READING	NAME	AGENDA
“Nanotechnology: from “Wow” to “Yuck”?”	Joyce Chow	"The technical community is beginning to realize that public acceptance of nanotechnology is vital to the continued support of their work, and that they ignore public concerns at their own peril." The words "beginning to realize" conveys the meaning that there was another agenda in mind as to why they were researching nanotechnology, something that doesn't involve the public.
	Grant Boucher	“Mehta is also concerned about the prospect of nanopanopticism, or a world in which all citizens are subject to gross invasions of privacy through the misuse of nanoscopic surveillance technology..." pg 7 This fear seems irrational. Just because the technology exists for this surveillance does not mean the public will allow it. For example, there is currently surveillance equipment in countless public locations, where the actions of people are open for anyone to witness. But how many cameras do you see in restrooms? The technology to do this is available, but the public would not let it happen. What real difference could nanotechnology make to subject citizens to a gross invasion of privacy?
	Heather Lautman	"To this end, ETC Group supports socially responsible developments of technologies useful to the poor and marginalized and it addresses international governance issues and corporate power." Who can decide for everyone what 'socially responsible' developments are? Does one group have the right to come up with parameters that others must follow? To what extent as people are we willing to go to have control over us and our surroundings? (farming, our health etc.)
	Alex Lamparski	After the author explains the result of a badly handled "wow to yuck" movement through GM foods it would be nice to also compare the tech. movements that have survived. Comparisons to early articles talking about the negative factors of computers, cell phones, internet etc... would have been helpful.
	Ishan Gaur	absent
	Andrew Nelson	On page 6 the talk about how genetically modified organisms have recently seen their yuck factor go up. The biggest problem I see with GMOs is alergies. What do other people see as things that will increase GMO's yuck factor?
	Matt Naples	Is the Drexler scare effect the way to get people to fund nano risk aversion.
	Charlie Senness	In response to those opposed to nanotechnology because of various grey goo scenarios, how are the problems we are facing today going to get fixed without it? Technology got us into this mess, what besides technology can get us out?
Chris Kelty, "Responsibility and Nanotechnology"	Christine O'Rourke	“Her critics consisted mainly of her colleagues in nanotechnology, chemistry and physics, and the leadership at NSF, including her own program manager. Siding with her in different ways were social scientists, civil society and environmental groups, corporations, environmental scientists and toxicologists.” I just thought it was interesting to see which professions thought that the regulations that were already applied to science should be good enough for nanotechnology and which professions thought that different regulations would probably be needed. It also made me think about how we can really set regulations for nanotechnology when so much is still unknown about.
	James Johnston --absent	The switch from "wow to yuck" to "safety by design" by the CBEN allows the embrace by most of the scientific community by giving them a challege; to create better materials in terms of quality and safety. However, creating safer materials does not entirely eliminate hazardous effects. Just how much toxicity is society really willing to take and should be allowed to take. Should there also be stronger laws on toxicity in general?
	Mike Pennisi	"Discussion within ICON centered around the kind of statement that ICON would make: for some of the participants, a strong 'consumer protection' oriented denunciation of corporations who do not carefully test and research their products was called for; for others the most galling issues was that 'Magic Nano' contained nothing qualifying as nanotechnology and expected the release to reflect this." Doesn't the former type of statement, when made by a group like the International Council on Nanotechnology, mislead about the state of nanotechnology (and possibly risk backlash)?
	Dan Schaffer	When I read this, I formed a thought about another way to test nano-particles. Anytime a new particle is discovered or manufactured for use, it could be placed in a sealed system full of small self sustaining organizms, similar to an ecospehere that will last for 10 or 20 years. The system would be monitored every so often, while the particles are undergoing safety tests and passing FDA inspection. If suddenly the sealed system's ecosystem fails, the organisms could be studied and might reveal some unknown reaction to the particle, hopefully early enough for some fix to be created.
	Andrew Cunningham	(p24) "The enormous amount of attention focused on the center came in part as a surprise: scientists and engineers no doubt expect attention, but usually for the research they have already done, not for the research they have yet to do." This caused many of the scientist to go around and telling their colleagues to "shut up." Has there been such a technology that has had this much attention before it has even started to really happen? Are we creating an usual atmosphere that is making it hard for scientist to work or hampering development?









Jürgen Altmann “Limiting Military Uses of Nanotechnology and Converging Technologies” http://cgi-host.uni-marburg.de/~nano-mr/downloads/s3/altmann_paper_final.pdf	Sarah Petzold	It is interesting to read about what the author thinks the laws should be. Limiting certain weapons systems and other such military applications is not a practical approach for a country as someone will create it. Just looking at history, a treaty about not creating certain weapons means nothing. Military and civilian use are connected, with military technology being used in the civilian sector everyday. The authors states danger and recommendations for limitations of the technology, but nowhere does he really give good examples or citations. This would be a much better and convincing arguement if there were good examples about other such technologies.
	Molly Danskin	This is not really about the content of the article, but while reading I kept noticing that the author repeatedly sites himself (Altmann- at least pgs 2,5,7,9,11,12,15). Is this a common practice? I understand for the places where he seems to be pointing readers towards further examples and more detailed information, but in some places it seems he is supporting his ideas/recommendations with his own published works, which in general seems like a poor strategy for convincing people.
	Andrew Starr	Is preventive arms control truly possible. This assumes everyone knows what the end goal of military research is and just the how is hidden. The countries doing the clandestine research may not talk about what they are conceptualizing, and thus we can't preemptively limit it. &nbsp;
	Galen Frechette	Altman mentions nano technologies that he thinks shouldn't be developed as military weapons, but does not think restrictions should be put on the development of the same technologies for civilian use. I don't know how that would actually work out. If the technology has been developed for civilian use couldn't it be used militarily during times of war?
	Andrew Krushelnyski	Simply the general idea that I hold is that attempting to limit what weapons can be used and what should be used is impossible. There will always be the desire to advance our weaponry especially if there are scientists and engineers working on developing new technologies. Attempting to limit it may be a decent plan but I really dont feel that the overall long term idea will work.
	Tracy Breslin	The battle suit described at the bottom of page 5 sounds extremely cool and would be very beneficial to our military. However, what would the effects be if say 50 years down the road the majority of countries had these suits, how would this change war?
	Rachel Ferebee	"Such countries could not acquire a leading position, but might nevertheless get relatively more military effect for the same amount of R&D spending." If other countries could catch up to us this quickly after the release of our new technologies, is it worth it to be the ones spending the money and doing the research when we could easily piggy back off of another country? Then our billions of dollars in military R&D could be directed elsewhere, perhaps solving social problems.
	Adam Neisius	George Orwell talked about how the expense and complexity of the dominant weapons of an era determine whether it will be a tyrannical or more independent era. This is an interesting concept to think about in relation to nanotech, which as of this time is more on the expensive and complex side, and its applications to military technology. Will this cause a more imperialistic era?
	Jason Bernardo	Just because regulations are in place, what will prevent the top secret development of advanced military weapons? Because we have such a monopoly over military technology as well as nanotechnology, what incentive would we have to stop research in any area? Also, if the UN or some other power is put in charge of regulation, what will keep them in check?