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Nanotech Protests Begin

ByteWoopy wrote to mention a Wire.com story discussing the danger of nanotechnology, and the beginning of a backlash against the branch of technology. From the article: "...environmental activists sauntered into the Eddie Bauer store on Michigan Avenue, headed to the broad storefront windows opening out on the Magnificent Mile and proceeded to take off their clothes. The strip show aimed to expose more than skin: Activists hoped to lay bare growing allegations of the toxic dangers of nanotechnology. The demonstrators bore the message in slogans painted on their bodies, proclaiming 'Eddie Bauer hazard' and 'Expose the truth about nanotech,' among other things, in light of the clothing company's embrace of nanotech in its recent line of stain-resistant nanopants."

4 of 693 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wait a minute by lilmouse · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Yeah, stupid luddites thinking asbestos isn't wonderful!

    --LWM

  2. Protest Something Important... by Evil+W1zard · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Instead of protesting the fact that EB is using specially engineered fibers that help protect you from the environment around you. Hey you can wear there UPF clothes that protect you from the sun so you don't get that nasty burn when you are out hiking and hugging trees. Seriously people that blindly protest something just tick me off. I heard the Eddie Bauer store had to purchase a special new set of security mechanisms to keep this from happening again. They put soap chips at all the entrances.

    --
    News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
  3. They're Gonna Love The Stuff... by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Transhumans come up with - like stuff to reduce them to their chemical components so they can be flushed off the street with a hose.

    --
    Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  4. Enviornmentalism destructive to the Enviornment. by RexRhino · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The ideology of "Enviornmentalism" is actually destructive to the enviornment. Examples:

    Nuclear power is greenest form of energy production that is currently practicle. It is cheap, safe, and produces lots of energy. According to Greenpeace, 50,000 people die in North America die to illness due to the burning of fossil fuels. Even if there was a Chernobyl every year, according to their own figures, it wouldn't be any worse than we have now burning fossil fuels. In addition, it would stop greenhouse emmisions, the energy abundance would make technology like water desalination affordable which would help protect our natural fresh water, and it would make super-clean energy-expensive manufacturing techniques affordable.

    But instead we have a society that considers nuclear energy dangerous based on knee-jerk fear, and movies about giant atomic ants.

    Enviornmentalists like to wax on about how great food grown without pesticides are. However, many of these "natural" methods are orders of magnitude less efficent that standard farming techniques. So if the "natural" way of growing something is 1/5th as efficent, it means that we need 5 times the land in order to grow the same about of food. Agriculture is one of the most destructive things you can do to an enviornment, even if it doesn't use pesticides. We would end up destroying huge sections of natural land just to avoid a little peciticide. Also, farming requires fossil fuels for tractors, etc.. Increasing the land use by 5 times means expending 5 times as much fossil fuels.

    And now, here is a technology that keeps pants nice and stain free. What does this mean? That means that I won't have to throw a pair of pants out after it gets something staining on it, or I won't have to put it in some highly toxic stain removing detergent. Which means we save on the resources in manufacturing new pants, the energy and transportation costs of that, and we save the water polution of using so many nasty detergents.

    And we have morons protesting this, because there is not 100% proof that this technology will never cause any sort of problems... despite the many enviornmentaly positive things about these pants.

    The enviornmentalist movement has been taken over by a coalition of anti-technology luddites and free-market hating Stalinists, combining an absolute hatred of all technology, with an absolute dedication to authoritarian government as the only solution to enviornmental problems.