Nanotechnology has been called a great many things–the great leveler, the panacea to all that ails the world, the technology that will allow us to solve all of our problems from world hunger to pollution.

But this month, at nanotechnow.com, Tihamer Toth-Fejel makes the rather provocative claim that the “exponential nanomanufacturing capabilities of Productive Nanosystems will simply enable us” to fulfill human needs and desires (of all kinds” better. That’s a pretty sweeping statement, if you ask me. And I’m pretty sure that I don’t buy it. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if that were true it would come at such a radical cost or at least change to the world as we know it that we wouldn’t recognize our world, or ourselves, in this “Productive Nanosystem Planet” Toth-Fejel describes.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can read his argument yourself and decide whether you think nanotechnology is the key to fulfilling all human desires, wealth and happiness. I just wouldn’t bet the bank (or mine), or my future’s happiness, on it.

Summer Johnson, PhD