drexler on nanotech

drexler sums up a lot of big ideas in the foreward to his updated version of "Engines of Creation".
- mass media treat debate as a sport; he doesn't make explicit the implication that they take out authenticity and blow up to absurdity the interesting parts, just like with football or baseball.
- on the internet: "readers of a controversial text can't easily see the best-rated criticisms, and so critics can't respond where would matter most"
- just as nobody would have believe nor understood in 1950 that a single small machine would replace a record player, pinball machine, telephone, and library, it's hard for us right now to believe his visionary claims that a 10kg machine can and will produce anything from solar panels to computers, and do it cheap and fast.

too bad wowio, where his book is posted to read for free, doesn't allow the debating functionality he mentions. Google does, sorta - but it needs better communication & interaction design.