Beware radical elements

Revolutionary new materials like graphene can only be good for our future,can't they?  Well, certainly a lot of people are very excited about the positive side of stronger, lighter, more flexible, water repelling materials but  can this be all good?

I'm not one to pour water on a great idea but I do wonder about the ramifications of the large scale introduction of such radically different materials.

Invincibility

Indestructible materials are all very well, until you come to the point where you do want to break them down.   How do you recycle or destroy a product that has been made so strong and impervious to damage?  Will this create a mountain of waste for which there is no disposal other than burial?

Undetectable hostility

Technology that is tiny, light and virtually undetectable is great if you are the one in charge of its deployment. But what happens when a foreign power or a criminal organisation with nefarious intent gets hold of that same technology.  How do you defend your borders against such a threat?

Loss of traditional ways

The construction, manufacturing and the textile industries employ countless millions of people worldwide.   They rely on suppliers and growers to provide the material that they need to make their products.  What happens when those traditional materials are replaced by these new radical materials?  Potentially there is massive impact to the way that whole communities make their living.

Consider the cotton growers who supply the world's textile industry.  If these new textile materials prove to be superior to natural products, the vast cotton fields of the world will be redundant.  That would destroy the livelihood of countless individuals, communities, even nations that depend on the industry.

No built-in obsolescence

Nothing lasts forever, so the saying goes.  However, some of these new materials are so impervious to damage and decay that they may well last substantially longer than a human lifespan.   What could that mean for the economies of the world?  When things stop wearing out what happens to the industries that bank on feeding the need for replacement goods?  What do all the people who make those replacements do now to make a living?

These are big questions for our leaders and for ourselves.   What will we do to address them and will we do them in time?