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You are correct Kal in the fact that in the future the field of Nanotech will overtake most of us in totally unexpected ways. The real problem is that people are scrabbling to rename many existing research endevours to get the attention of science ignorant polititians with wild and misleading scenarios and promises.
The only real way for science to go forward is to do GOOD science without an eye on future profits.
Most if not all major revolutions in science and technology evolved from research into a fundamental understanding of underlying processes where the future profits were not obvious. The transistor invented in Bell labs in the late 1940's comes to mind.
Another simple example is that an American report on the efficacy of all medical research spending, showed for every dollar invested something like five to ten dollars were saved in the long run on better overall health and the lessening of suffering. These savings increase with time.
The really scary thing is that at a molecular level most processes are governed by quantum effects. In other words without quantum effects they would not work. This is happening right now in your body in all the myriad of enzymes that control reactions that work at body temperature. The best we can do to mimic some of these processes is high temperatures and very reactive chemicals.
An example is Kevlar production versus spider silk. The spider silk is much stronger!
Bert
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