials and military planners to ignore the real degree of the revolution in conflict that is underway. Second, it promises to get and keep the United States involved in conflicts in which it is often counterproductive to become militarily embroiled. Finally, it risks forfeiting the much more important global role for U.S. military power: deterring and responding to major conventional aggression.

Asymetric threats should be dealt with through diplomatic tools, military responses won’t solveMichael Mazaar, professor of National Security, U.S. National War College, former debater, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2008, http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf

The argument here is not that the United States should ignore asymmetric conflicts around the globe or that they pose no threat to U.S. interests. Rather, such conflicts represent less of a threat to the United States than has become fashionable to assume, and the military instrument of statecraft is the wrong tool to deal with them. The United States should powerfully enhance its efforts to reduce instability, conflict, and radicalism in key areas of the world and to shore up institutionalization and governance in critical states. It should do so, however, by relying on an expanded and deepened set of nonmilitary tools and do so largely in an anticipatory and collaborative manner rather than an ex post facto and interventionist one.

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Turn – attempting to solve instability through asymmetric warfare increases it


Meanwhile, attached to the background of the current war on terrorism is a very different sort of challenge: countering the rise of radical Islamism writ large. This radicalism is a product of popular reactions to incomplete and partially successful modernization and Westernization, the inability of local governments to provide social goods, the perceived humiliation of Muslim peoples and interests globally, the socioeconomic decline of parts of the Muslim world relative to the West, and much else. Such environments produce mind-sets filled with real and invented grievances, overwhelmed with the existential demands of modernity, and anxious to revalidate a humiliated national or ethnic group by resuscitating ancient value By conceiving of this broad range of complex phenomena in military terms amenable even in part to kinetic violence, however, a defense policy obsessed with asymmetric war risks distracting attention from the true degree of change required in how the United States conceives of national security.

Turn – intervening in asymmetric conflicts just suppresses the conflict in the short-term, doesn’t solve, and increase long-term risks


Luttwak agrees that “an unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that fighting must continue until a resolution is reached.” The problem in recent decades has been that “wars among lesser powers have rarely been allowed to run their course” but instead have often been interrupted “before they could burn themselves out and establish the preconditions for lasting settlement. The implication of both arguments is clear enough. If an asymmetric war is brewing in a developing nation, intervention to stop it could well demand an excruciating commitment on the part of outside powers, forcibly ending the possibly centuries-old aggressive ambitions of one or all sides, keeping those ambitions submerged for years or perhaps decades, and then sponsoring alternative social, economic, and psychological trends to ensure that the aspirations, hatreds, stereotypes, and power dynamics that gave rise to the conflict do not reappear. “Peace takes hold,” Luttwak concludes, “only when war is truly over,” and interventions suspend that process indefinitely. “Policy elites should actively resist the emotional impulse to intervene in other peoples’ wars—not because they are indifferent to human suffering but precisely because they care about it and want to facilitate the advent of peace.”23 To some, the resulting policy will appear morally noxious; to allow civil wars to “burn themselves out” is to conspire in immense violence. The urge to act is very real and can sometimes be indulged with little cost. In some cases, wars are ready to end with just a bit of help, and simple UN observer missions with modest peacekeeping muscle can do yeoman’s work. In 2007–2008, some 104,000 personnel from 119 countries were serving in 20 UN peacekeeping operations at a cost of $7 billion.24 The United States can support this ongoing, globally shared effort without nearly the sorts of risks embodied by an across-the-board asymmetric-warfare doctrine.

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No obligation to intervene in conflicts when allowing them to burn out is a better alternative


Yet, if Betts and Luttwak are correct—if wars that run to a logical conclusion pave the way for a truer peace, whereas conflicts that are interrupted tend to break out in continuing violence—then the moral calculus of intervention is not as straightforward as it might seem. An excellent example may be the Balkans, where the intervention, justified as it was at the time, seems only to have pushed a lid down onto a simmering conflict, rather than ending it.25 The ultimate questions are where the moral obligation for ending a conflict lies and just how high a price the United States and the leading world powers are expected to pay, and for how long, to discharge the obligations some claim for them. The last six years have suggested that between the idealistic goals of the intervention-minded and the hard realities of nation building and stability operations lies a far greater gulf than many had assumed.

