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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."
I thought the Evil Religious Right(tm) had cornered the market on unreasonable opposition to scientific progress. What am I supposed to make of this??
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I was standing in line to see a movie years ago - I forget which one - when I was approached by petitioners from PETA who were upset about the treatment of the horses in the latest Conan movie.
They showed me a letter from the Spanish Department of the Interior which said, basically, "Gosh, if you say they were abused, then we believe you." Then they waved this letter around claiming the Spanish Government corroborated their claims.
People who run up and start protesting before they know a damned thing about what they're protesting just make me laugh. I hope at least that the people who took off their clothes had nice butts, because apart from some tittilation, that's all they accomplished.
I really enjoyed the "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" episode about environmental activists. +1 Funny AND Insightful, highly recommended viewing.
I think the thing that stuck with me the most is that the environmental activists started out decades ago with a good idea, and then were usurped by anti-American/anti-Capitalist propaganda peddlers.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
We're already seeing signs of problems to come: buckyballs appear to cause Alzheimer's-like damage when they get into the brains of fish.
o technology/dn4825
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/mech-tech/nan
I have been eagerly awaiting the first self replicating nanomachines ever since reading Engines of Creation (http://www.foresight.org/EOC/) but the tech probably has a long convoluted road ahead to acceptance and safe use. If we are seeing problems already with buckyballs - perhaps the simplest example of nanotech - the implications will be far greater for something like airborne nanobots that clean the air, or your bloodstream.
Yeah, and people weren't scared of wall paneling either, when it contained asbestos.
--LWM
The hilarious thing is these pants don't have the specific definition of "nanotechnology" in them at all. They are deliberately skewing the use of the word from the specific common-use meaning of "very small machines" to a very general case "very small manmade things". ALL it is is very small fibers of teflon, which is not a machine at all, just some molecules.
So, this is retarded every way you look at it. The protesters are protesting something that isn't even nanotechnology as it is commonly referred to in the first place!
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Merits and dangers of technology aside, activists seem more and more stupid these days. Yeah, shock value gets you *attention* -- but not credibility. MLK had protestors dress up in their sunday best, looking dignified. If they'd run through the streets nude and shouting, it would have been a fine spectacle, but we'd probably still have seperate water fountains.
So yeah. Fight the man. Spark debate over nanotech, GM food, war, whatever. Just do it with some sense, OK? Protest is already in danger of becoming dead as a vector for social change. Turning it into an easy parody of itself isn't helping.
Tweet, tweet.
Okay, let's just suppose that viruses were a technological development of an ancient civilization. One can imagine a protest that would draw a chorus of laughter from the technical elite of the time. "These guys are just against technological advancement," they might say, "a bunch of luddites." Well, it really amazes me that science can run off willy nilly inventing all manner of peculiar "stuff" and it never occurs to most folks that they could be opening themselves and their descendants up to thousands of years of consequences. Next time you rip some of that round-leafed mint viney shit out of your lawn, remember, this too was trumpeted as an advancement.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
There are two big problems with nano-tech. First, it is too broad of a term, therefore not really useful. Second, the things it deal with are novel materials, not only in the fact that they have novel properties and risks, but those risks may change with the size of the material, and risks based on size is not something we currently have a lot experience regulating.
That said I am kind of unhappy with the fact that many companies are trying to manufacture products under the radar. We really don't know what the risk of these materials are, but we know, from current research, and past experience, that there will probably be risks. OTOH, we know that the benefits will likely at least equal the risks, and as long as we don't go hogwild everything will be ok. The issue is likely to be whether these companies are studying and managing the risks, or whether they expect future generations to pay for the inevitable cleanup.
We can take GM as a way not to do it. The assertion that GM is safe was never reasonable. The assertion that GM products would not significantly cross pollinate other products was never reasonable, and any argument that depended on the assumption was necessarily invalid. The modification to make sure the plant would not reproduce was a good thing, but we all know that genes mutate and therefore was not a silver bullet, and not without its own risk. There were and are very good uses for GM products, but the GM people really deserved the grief because they were pompous bastards.
If Nano follows the same pompous 'we are saving the world and deserved to be worshiped, not protested' bullshit, then Nano also deserves the pain. Look at it this way. Airbags probably save lives, but they probably cause injury, and occasional death. It was the marketing of the life saving properties without full disclosure of the risks that lead to problems.
The nano in pants, sun screen, and whatever else, needs to be disclosed an treated as a net benefit, not a god given gift to humanity. Who know what the long term production problems or exposure problems are going to be. I mean, are these products suitable for parents, whose baby's are going to chew on the fabric, and injest the materials and residual chemicals? This follows the same line that tuna is fine for the general public, but probably not for pregnant or nurseing women.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Everyone else here seems to be missing the point. "Oh noes some environmentalists are protesting stuff. Idiots." When there very well could be a danger here. Molecule sized chemicals attached to my clothes could very well pose a health risk. Nobody knows because they haven't done substantial testing! I think thats what these protesters want more than anything. Proof that it is NOT dangerous.
