Many people knew this was coming. Simple extrapolation of past and present trends evinces as much. But the problem is not technology per se, but authoritarian government. Throughout history, they have always sought to use new technology for oppressive and exploitative purposes. Nanotechnology and microtechnology will be no different. That is why it is imperative that we push for decentralized government as it tends to spread power and wealth out as opposed to concentrating it into a smaller and smaller amount of institutional loci. Opponents of political decentralization will inevitably object with pleas of necessity and utility. But that kind of argument has always been the pretext for authoritarianism and totalitarianism. We must reject those arguments otherwise we face the possibility of an unimaginable tyranny.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
--William Pitt the Younger