Asymmetric wars do not threaten U.S. military security


Finally, U.S. national security policy must be tied to U.S. national interests as well as to a calculation of serving global values and norms. When reconsidered with a cold eye, the claim that vital U.S. interests are at stake in numerous asymmetric wars does not hold up. By their very nature, being usually distant from the United States, involving small-scale adversaries and limited conflict, asymmetric wars generally do not hold essential stakes for the United States. Over and over again, when the United States has withdrawn from the scene of such conflicts, as in Lebanon, Somalia, and Vietnam, it has suffered injured prestige but no grave insults to national security. Where it has chosen not to intervene at all, no substantial national interests have compelled U.S. involvement. From a pre–September 11 perspective, asymmetric war resides at the margins of U.S. interests.

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Can’t Solve Asymmetric Threats through Military Means

Asymetric threats cannot be solved through military meansMichael Mazaar, professor of National Security, U.S. National War College, former debater, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2008, http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf

Although it is always dangerous to generalize, much of the instability described by theories of asymmetric and nontraditional warfare stems first and foremost from causes other than military aggression. Many rebellions, insurgencies, and civil wars are the symptoms of political, economic, and psychosocial factors that undermine social stability and popular commitment to public order. Once order has collapsed, leaders and groups arise determined to seize power, and the contest can become a clash of power-seekers. Yet, the essential problem in many so-called failed states and other contexts that give rise to civil wars, insurgencies, and the radicalism at large in the Muslim world is a society or a large group of individuals beset with some combination of economic stagnation, ethnic division, cultural resentment, historical grievance, political or national repression, and other factors. These afflictions—injustices, in the eyes of the aggrieved—are not amenable to military solutions.

Using military force to counter insurgency failsMichael Mazaar, professor of National Security, U.S. National War College, former debater, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2008, http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf

Such conflicts require the use of social, economic, political, informational, and psychological tools of statecraft. Fighting radical Islamism in Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, or Pakistan does not invite military force; making war on one’s enemy will not be effective in the way that it is in interstate war. Political scientist Richard Rubenstein argued that “retaliation based on the principle of collective responsibility for terrorist actions follows precisely the adversary’s script.” Hechmi Dhaoui, writing from a psychiatrist’s perspective, pointed out that “the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a godsend for the Wahhabists” because it furnished them with the world-embracing struggle that they needed to validate their doctrine. Mark Juergensmeyer, a leading authority on extremist thought, explained that a “war-against-terrorism strategy can be dangerous, in that it can play into a scenario that religious terrorists themselves have fostered: the image of a world at war between secular and religious forces. A belligerent secular enemy has often been just what religious activists have hoped for.”

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Turn – Using military sources against counterinsurgency strengthens the insurgency


Counterinsurgency and nation building are different situations from the task of countering Islamic radicalism, but the utility of military force is often only marginally greater. Modern counterinsurgency doctrine rests on the truism that achieving lasting stability even in the face of an armed insurgent enemy depends primarily on nonmilitary actions and tools: building viable political institutions, resuscitating the national infrastructure, spurring the local economy, creating effective police forces, and much more. The security provided by large military forces may be an ongoing, sustaining precondition for such results, but it cannot guarantee them. Meanwhile, the actions of those military forces, especially when they are foreign, run the risk of empowering the rebels, terrorists, or insurgents by alienating the local population. Following his return from Iraq, Major General Peter Chiarelli listed as one of his primary lessons that “those who viewed the attainment of security solely as a function of military action alone were mistaken.” He concluded: Erosion of enemy influence through direct action and training of Iraqi security forces only led to one confirmable conclusion—you ultimately pushed those on the fence into the insurgent category rather than the supporter category.... Kinetic operations would provide the definable short-term wins we are comfortable with as an Army but, ultimately, would be our undoing. In the best case, we would cause the insurgency to grow. In the worst case, although we would never lose a tactical or operational engagement, the migration of fence-sitters to the insurgent cause would be so pronounced the coalition loss in soldiers and support would reach unacceptable levels.1

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No way fighting asymmetric wars will work


