Drexlerian nanotech implies a production technology with large fixed costs of design, low variable cost of production, low cost of copying-the equivalent for physical objects of the current technology for software. This raises an interesting set of issues, paralleling issues that already exist for software—how does the fixed cost get paid for? As with software, and other current forms of intellectual property, the problem is complicated by the difficulty of enforcing copyright or analogous legal rules in the face of easy copying.

Featuring the author, Matt Ridley; with comments by Robin Hanson, Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University. Moderated by Brink Lindsey, Vice President for Research, Cato Institute.

Our economy is hurting, and many see environmental degradation as a looming threat. Unfortunately, the proposed solutions for getting humanity back on track are, in fact, rejections of the very factors that guided us from the poverty of our ancestors to the prosperity of today.

Peter Thiel on the relationship between macroeconomics and the Singularity.