Nanotech Protests Begin 693
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'm confused! (Score:4, Insightful)
Kneejerk Activism (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Send in the Clowns (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Send in the Clowns (Score:4, Insightful)
Already seeing signs (Score:4, Insightful)
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/ [foresight.org]) 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.
Re:WTF? Protesting pants?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and people weren't scared of wall paneling either, when it contained asbestos.
--LWM
Re:Don't get excited... (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:No grey goo... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused! (Score:5, Insightful)
Both want to control what everyone else does and thinks based on their own unreasonable and unprovable beliefs. "The end of the world is nigh" indeed.
no silver bullet, just risk management (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:No grey goo... (Score:2, Insightful)
A little fact about the "nanotech problem" (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Wait a minute (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Send in the Clowns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Love those khakis (Score:2, Insightful)
This incident will teach companies not to use nanotech as a marketing buzzword (especially if it doesn't even use "nanotech").
There are real risks (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Love those khakis (Score:4, Insightful)
Whatever the merits of that point, it has zero to do with nano- anything.
Re:Pollution question (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Some level? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I'm confused! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no problem with people respecting the environment and making sure we don't (accidentally or intentionally) do bad things to the earth. I also have no problem with people being religious as long as they're not on a jihad.
For the radical environmentalists, their religion is environmentalism. The sensible environmentalists are like the sensible religious, who respect that "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." (Genesis 2:15) Actually, if you look, the Bible contains a lot of sensible and occasionally left-wing beliefs. The ERR has very little Biblical backing: most of what they do is a misinterpretation so they can further their own evil goals.
The precautionary principle. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Oh Good Lord! (Score:3, Insightful)
THIS is what these people choose to spend their time doing?
And this is different, how? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Don't get excited... (Score:4, Insightful)
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".
Re:Love those khakis (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Great - Another Example of "Progressives" (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Re:Kneejerk Activism (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me give you a quick example. At my university, there was a large number of people protesting against coke (the cola). Boiled down to the basics, and skipping some important details, basically, they argued we shouldn't drink coke becuase of their business practices in columbia...they were endagering and/or killing (depending on who you talk to) workers and being anti-union. Since I'm an avid coke drinker, the possibility of loss of coke disturbed me, but I felt I should learn a bit about it. I went to talk to one of the protesters and ask some questions. One of my questins was along the lines of "do you know that the columbian government investigated this and found coke not guilty? Do you also know that they have the highest union rates in the country even though you're accusing them of being anti-union?" Her response was that the columbian gov't couldn't be trusted, and coke should still have more union workers even though they have the most per capita already. I forgot about the union thing and asked who would be able to provide objective evidence to convince her that coke was innocent. The columbian gov't couldn't, so who could? Her reply? No one. No one could ever convince her. So I asked if she really though that her opinion was more informed than every legal body in the world, despite the fact that she didn't have access to the facts presented to the courts. She told me engineering students were morons who should keep out of social issues.
I don't have an opinion on the coke issue really. I don't know for sure what happened down there, but I continue to drink coke. Maybe I'm a bad person, who knows. But the point is that both sides of these types of arguments need to step back and evaluate the merits of the other side, and determine what level of confidence they have in their positions, what evidence they have backing them, and what type of evidence would convince them not necessarily to change their mind, but to at least re-evaulate their positions. In the case of a protest against something, this is hard since it's impossible to prove conclusively that something is safe, but at some point the benefits outweigh the risks. At the point where you are saying that no amount of reasonable evidence contrary to your position will cause you to change your mind, this should serve as a realization that you are being irrational. And while everyone has their irrational issues, it's not these people who should be leading and articulating the views of their side of the argument, since a that point it is not fact being argued, but irrational opinion. It's a pipe dream that this will actually happen, I know, and I'm far from innocent on this matter, but it's something to consider.
Re:Kneejerk Activism (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I am a fairly hardcore animal rights activist who won't eat meat or wear leather (but I keep my beliefs to myself mostly since I know that people have to come to their own conclusions on these issues).
