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Throughout human history people have tried[br]to create utopia, the perfect society.

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In fact, America, the American dream, in some[br]sense was based on utopianism.  Why do we

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have the Shaker movement?  Why did we have[br]the Quakers?  Why did we have so many different

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kinds of religious movements that fled Europe[br]looking to create autopia here in the Americas?

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Well, we know the Shakers have disappeared[br]and many of these colonies have also disappeared

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only to be found in footnotes in American[br]textbooks, and the question is why?

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One reason why is scarcity because back then[br]the industrial revolution was still young

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and societies had scarcity.  Scarcity creates[br]conflict and unless you have a way to resolve

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conflict, your colony falls apart.  How do[br]you allocate resources?  Who gets access

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to food when there is a famine?  Who gets[br]shelter when there is a snowstorm and all

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of the sudden you've eaten up your seed corn? [br]These are questions that faced the early American

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colonists, and that's the reason why we only[br]see the ghost towns of these utopias.

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However, now we have nanotechnology, and with[br]nanotechnology, perhaps, who knows, maybe

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in 100 years, we'll have something called[br]the replicator.  Now the replicator is something

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you see in Star Trek.  It's called the molecular[br]assembler and it takes ordinary raw materials,

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breaks them up at the atomic level and joins[br]the joints in different ways to create new

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substances.  If you have a molecular assembler,[br]you can turn, for example, a glass into wood

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or vice versa.  You would have the power[br]of a magician, in fact, the power of a god,

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the ability to literally transform the atoms[br]of one substance into another and we see it

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on Star Trek.[br]It's also the most subversive device of all

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because if utopias fail because of scarcity[br]then what happens when you have infinite abundance?

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What happens when you simply ask and it comes[br]to you?  One of my favorite episodes on Star

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Trek is when the Enterprise encounters a[br]space capsule left over from the 20th century,

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the bad 20th century.  People died of all[br]these horrible diseases, and many people froze

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themselves knowing that in the 23rd century[br]or so they'll be thawed out and their diseases

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will be cured.  Well, sure enough, it's the[br]23rd century now.  The Enterprise finds

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a space capsule and begins to revive all these[br]people and cure them of cancer, cure them

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of incurable genetic diseases, and then one[br]of these individuals, however, was a banker.

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He is revived and he says to himself, “My[br]God, my gamble worked; I'm alive; I'm in the

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23rd century,” and he said, “Call my[br]stock broker; call my banker; I am rich; I

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am rich; my investments, they have been sitting[br]there in the bank for centuries; I must be

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a quadrillionaire!”  And then the crew[br]of the Enterprise looks at this man and says,

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”What is money; what is a bank; what is[br]a stock broker?  We don't have any of these

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in the 23rd century,” and then they say,[br]“If you want something, you simply ask for

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it and you get it.”[br]Now that's subversive.  That's revolutionary

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because if all utopiansocieties vanished[br]because of scarcity and conflict, what happens

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when there is no scarcity?  What happens[br]when you simply ask and you get what you want?

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This has enormous philosophical implications. [br]For example, why bother to work?  Why bother

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to go to work when you simply ask for things[br]and it comes to you?

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Now, some sociologists think that if drugs,[br]for example, are totally legalized, absolutely

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legalized then maybe three to five percent[br]of the human race will become permanent drug

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addicts.  That's the price for total legalization[br]of drugs.  I don't know, but that's a number

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that people talk about.  What happens when[br]we have this society based on replicators?

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Then will we have three to five percent of[br]the human race become permanent parasites?

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This is a possibility.  The whole nature[br]of the human psyche is based around producing

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things, doing something, making a contribution. [br]What happens when you don't have to do that

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anymore?  What happens when there is infinite[br]plenty?  What happens if there is a utopia?

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The detractors will say, “Bah-humbug! There

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is no replicator; it violates the laws of[br]physics.”  Well, actually that's not true.

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There actually is a nanobot that can replicate,[br]actually take apart molecules and rearrange

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them in fantastic ways.  Mother Nature has[br]already created it.  It's called the ribosome.

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The ribosome can take hamburgers, milk shakes[br]and turn them into a baby in nine months.

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That is a miracle.  The ribosome takes hamburgers,[br]French fries, potato chips, breaks apart the

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molecules and reassembles them into DNA. [br]Mother Nature has created the replicator.

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It replicates humans, but what happens when[br]humans create replicators by which we can

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replicate everything?  This is a very subversive[br]idea.