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IntelRep
would be a treaty-based nongovernmental organization. Every country
could have an ownership stake in it. Some countries could decide that
they would appoint a private company, like we used to have Comsat here
in the United States, to be its representative.
Labs
should be set up in both Asian, American, and Euro-African land masses
so there could actually be competitive juices flowing at the different
labs within IntelRep. The labs would be set up to compete with each
other, so that we could move the technology forward as much as possible,
all under the IntelRep umbrella. The competencies of this international
organization would be to develop best NMT practices, which is what the
Foresight guidelines are mostly about. Another goal would be to partake
in global NMT inspections, which is another point in the Foresight Institute
guidelines.
The
Foresight Institute guidelines are not necessarily opposed to self-replicating
technology as long as it is done within a controlled environment and
by a responsible party. IntelRep would obviously be a responsible, ethical
party, having been formed by a treaty of all these countries. Fail/safe
controls would develop as would sales applications, much like today
the Intelsat organization sells its communications satellite services
to satellite organizations in each county, which then resells them to
users.
The
member-level functionality (each country or a company or
group of companies within each country) would receive a nominal share
just by signing up to the treaty organizations, but they can buy more.
For example, a country like the U.S. would form an organization that could buy
20-30% of IntelRep because it would see that there could
be huge revenues and profits coming from this organization. Every
country would get at least a nominal share.
The
members would enforce IntelRep domestically, providing training opportunities.
This is a great way to enable every country in the world to send people
to IntelRep to get training and begin to diffuse molecular nanotechnology
worldwide and receive
a return on investment from self-replication product sales.
Where
to Begin
To launch the treaty, I recommend that the leading MNT firms and NGOs
like CRN (the Center for Cognitive Liberty), WTA and the Extropy Institute
co-draft a straw man treaty, and it sounds like some work has already
been done that way at Arizona State University. The straw man treaty
would need to be blessed by local governments, then opened to ratification
and entered into a force with a few signatures. As soon as some other
countries see that the U.S., Britain, and China are signing up to this
treaty, I think you will see every other country signing up to it right
away. The Intelsat Treaty, which again, is somewhat similar, has virtually
every country in the world signed up for it and buying their share of
that organization. Then the members could commence work right away and
continually court all states with the goal of having every country in
the world a member of IntelRep.
The
sales pitch would be that membership is free, you get a chance to help
shape MNT replication policies, you get high-level training opportunities
for people, perhaps competitive labs located in your jurisdiction, access
to the benefits for your country, and a revenue opportunity for a return
on the investment.
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