See, everybody seems to have this impression that nanotechnology is going to turn the whole world into a pile of grey-goo.
Problem is, nanotechnology is NOWHERE NEAR advanced enough to do that. And may never be. As it is right now, we don't know how to make intelligent, self-replicating machines AT ANY SCALE. We're not even CLOSE to being able to do that.
This is just an updated version of the "computers are evil" mindset that still is pretty prevalent thanks to HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey". People read some science-fiction, and mistakenly think it's REAL.
Duh.
It's not just new technologies, it's even old concepts like evolution.
I've got several pairs of those nanotech khakis. They don't stain at all, even with coffee spilled on them. It doesn't seem to be "real" nanotech, though, just some kind of nylon polymer treatment for the material that makes it water-resistant.
This incident will teach companies not to use nanotech as a marketing buzzword (especially if it doesn't even use "nanotech").
First off, let me preface this by saying that I'm a huge nanotech fan. The sort of leap-forward potential that nanotech provides in superconductors, photovoltaics, betavoltaics, computing, LEDs, medical tracers, antibiotics, genetics, materials, rocketry, and just about everything that you can think of are of such a huge scale, it's hard to even picture.
However, it would be wrong of us to pretend that there aren't serious risks. And, no, I'm not talking about dumb "grey goo" scenarios. Look at CNTs, for example. Very stable, aerosolizable in some situations, and very easily penetrates cells. Add various functional groups onto them (like many projects are doing) that might damage cell internals, and it sounds like a ready-made health nightmare. The problem with many nanoparticles is that they're very small, and thus able to get to places that their non-soluable relatives couldn't. They often tend to be either very stable or very reactive in comparison to their large-scale relatives.
Oh, and before all of the poorly thought out "nanoparticles like CNTs occur in nature in candle soot!", that's like arguing that since cyanide occurs in many fruits, we shouldn't worry about pure cyanide.
We shouldn't hold up research; far from it, the varying fields of nanotech really look to be the next leap forward in almost every scientific arena. But we also need to put them under great scrutiny, or we'll have another DDT on our hands.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
Whatever the merits of that point, it has zero to do with nano- anything.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
So, will the benefits outweight the potential risks?
You've hit the nail right on the head. That's the fundemental thing most environmentalists refuse to understand. Everything has risks --- the question is, what risks are we better-off taking? It's the same thing with energy policy. Environmentalists don't realize that by opposing nuclear power (meltdown), wind power (birds), water power (aquatic ecology), and solar power (land usage), they are effectively coming out in support of oil and coal power (cancer, war, pollution, etc). In doing that, they are effectively in league with the big energy companies!
No mode of human-nature interaction will be completely noninvasive. The only rational goal is to make the interaction as non-invasive as practical. By arguing against change, people are effectively arguing for the preservation of the status quo, a status quo which will lead to environmental destruction more surely and quickly than any of the proposed alternatives.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
But most toxins have a threshold dose below which they don't do much of anything.
I wonder if the makers of these pants determined the rate of absorption of teflon when wearing them, especially as they deteriorate. Somehow I doubt it.
But it's probably OK. In the meantime, I'll let Eddie Bauer shoppers be the test subjects and get my stain-free paints in a couple of decades, after the effects are better understood.
I bet there's a great deal about malt scotch that we don't understand at the molecular level. Does this mean we should be purging Balvenie from the shelves? Saints preserve us!
This does not mean we blindly rush into things, but to say "we don't understand everything about it" or "there's a possibility that it gives cancer" is just stating the blindingly obvious. We need a better assessment of the risks than that.
Is that the best thing they can find to protest? Talk about fiddling while Rome burns! Lemme see, you could, say, talk about the broad and concerted assault on the middle class through Bush's Retirement Roulette scheme, or the nuclear option Congress is practicing on American workers by rewarding outsourcing, or the elimination of personal bankruptcy protections that only hurt anyone not wealthy enough to field a team of lawyers, or the changes to Federal Student Loan guidelines that will double the cost for poorer students' families, or nominating federal judges who equate non-neo-cons with slavers. Heck, you could possibly even talk about a quagmire that never needed to happen, that was sold to the American public on a pack of lies, and that is now grounding down our army, grinding up our treasury, and, incidentally, killing American soldiers and lots and lots of hapless Iraqis.
THIS is what these people choose to spend their time doing?
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Sounds like any of thousands of protests going on world-wide. Protesters who haven't a clue about what they're protesting, but protesting it none the less. It makes them feel important. Facts don't enter into the equation.
The first concerns about nanotech are thus about "very small manmade things" too: these tiny particles will be produced in an abundance the likes of which the world has never seen. This could be fine or it could not, depending on the material. This has been widely discussed, and you reveal your own ignorance rather than that of those you criticize.
