[ExI] trying to convince a friend that nanotech is not so bad...

[Ben Zaiboc]

John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> revealed:

> A friend wrote to me:
> Uh hey, yeah, guess what they put nano tech aluminum in
> your deodorant
> and suntan lotion and oooh its clear - that's so neat!! ooh
> and dries
> fast but whoops u have cancer because it breaks the brain
> skin blood
> barrier!!
> oh also now children can get nano carbon bicycle handles
> and their
> hands rub up against it, and it too breaks the skin brain
> blood
> barrier, and whoops my kid needs chemo and a blood
> transfusion!
> 
> How about leave it perfect the way nature intended it! I am
> open to
> non- misappropriate uses of nano but most of what i have
> ever seen is
> being used as a weapon against ppl across the board. we
> already have
> reverse engineered space technology, most of nanotech is
> being used to
> fuck people in my humble opinion.
> 

Yikes.

Alexander Pope had it right when he wrote "A little learning is a dang'rous thing..."

This is why everybody needs a good scientific education these days.  


> My question to the list members is this, how do you deal
> with these
> complaints against the *current state* of
> nanotechnology?  And will
> these problems get worse or better, as time goes by?

Unfortunately, most people aren't getting a good (or even any) scientific education these days, so I don't see the problem getting any better, in the short-term, anyway.

Pointing out the errors in this kind of thinking is more likely to result in entrenchment than anything else, so there's probably not much point in telling people what the blood-brain barrier actually is, why it has virtually nothing to do with cancer, why 'Natural' != 'Good', etc.

On the whole, emotions are more important in people's thinking than logic.  If you want to convince someone that something is not bad, you need to get them to feel it. Intellectual understanding is not enough.  

How can nanotech make joe soap's life better? How can it give them what their bellies and gonads want?  Show someone a big enough carrot, and make the facts available to them.  They'll do their own rationalising and adjust their own beliefs accordingly.

Ben Zaiboc