Oh dear Sandy,  pleas do not fell in the trsp of the alarmists.

Yeah, because they were all so wrong about nuclear weapons, and that whole deal about 'power being too cheap to meter' - well, we're all living in that world.

Pray for the best, but bet on the worst.

After all, like what problems could possibly happen from drilling more than a mile underwater?  Pessimists.

I'd also opt for a shapeshifter! C'mon; if I could adopt ány form within the weight-limits of my body... Who'd care about transition? Just a snap of my fingers and I'd be there!
And... Lots and lots of other stuff! Get rid of chalk bones; just shift them into titanium! This saves on weight.. Let's see...
Ooh; I'd love that!
Too bad it's never going to be possible, but still... I love to dream about stuff like this...

And no; no eXistenZ-like hooking up to networks, for me.. No biotic parts, please, unless I háve to replace a limb. I'm not against biotics, but I think they should be limited to the people who nééd them. Vision chips for the blind, biotic limbs for the paralysed/amputees, that sort of stuff. I'm against them for anyone else, because no matter what, biology will always be better due to its self-repairing and adaptability qualities.
Still.. Becoming a shapeshifter with some biological engineering would be so completely dreamy! (Of course; you'd have to leave certain things in tact for life-support.. Otherwise, you might easily kill yourself with that..)

Quote from: perlita85 on July 17, 2010, 07:32:27 AM
I praise you for being alert and concern, and for opportunity to exchange information and educate.
Kind regards,
Perlita

Thank you for the correction.  I do appreciate keeping my facts straight.

For some background information on n-materials science as it is today, start with the wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanomaterials

Also check out the works of Richard Feynman ("There's Plenty of Space at the Bottom!"), which is considered the dawn of nano-tech.  While he did not use the term, his lecture showed that there was no physical reason why smaller and smaller devices could not be made all the way down to the quantum level and speculated on the usefulness of those devices.

And of course the seminal works of K. Erik Drexler ("Engines of Creation") who originated the term nanotechnology and speculated about the wonders of such applications including programmable matter and utility fogs.

And to stay on topic, which I tried most valiantly to avoid: If I had access to N-tech, I would of course make myself eternally youthful and completely female with all the proper working parts.  Then I would knock down the first good looking stud and jump his bones and have him make me pregnant.

Or perhaps upload my mind to the almost certain to be developed Matroishka brain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain

Or maybe both.

-Sandy

To quote Sandy

And to stay on topic, which I tried most valiantly to avoid: If I had access to N-tech, I would of course make myself eternally youthful and completely female with all the proper working parts.  Then I would knock down the first good looking stud and jump his bones and have him make me pregnant.

Ah for saturday nights.

Cindy

Boring as it sounds, I'd simply give myself a body that matches the soul it contains.. Of course, it would be a 21yo hottie..

To assuage grey goo fears; we're surrounded by single-minded self-replicating machines already. They're called bacteria. We tend to survive.

In fact, a molecular assembly machine is far more likely to be in the form of a household appliance, rather than a cloud of angry nanorobots. It won't be that dangerous unless you stick your hand in it.

And particularly to Dryad, you might want to look at Natasha Vita More's Primo Posthuman.

http://www.natasha.cc/primointro.htm

It's clearly a cyborg by any reasonable definition, but without the 'cold hard metal' aesthetics that so many find unappealing.

And the 'gender flexibility' might be of particular interest to certain members of this forum.

I would cry for the human part to come back.

Answering this question is like finding a stoppered bottle washed up on a beach.

First, like so many others, I would want to change my body, keeping my same height, softening my features
and changing my endocrine system.

Second, I would request immortality. If  I'm really
going to change, I want to be able to be around long
enough to enjoy it.

Nanotechnology is really a scary proposition. So much
potential for good, and so many ways it could be abused.

Maybe we shouldn't actually open that bottle.

If nanotechnology rendered me truly immortal, I'd probably slowly become completely psychopathic, less able to identify with other human beings as I'd drift away from "human".
I'd probably become dangerous within 2-300 years...

Amberlee:
Wow; that's a fun idea to toy with! But... Unless it's made of flesh, bone and blood, I'm not really interested... It's a trust thing, for me.
Another question would be: How would you pilot a body like that? Remote control? Personality copy/paste? Brain replacement surgery? If the latter, I might still be interested. If not, then it would, to me, simply be fake.. It's a philosophical question: Once you copy yourself, and put the program into another device, then the new you will have all the data of the old you, but the old you would still be the you that you experience from. To kill off that old you would be the best option for the new you, but then, you'd be dead, and the effect would just be reproduction, not change.
Of course; if you'd simply transfer your brain tissue, or at least the bits of it that make you you, to the new body, then I don't see a problem with it...
That, and please; make it flesh and blood. It's good material; long-lasting, self-repairing... Whereas even with nanobots, if it breaks, you're in trouble. A program might break down, and the self-reparation would simply stop.
Also: Where does this body get the materials for energy and self-repair? Nutrients are biology's answer to that, and it's just a brilliant system.

For me, it's not about the looks of the thing, but about the materials used. (The looks are what make me want it; the materials are what makes me reject the idea.)
Sorry; I just... Can't put my trust in technology like that. Bio-engineering, though.. That's something else.

In addition to changing my sex to match my gender-and I do mean changing it to the point of enabling reproduction-I would repair my body. No more asthma or fibromyalgia. No more arthritis from the harshness of my misspent youth. A digestive system that doesn't cause me problems at both ends.

As far as fantastic things I might like...hmmm. Wings, most definitely-as long as they are functional. Telekinesis. Pyrokinesis. And all on/in a body shaped about like Lily Cole's.