Personally I don't see this as joking, I think this whole space is severely underfunded and could use some publicity and moonshot contests. I mean, think of it, the planet Earth is full of beautiful and diverse nanotechnology that can literally map-reduce complex behavior over individual molecules, and we do so little to use it for practical purposes. Even most advanced manufacturing methods we use are still simple things applied in bulk, counting matter by volume instead of as objects. There's lots of unexplored potential within reach, and here we actually know it can pan out, because we see these processes happening everywhere, all the time, all at once, all around us.