The problem with asymmetric wars around the world as well as the most essential reason why the United States has trouble prosecuting them effectively is that such conflicts will inevitably be strictly limited for the United States, whereas for its enemies, they will often approach absolute warfare. This mismatch is inherent to the character of asymmetric war, in which fanatically devoted terrorists, insurgents, or rebels are attempting to win a conflict they may see in absolute, even apocalyptic terms, whereas the United States is trying to manage a war far from home that engages secondary national interests. Control of power in places such as Baghdad, Kabul, Mogadishu, and, from a more distant vantage point, Saigon is far more important to the revolutionaries, insurgents, gangs, and militia leaders on the scene than it would ever be to the United States, at least over the long term. This crucial asymmetry of commitment cannot be bridged unless the United States confronted an asymmetric challenge that engaged truly vital national interests, and it makes asymmetric warfare a poor candidate for long-term U.S. military focus. As it has done a number of times already, it threatens repeatedly to embroil the United States in losing endeavors. The problem is exacerbated in a globalized information age in which the psychological impact of violence in distant conflicts on U.S. and global populaces is far greater than in earlier eras. Some years ago, two insightful military analysts, Richard Betts and Edward Luttwak, offered a second powerful reason to avoid asymmetric wars, making the case that attempting to “cure” many such conflicts by imposing external military force was exhausting for the intervening power and in fact counterproductive. Although the external powers have the best intentions and the temporary result of their actions might indeed be to quell violence and save lives, such interventions can often merely translate civil strife into slow-motion conflicts that simmer for decades, surging up whenever external controls are loosened. Both writers began from the basic assumption that a certain subset of civil conflicts do not arise because of accident or misunderstanding, but as a result of clashing political goals on the part of warring parties. As a result, as Betts argued, limited intervention in such situations “may end a war if the intervenor takes sides, tilts the local balance of power,” and helps one side to win. Intervention can also end a war “if the outsiders take complete command of the situation, overawe all the local competitors, and impose a peace settlement.” The first sort of intervention is not impartial, however, and the second is not limited; and it is precisely an impartial, limited intervention that the United States and the world community has been trying to accomplish in recent years. “Trying to have it both ways usually blocks peace,” Betts concludes, “by doing enough to keep either belligerent from defeating the other, but not enough to make them stop trying.”

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Extensions: Plan Causes Trade-Offs

Plan trades-off with training, focus, and contingency planning


Can well-trained military forces make a difference in such contexts? Can they contribute toward a successful outcome? Of course they can, and they are arguably doing so in parts of Iraq today. Yet, the U.S. defense establishment cannot afford to master every mission, and the question for U.S. defense planners is one of priority and opportunity costs. The United States can only afford to do so much. It only has so many military forces to devote to various potential contingencies, and those troops only have a finite number of training hours to be allocated. If counterinsurgency and nation building are mostly political, social, economic, and psychological tasks and are only military in character to a small degree, it does not make much sense to spend billions developing skills, units, doctrines, and equipment that ultimately will not be decisive in most asymmetric challenges, all the while continuing largely to ignore, in relative budgetary and bureaucratic terms, the nonmilitary tools (economic aid, foreign service efforts, public diplomacy, and cultural outreach) that will be decisive in such conflicts. Meanwhile, there are opportunity costs to be borne. Gradually but inevitably, a focus on and continual engagement in asymmetric wars will force the United States to devalue systems and force structures appropriate for interstate war

Focusing on asymmetric warfare creates long-term resource trade-offsMichael Mazaar, professor of National Security, U.S. National War College, former debater, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2008, http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf

That amount does not begin to count the accumulating health, pension, operations, maintenance, and other related costs built into the defense budget itself. Repeated deployments into stability operations create enormous ongoing costs in these areas as well as in lost equipment that must be replaced, bonuses to boost recruitment for unpopular wars, and other associated obligations. Over the long term, these costs tend to drive out new investments, and an asymmetric war strategy that has U.S. forces hopping from one stability operation to another will substantially magnify this problem. Beyond that, there are skills and training trade-offs; every month an Army captain spends in Arabic language training is a month not spent mastering large-scale warfare tactics.

