"The Gentle Seduction"? Or "The Stood Up Date"?

Back in 1989, during the early days of the Nanotech Delusion, Marc Stiegler published some propaganda about it in a story that I have to admit I found emotionally effective at the time. He titled it "The Gentle Seduction," and it originally appeared in Analog magazine. But looking at this story now, I consider it unintentionally misleading.

Consider this passage, for example:

"Have you ever heard of nanotechnology?" he asked.

"Uh-uh."

"Well, with nanotechnology they'll build these tiny little machines--machines the size of molecules." He pointed at the drink in her hand. "They'll put a billion of them in a spaceship the size of a Coke can, and shoot it off to an asteroid. The Coke can will rebuild the asteroid into mansions and palaces. You'll have an asteroid all to your self, if you want one."

"I don't want an asteroid. I don't want to go into space."

He shook his head. "Don't you want to see Mars?You liked the Grand Canyon; I remember how you told me about it. Mars has huge gorges--they make the Grand Canyon look tiny. Don't you want to see them? Don't you want to hike across them?"

It took her a long time to reply. "I guess so," she admitted.

"I won't tell you all the things I expect to happen," he smiled mischievously, "I'm afraid I'd really scare you. But you'll see it all. And you'll remember that I told you." His voice grew intense. "And you'll remember that I knew you'd remember."

And then the simple-minded female protagonist during the following decades begins to experience, in small steps, a series of gee-whiz medical and technological marvels which ends up extending her life by more decades, then centuries, millennia, and beyond (!), not to mention expanding her capabilities to superhuman levels.

Cool enough, I guess. But I have the impression that Stiegler set his story in a fictional world corresponding to what he thought of the real state of "nanotechnology" in the late 1980's. Over 20 years have passed since then. What the hell happened to all these miracles the nanotech boosters promised us since the time of Ronald Reagan's second term as president? Apparently we haven't even gotten to the pre-pre-pre-etc. miracle stage by now.