How close are we to illicit chip manufacturing?
Cutting-edge chip manufacturing of the necessary sort? I believe we are lightyears away and things like 3D printing are irrelevant, and that it's a little like asking how close we are to people running Manhattan Projects in their garage*; see my essay for details.
* Literally. The estimated budget for an upcoming Taiwanese chip fab is equal to some inflation-adjusted estimates of the Manhattan Project.
My notion of nanotech may have some fantasy elements-- I think of nanotech as ultimately being able to put every atom where you want it, so long as the desired location is compatible with the atoms that are already there.
I realize that chip fabs keep getting more expensive, but is there any reason to think this can't reverse?
r/Fitness does a weekly "Moronic Monday", a judgment-free thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. I thought this seemed like a useful thing to have here - after all, the concepts discussed on LessWrong are probably at least a little harder to grasp than those of weightlifting. Plus, I have a few stupid questions of my own, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that other people might as well.