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Nanotech Protests Begin

Posted by Zonk on from the misguided-youth dept.

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."

5 of 693 comments (clear)

  1. No grey goo... by lilmouse · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So sad, grey goo is unlikey to come from this... But we could still get cancer!

    The problem with nanotechnology is that we don't really understand why much of it works, and we don't have any idea how the special properties it has will affect our bodies. Nano-whiskers? Great - I'm sure they help keep stains from getting on clothes. But what the *hell* are they going to do in my lungs?

    As we've seen time and again, what we don't know really can hurt us...

    --LWM

  2. Re:Send in the Clowns by doconnor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's easy to be anti-American/anti-Capitalist when viewing the website gives this error: "We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however, these pages are intended for access only from within the United States."

  3. heh a bigger worry... by rebelcool · · Score: 5, Interesting

    would be nonstick cookware, which is where most people's daily encounter with teflon is. Obviously the easiest route to ingestion would be food cooked on it, compared to wearing pants. Especially if you use a metal utinsel to stir the food and accidentally scratch the pan, releasing the teflon.

    So why arent they protesting sellers of kitchenware?

    --

    -

  4. Re:I'm confused! by el-spectre · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Noooo, has nothing to do with "want", has everything to do with evidence.

    I'll take a theory based on current science over a 5000 year old myth any time.

    --
    "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
  5. Re:And this is different, how? by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 3, Interesting
    But many of the issues I've seen protested like the World Bank, G7/G8 Summit, lumber clear cutting and strip mining operations have actually made a lot of sense, because the damage from some of these operations has been extensive, while the benefits have only helped a few.

    "Lumber clear cutting" is a good one to work on. The protests aren't just about someone clearing a mountainside of trees, killing all the birds and frogs and ???. Some protest ALL lumber harvesting, even of trees planted specifically for harvesting, like a long-term corn crop. If the protesters aren't going to picket farmers for "clear cutting" their wheat and corn, why do they do it when lumber companies harvest their crop?

    Some groups got the forestry agencies to stop doing preventative burns for years; it almost wiped out new growth of certain species of trees that couldn't grow without periodic thinning of competing species by fire. There were many protests when the burn policy was put back into effect... but the forest proved the protesters wrong.

    About half the forest land leveled by Mt. St. Helens was privately owned, by lumber companies. The other half is federal. The federal lands have been left to natural restoration, while the evil lumber companies salvaged the wood they could and replanted. Guess where most of the animal life has returned to... yep, the "crop land".

    Patrick Moore has a few things to say about these protests, since he used to partake in them.

    Or would you prefer to continue separatism, child labor, or black lung?

    Separatism doesn't seem to react as well to protests as it does to education and economic factors. Child labor has only been bannished from areas where economics made it possible to do so; it's still prevalent in poor parts of the world, where the picketing of Nike is only seen as the reason the factory providing jobs had to close. And the "cure" for black lung (better technology) also reduced the need for jobs in the mining industry... putting a lot of marginally-skilled people out of work in areas that didn't have other types of jobs to fall back upon.

    Much as some people hate to admit it, economics moves the world. And many of the protesters are protesting that fact, directly or indirectly. But it is the prosperity that gives them the luxury of protesting.... Those who can't see beyond today's paycheck don't spend much time worrying about how the harvesting of the lumber for the house they live in affected the spotted owl's ability to make nests in KMart signs...