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Extensions: Plan Causes Trade-Offs

The plan trades-off with real threats to U.S. readinessMichael Mazaar, professor of National Security, U.S. National War College, former debater, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2008, http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf

The strategic opportunity costs may be even more profound. While the U.S. national security apparatus obsesses about asymmetric conflict, the nonmilitary tools necessary to deal successfully with such challenges languish. Meanwhile, other potentially more important security threats, such as the challenge of rising powers, such as Russia and China, receive less attention than they should. In an era in which the potential for war between major powers, although unlikely, remains alive, this kind of a trade-off seems strategically unwise, especially because of the undeniable fact that such large-scale wars, were they to occur, would engage U.S. interests that dwarfed anything at stake in contingencies such as Somalia or even Afghanistan. Russia is headed increasingly for a sort of autocratic, anti-Western nationalism, and China’s determination to transform its economic strength into geopolitical and military might has long been obvious. Although neither of these states will inevitably become a threat to peace, either one could. Along with continuing risks such as North Korea and Iran, these realities render naive the assumption that the world has been rendered immune from the requirement for deterrence of major conventional war. Unlike in the case of asymmetric challenges, where a broad range of national and international states and organizations can play important roles in dealing with the economic, social, and political challenges involved, only the Defense Department offers the sorts of tools—long-range strike, global logistics, space-based capabilities, missile defense, and the like—required to engage in major conventional operations. If the United States allows these capabilities and skills to depreciate, no one else is capable of picking up the slack.

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AT: Our Plan Solves the Problems With Fighting Asymmetric Wars

Changing military methods doesn’t make counterinsurgency effectiveMichael Mazaar, professor of National Security, U.S. National War College, former debater, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2008, http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf

Undoubtedly, U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan have done heroic work adapting to the demands of these sorts of conflicts. Yet, there is a strong case to be made, informed by the experiences of those same troops over the last six years, that U.S. efforts represented a fundamental mismatch from the start. Deploying aggressive military units trained to kill, destroy, and seize territory into environments in which their primary goals quickly become performing missions such as convening local governments, building schools, or functioning as the local police force creates a natural tension. This tension can be eased, but it is inevitable and will continue to manifest itself as long as military units are employed in roles for which they were neither created nor trained and are not suitable, to some irreducible and crucial degree Fired on by secretive enemies, armies tend to fire back overwhelmingly and destructively. Patrolling streets in search of hidden insurgents, armies tend to “demonstrate resolve,” to show strength, and to maintain a constant search for elusive enemies. This often involves kicking in doors, rifling through homes, and conducting hurried and angry interrogations—humiliations visited on a populace by a roving counterinsurgent army, no matter how respectful and restrained it attempts to be. Success in counterinsurgency operations emerges almost in spite of their military components.

Improving the military won’t solve asymmetric conflictsMichael Mazaar, professor of National Security, U.S. National War College, former debater, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2008, http://twq.com/08summer/docs/08summer_mazarr.pdf

It is thus dangerous to view the military as the lead agency to deal with very diffuse, broad-based asymmetric challenges such as radical Islamism, nation building, stability operations, and even counterinsurgency. Talk of redirecting U.S. military emphasis to asymmetric threats amounts to a form of avoidance, allowing U.S. national security planners to ignore the truly dramatic change underway in the character of conflict. As smart, adaptable, and courageous as U.S. military officers and men and women clearly are and will be, asymmetric challenges demand asymmetric responses—political, economic, cultural, informational, and psychological tools, tactics, and techniques allowed to work organically over time, not retrained military forces whose true purpose is to fight and win wars, which are different enterprises. The strategic trap is obvious: Furnished with a vast, expensive, skillful military tool, policymakers will use it again and again, as they have been doing, without confronting the tougher challenge of shifting resources into nonmilitary tools of statecraft

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Improving Asymmetric Warfare Won’t Solve TerrorismEffective counters to asymmetric warfare won’t solve terrorism


