In 1969, Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill began looking
outward to space colonies as the new frontier for humanity's
expansion. A decade later, Eric Drexler, an MIT-trained engineer,
turned his attention to the molecular world as the place where
society's future needs could be met using self-replicating
nanoscale machines. These modern utopians predicted that their
technologies could transform society as humans mastered the ability
to create new worlds, undertook atomic-scale engineering, and, if
truly successful, overcame their own biological limits. "The
Visioneers" tells the story of how these scientists and the
communities they fostered imagined, designed, and popularized
speculative technologies such as space colonies and
nanotechnologies.
Patrick McCray traces how these visioneers blended
countercultural ideals with hard science, entrepreneurship,
libertarianism, and unbridled optimism about the future. He shows
how they built networks that communicated their ideas to writers,
politicians, and corporate leaders. But the visioneers were not
immune to failure--or to the lures of profit, celebrity, and hype.
O'Neill and Drexler faced difficulty funding their work and
overcoming colleagues' skepticism, and saw their ideas co-opted and
transformed by Timothy Leary, the scriptwriters of "Star Trek," and
many others. Ultimately, both men struggled to overcome stigma and
ostracism as they tried to unshackle their visioneering from
pejorative labels like "fringe" and "pseudoscience."
"The Visioneers" provides a balanced look at the successes and
pitfalls they encountered. The book exposes the dangers of
promotion--oversimplification, misuse, and misunderstanding--that
can plague exploratory science. But above all, it highlights the
importance of radical new ideas that inspire us to support
cutting-edge research into tomorrow's technologies.
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