You're confusing two things: 1. a free market 2. capitalism The two are direct opposites, but it's interesting how much they get conflated. A free market only works if there is competition. Capitalism works best the lower the competition. If you have no competition, you know there is no free market but a form of capitalism (either state capitalism or private capitalism). The goal of capitalism is one thing: to make money. It also only has one rule: everything goes, so long as you don't get caught or cause an outcry. The idea that capitalism is supposed to generate competition is laughable at best. Capitalism is just the economic manifestation of greed and power-lust. The fact that, mainly in the US, it can actually be seen as a good thing is mind-blowing and puts the whole concept of newspeak in 1984 to shame. A free market on the other hand, is an economic theory that supposes several basic rules, the more important of which are: 1. no externalities: a price contains all costs tied to a product, even the indirect ones (eg. environmental damage). This allows prices to function as sources of truth. 2. no businesses that are bigger then a SMO: if businesses get too big, they rival the government in power and thus will no longer be subject to the rule of law (lobby power should sound very familiar to everyone, and more so to all americans reading this). 3. perfect information: people should know exactly where they can buy alternatives and what the relative pros and cons are (both money cost and all other factors that might impact a decision). The internet has made this semi-possible, but it has never been capitalized upon to actually realize that potential. 4. low barrier to entry: competition can only thrive if it's sufficiently easy to compete. 5. minimal government interference: governments distort the working of the market and thus need to interfere as minimally as possible. 6. humans should be rational actors: clearly this is not the case, and it's always been one of the biggest failings of economic theory. Commercials wouldn't exist in their current form if humans were rational actors. There are economic theories that address this shortcoming, but they are far from finished. You will note that not a single one of those conditions is met in the case of tech. The only one that is semi-met is the minimal government interference. But even that one is not met the right way, as governments should enforce the SMO rule, the externalities rule and so on. They also have the right to interfere for the good of society, as free markets aren't necessarily just markets. While free markets are a cool theory (hey, i'm an anarchist and i can get behind it), they are also only that: a theory. They aren't realized anywhere at all. For some products and some countries reality is pretty close to a free market, but not quite all the way there.

From the short summary he's not talking about timetravel but about relativistic spacetravel, which are two entirely different things altogether. I'd assume that Dr. Hawkins knows this, or at least he should having written a book to explain Einsteins theory of relativity and inventing a way of describing time within that theory. Seems to me he's regressing...

reductio at absurdum ... or in other words: you've got no clue what you're talking about do you?

The question is kind of self-answering for those who know anything about nano (food or materials it doesn't matter). According to the industry itself there are two things that are important to realise when you're discussing nano-materials: 1. they are ffing small. So small in fact that they'd have no problem whatsoever getting past the blood-brain barrier (talk about a health risk). 2. the properties of nano-materials are different from those of their "normal" counterparts. Nano-iron does not behave the same way regular iron does. Not physically and not chemically. That's one of the main things as to why it's so attractive to research this stuff and why it has such a huge potential for innovation. To put this in scientific lingo "Materials manufactured or engineered at this level have unique properties and behave differently from conventional matter. This stems from two factors; their increased relative surface area and new quantum effects. Their greater surface area to volume ratio leads to increased chemical reactivity and resistance, whilst at nano scale quantum effects lead to unique optical, electrical and magnetic behaviours." If you realise the two above then you also realise two things: 1. self-regulation can't ever work. Due to the simple fact that testing for side-effects costs a lot of money with the potential to not only affect profit margins but to render them negative all together (if the side-effects are really bad and the product is cancelled). It doesn't need more explaining then this. It's leaded gasoline/cigarettes/agent orange/asbestos/CFC's (--- take your pick) all over again. 2. politics, as usual, are way behind on legislating (imo consciously so). It'll take at least another decade (if not two, three or ten) and several bad press scenarios before they really start to act upon the potential dangers this technology entails.

Ah, you mean just like studies funded or sponsored or promoted by capitalist organisations or corporations? ... Oh wait, there go all studies then O.o

Historical research if you'd bother to look into it. Luddites were not anti-tech, they were against the degradation of their living & working conditions it brought with it on account of how the tech was implemented. It's not hard to see that the placement of new machines destroyed the employment of a lot of workers and why they would get mad at that. The trend to use technology to replace workers continues to this day, and you can find legions of examples of it all the time. Luddites basically said that if technology wasn't implemented to better the lives of all (ie: less hours worked, but equal pay) they didn't want to see it implemented at all. Not a bad stance if you ask me.