In the post-9/11 world, some argue that key U.S. interests are at stake because of international terrorism. Yet, the view that we will “inevitably” be drawn into such wars in an era of failed states, primarily to forestall the emergence of safe havens for terrorism, is one of the most egregious unchallenged assumptions of post–Cold War defense planning. Terrorists do not need full-blown failed states in which to operate. The frontier areas of Pakistan are al Qaeda’s best refuge today, and some of its most aggressive recruiting is taking place in places such as Algeria, Morocco, and western Europe. Wiping the world political map clean of failed states would not end these threats, nor, on the opposite end of the ledger, is every failed state a terrorist haven. Haiti, Somalia, and a number of other countries today can be described as failed or failing, and yet none has become host to large-scale terrorist training camps. Even if there were a generalized connection between state failure and terrorism, such a correlation would still not solve the asymmetry of commitment problem. Although instability in general may be a vital concern around the globe, no one country’s civil strife will ever be crucial enough to the United States to place U.S. interests on an even par with those of the local belligerents. There are other problems. Deploying large military forces in at-risk countries is hardly the right answer for state failure; many tools exist to deal with terrorist power centers short of invasion, occupation, and nation building. Even from a narrowly military standpoint, a better approach is available: find out where the terrorists are and strike them without trying to repair every unstable context that offers a temporary safe haven. Meanwhile, use nonmilitary tools to improve governance, institutionalization, and economic performance in states of concern. The answer is not a new isolationism but a clear-eyed recognition of the tasks the U.S. military is best suited to perform and of the parallel, politically challenging effort to substantially increase the nonmilitary tools in the U.S. arsenal that will, in the medium and long term, accomplish much more in avoiding the failed-states problem. Taken at the level of strategy, the focus on asymmetric war in defense policy assumes a foreign policy that would have the United States leaping into one stability operation after another in service of a guiding ideology that assumes that Washington and its allies can and must create order in failed states. Such an ideology is highly questionable on empirical grounds, and as a foreign pol icy, it almost certainly will not sustain public support. The American people, especially in the wake of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, have no appetite for endless nation-building schemes.26 Yet, a defense strategy committed to preparing for asymmetric war presumes that the United States will commit itself to precisely such a campaign. The case for an asymmetric-war focus in U.S. defense policy seems to suggest that the United States will not be able to help itself. In a world of nonstate threats, it will plunge from one civil conflict or insurgency to another, trying to quash the world’s instability to keep itself safe. If objective tests are applied, however, vital U.S. national interests are simply not at stake in such wars. It turns out that U.S. defense policy already has been playing a global role that serves U.S. and global interests, interests that are in fact more important than placing the United States in service of asymmetric and nontraditional missions.

Defense Department Documents and Publications, October 8, 2008

Emerging global trends --including rapid population growth, the rise of extremism, and advances in information technologies -- are all conspiring, Chiarelli said, to create an era of persistent conflict. This era of persistent conflict will require that soldiers engage in "full-spectrum operations." The general cited

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Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who in a speech last week at National Defense University said: "The categories of warfare are blurring and do not fit into neat, tidy boxes." Full-spectrum operations, Chiarelli said, involve the entire spectrum of tactical challenges, both kinetic and non-kinetic activity. There are "elements of both, all the time, shifting constantly, sometimes without warning." But current-force Army vehicles were designed for the Cold War and heavy conventional conflict; they were not designed for full-spectrum operations and asymmetric warfare. More recent Army tank variants, such as the M-1A2 Abrams have more modern systems enhancements, which make them better suited to 21st Century asymmetric conflicts. That's why Chiarelli said, when he was commanding Multi-National Corps-Iraq, he specifically asked for the M-1A2 variant. The Army, however, wanted to give him the old M1A1 Abrams. "Pete, a tank is just a tank," he was told. But "if you know anything about fighting a tank in urban terrain and the capability the independent sites give you," the General said, "you realize the error of 'a tank is a tank.' A tank is not a tank."

Biopower K Links

Military UAVs will significantly enhance police surveillance powersFBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, May 2008, p. online

The U.S. military's development of the UAV would significantly affect law enforcement. Using existing nanotechnology, police UAVs would be the size of a small bird and stay aloft quietly for hours. Using facial and voice recognition software, the devices would scan hundreds of yards omnidirectionally, day or night, for felons or wanted persons. One UAV could perform many of the same tasks as several plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles.12

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