• Steel Pudding
• Robot Death Buffet
• Reverse Voltron Disorder.
However, who would ever want to engineer it on purpose? Gray Goo wouldn’t be appealing for military purposes because it’s so hard to control and so wantonly destructive. When other nanotech weapons can be used far more effectively to kill with control, who would want something that just randomly destroys life and sows chaos? Only psychopaths and terrorists want that kind of stuff.
Oh, wait; we have a whole bunch of those around, don’t we?
In light of this fact, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology realized that they couldn’t scratch Gray Goo off their list of concerns just yet, but did add that it was a low-priority threat because there were “far more dangerous and imminent issues with nanotechnology.”
There were far more dangerous issues than sperm-powered blood robots eating the Earth.
That’s what they said.
They think that’s comforting.
“I’m so sorry, sir. You have terminal cancer. But don’t worry; it’s all going to be OK! You won’t be dying from the cancer… because I am going to shoot you in the face right now. Isn’t that reassuring?”
No, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, that is not comforting. I would suggest you offer hugs instead of these horrifying press releases, but judging by your previous “consolation” track record, I’m afraid you’d just end up whispering obscenities in people’s ears while punching their children.
11. NANOLITTER
WITH ALL THE CURRENT fearmongering about nanotechnology—most of which has been done within the confines of this book—it’s not
But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean we’re not all going to die anyway!
This is because even the most benevolent of nanobots share one simple, undeniable commonality: To achieve any major effects, there are going to have to be a lot of them and, though it is infinitesimal, they do take up some space. When their purpose is complete, they’ll deactivate and die off—unfortunately leaving their corpses where they lie.
But so what? Aside from the hassle of having to construct a plethora of mini tombstones (and the rather gross prospect of microscopic widows getting grief fucked inside your teeth), how could this possibly affect you? Well, the primary application for a lot of this nanotech is going to be for health issues: improving stamina, boosting immune systems, and fighting off cancer. All those corpses are basically just litter, and the human body is their environment, which means that when they die, they die
• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Acceptance
• Grief fucking
Take, for instance, the scientists over at Kraft foods—scientists whose job, ordinarily, probably consists of formulating the perfect Dora the Explorer pasta shape-to-cheese ratio—are instead currently working on new types of nanoparticles to add to beverages. They plan to create “interactive beverages” that will shift colors and patterns according to your input. So on the plus side, you can have green beer whenever you want it, but the trade-off is that it’s
• Angry Cherry
• Depression Blueberry
• Jealous-Rage Sour Apple
• On-the-Prowl Pink
• Willing-to-Settle Gray
OK, so nanoparticles aren’t exactly murderous microscopic robots. They actually have a lot of positive effects, and are being used in vastly increasing numbers across myriad products, from paint to socks, makeup to underwear. Their upsides are easy to see: They can have a lot of useful effects, cost very little to produce, and take up almost no space in existing products. Most of what we know about them is quite beneficial; it’s the stuff we don’t know that’s worrisome.
Back in March 2002, the EPA found the first inklings of the problems to come, when a study they’d conducted found nanoparticles cropping up in the livers of research animals. This warranted urgent further study, seeing as how nanotech was on the verge of becoming the world’s largest emerging industry. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center quickly confirmed that at least one kind of nanoparticle could indeed penetrate the skin, and from there seep into the bloodstream. Those particles are called quantum dots, and they’re on the smaller end of the nanoparticle scale. They are often used in makeup and sunblock, which is unfortunate, considering how they seep through skin like that—but even more unfortunate when you consider that UV light, like from the sun, actually facilitates absorption of the dots. So the thing you use to protect yourself from the sun is actually rendered harmful and then activated and inserted into your body by the mere presence of sunlight. Apparently the engineers in charge of quantum dot production got their doctorates in Irony from Incompetent University.
“Pentetratin’ you like you know you like it since 2002.”
Separate research conducted by scientists at Purdue University concentrated on tracking the likelihood of other nanoparticles, called buckyballs, infiltrating human systems—be it through water, soil, or the fatty tissue of the livestock we consume. And they found that there was indeed a pretty high chance of these buckyballs attaching to our own fatty tissues—even more so than DDT, the notoriously harmful pesticide. Now, to be fair, it was not outright stated in the study that buckyballs do anything worse than DDT once they get in there, but this comparison
• “You’ve got more white blood cells than a vampire Klan meeting.”
• “You’ve got a higher semen count than your whorish mother’s mouth.”
• “You’ve got an ‘A’! And an ‘I’ and a ‘D’ and an ‘S’!”