None of these protesters are worried about grey goo. They're worried about the damage that these particles could do to an ecosystem. Maybe they're wrong, but it's a valid concern. Dunno how big those teflon fibers really are, and dunno whether they're really novel, but it's not a completely new use of the word "nanotech".
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
All the great properties of Teflon are due to its total and complete chemical inertness and stability. It doesn't react with anything in any capacity (not even on a van der walls level, thus its non-stick properties). Sure it might be harmful like helium and water if you breath too much of it or eat nothing else, but as a chemical, Teflon is probably one of the least dangerous things you can put in your body. I guess it could do something like asbestos (due to its mico-mechanical properties, not chemical), but as far as I know nothing like this is known.
Hey, there is no point in lumping environmentalists in with progressives in general. It's a common misconception, but it isn't true. There are tens of millions of "progressives" in this country. In comparison, the membership of Greenpeace (the largest environmental organization in the country) has declined from 1 million in 1992 to a mere 300,000 in 2000.
Environmentalists are a marginal part of the overall progressive movement. Heck, there are more Mormons in the conservative movement than there are environmentalists in the progressive movement. I suppose conservatives would love it if we characterized them all as Mormons...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I hope I'm not the only one who sees something wrong with a person who believes that a cable channel's website is reason enough to hate me.
... QED.
I'm sure you're a really nice guy, Solder. Sadly, you have colleagues in your country who are total morons, and you're being tarred with the same brush.
If those morons weren't influential, we could ignore them. But sadly they are highly influential throughout the world, from lowly cable channel ops through to your politicians and government.
While I sympathize with those Americans who are not to blame, I don't think you can complain about getting caught in the crossfire.
After all, Bush got reelected
The real danger here to humanity is the negativity that these fuckers impose on the rest of us. If you don't know what you're talking about, then you might as well just shut up.
Well they were right. It wasn't dangerous (unless they tried to remove it). It did however save many lives by preventing or delaying the spread of fire.
People weren't scared of DDT either until someone trumped up charges of its effects on nesting habits or somesuch. Now, millions of people die of malaria worldwide.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Most environmentalists are progressives. However, most progressives are not environmentalists. We're not "happy to have" the environmentalists, indeed, by now, we suspect most of them have pretty much gone over to something like the Green party anyway (which is of course, more reactionary than progressive).
Most progressives do embrace technological advancements, again, because most progressives are not environmentalists. If you look at protestors on college campuses and say "oh, those are progressives", you can get the idea that progressives are enviro-nuts. If you actually look at the statistics, you'll realize that those college campus protestors have no power in the progressive movement because they are a numerically small group that doesn't vote anyway.
As for "socialist", that's a pretty funny comment. First, there are few true socialists in America. American progressives are more populist than socialist. But then again, American conservatives are pretty damn populist as well. Certainly, Presidents like George W. Bush have abandoned conservative economic principles in favor of populist ones (give the people whatever they want).
In short, the ideological battle that is actually being waged is very different from the one you have in your head. It's not "socialist progressives vs capitalist conservatives", but rather "populist progressives vs. populist conservatives". And, statistically, neither side could care less about the environment.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
This is emphasized largly because DuPont's product - Teflon - has been taking most of the heat, in much the same way the Kryptonite came under the most pressure recently for the compromised barrel cylinder lock. Kryptonite, like DuPont, was quick to point out that other manufacturers' locks were compromised.
From what I've been reading over the last hour, "Any type of cookware" is misleading, since it is specifically the Polytetraflouethylene in non-stick cookware that is a particular danger to birds. Telfon, understandably, gets the most attention here, since Teflon in the American psyche is virtually synonymous with "non-stick", in much the same way that "Kryptonite" is synonymous with "quality lock" and "Gore-Tex" is synonymous with "quality rain gear". Such are the hazards of brand recognition and effective marketing, I guess. :-)
Not that I post on slashdot or anything.
Hmmm. Those are certainly NOT ugly fat chicks. I've seen my share of them, and these women do not qualify. As the parent said, these women are quite average... which anyone who gets out of their basement and away from their computers for a few hours a day would quickly realize.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
I call bullshit. In it's purest form, Teflon is good to about 400 degrees F. I don't know how they laminate it to a frying pan but I am guessing they do so in a way that that the Teflon can not "melt" away or vaporize during the higher cooking temperatures. Is it possible that it's something OTHER than the teflon that is causing the problem? It would certainly be easier to qualify if you could provide a link supporting your assertation.
Also, if the vapors are so bad, then why don't power plants, chem plants, and other plants have to report to the EPA when they "melt" teflon due to process upsets and whatnot? It happens ALL the damn time. Every day, all over the world.
And since I spec Teflon on on many of the items I provide to these plants, I am certain I would have heard of any hazardous environmental issues related to it. Yet, this is the first time I have EVER heard anything "harmful" associated with Teflon.
Can you please elaborate?
People don't really look like that. You don't look like that. Get over it.