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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."
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...
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.
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...
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