My response to these leather shoe wearing idiots was, what about the dead cows on your feet? How is a bunny's stage fright a more important cause than killing animals?
It seems like nanotech pants is a minor issue compared to far scarier stuff, like say antibiotics in groundwater causing young girls to enter pueberty years early. While it's nice to see people being active, I wonder what would happen if these efforts were guided towards threats that are more pressing.
Good guys in the midst of morons. (Score:1, Insightful)
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
Oh, fucking please...! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused! (Score:4, Insightful)
Meteorologists using the most advanced technology available can't even reliably tell us what the weather will be like in two weeks.
So what? You can't reliably predict the path of a single water molecule, but you know which way the river is flowing.
Re:WTF? Protesting pants?! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Great - Another Example of "Progressives" (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:I'm confused! (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There are real risks (Score:2, Insightful)
There's also tremendous potential in nanotech, of course, but that doesn't absolve companies or researchers from responsibility for its unintended consequences either.
Link to Swiss Re's report on nanotech: http://www.swissre.com/INTERNET/pwswpspr.nsf/alld
Re:Well, it kills birds... (Score:2, Insightful)
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. :-)
Re:Pictures? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And this is different, how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, the only protests getting reported on are the silly ones. Have you ever talked to one of these "Tree huggers" or are you going by what you hear on CNN and Fox? I don't think these protesters feel important exposing their unattractive bodies --but maybe a little less powerless. It's pretty hard to get off work and then do something that you know is going to be ridiculed. There could be a culture of people where this is just the "thing to do". Or it could just be people who care enough to act. I'm too selfish making a living for my family --but at least I realize that I am the one who is not doing enough.
Note; It may not be nanotechnology being protested, but the pollution created in the process. I have heard a bit about how the BuckyBall carbon molecules don't break down and react strangely with the body. So nano tech is hardly inert. The BuckyBall issue, while made from simple carbon, is a different shaped molecule. And could result in another health issue like asbestos fibers. While I doubt the Nano-fibers on these pants use Carbon nanotubes (but I don't know that they don't), they can have a very different environmental impact. Just having tiny particulates creates a health hazard for workers breathing it. You have a much higher risk for lung cancer by just inhaling fibers from insulation --which is essentially just glass. So health impacts aren't always so simple to predict --in fact, they never are.
By taking off their clothes, these protestors got the Michael Jackson fixated press to cover it. If they had a thousand people with signs that said; "micro particulates can cause lung cancer, so we need to study this." nobody would have covered the protest. You have to say; "NanoTech" because the insipid media is so dumbed-down that they only cover the "hot button" words. CNN would not cover "particulates" or "fibers" --but if it had been Nano Stem Cells, they'd be on Fox. They couldn't go to the factory where it is made, because that is either overseas or in a poor neighborhood in Alabama --so again, nobody would cover it. So in this regard, they were successful. Of course, getting anyone to actually find out more about the issues when the Pavlovian response is to say; "idiots" to any protest is a very depressing prospect. But at least they were successful in getting the media to actually cover it. It will be of more interest when we cover cancer or birth defects ten years from now. Of course, the message then will be "old story, time to move on."
What is an example of a stupid protest that you've seen? I admit that some of the people have been a little too fluffy animal extreme. 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.
People who protest are probably always going to be a little extreme and on the edge--even unbalanced. I've never protested in my life. But I have benefitted from those with the courage, or even the craziness, who have given up their time to change the status quo.
Or would you prefer to continue separatism, child labor, or black lung? I'm impressed by people who can overcome their own hangups, and selfishness to try and make the world a little bit better. Often, these protesters can get jail time and I don't know of anyone who has made a living of going out and getting arrested --except for maybe a few rock stars. They could be wrong about what they are protesting, but how can any of us say we are better than they?
I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
You watch too much TV (Score:3, Insightful)