This story is about graphene materials and philosophy. Graphene! Graphene! Graphene is here, at last! We the people, meaning, we the lowly peasants, can sigh a sigh of relief. Can you hear our celebratory breath? Sorry probably not behind our masks but trust us, we are celebrating, and following the science.

I mean, what took them so long to give us a wonder material enabling those wonderful futuristic sensors that will let us connect to the Internet of Bodies and have our caring, wise masters monitor our biological state and nudge us to do the right thing, for our own good — not to mention the good of the community and the collective grandmas?

We know, this material has not really been tested for biological safety in a meaning way but we are used to it by now, and we’ve trained ourselves to not worry our little heads about such silly things. As long as they show us at least ten shiny commercials saying that it’s safe, our bodies will replace their outdated chemistry with the contents of the new commercials. Science!

Laws of nature? Forget them, we are above … meaning, our masters are above, we are below, but below is above. Kind of like, we are not engineers, so we can’t really decide the directions. And what matters to the peasants is that we’re in this together, and we have been waiting and waiting and drumming our fingers for someone to connect us to a really important network of computers to monitor our bodies with care … and our wait is finally over! We are in this together!

We — and we are speaking for all the lowly peasants — are feeling very good and grateful that we can now count on the masters to monitor our biological functions, as opposed to empowering our own immune systems that have only been around for millions of years. So we are truly relieved by the all this Fourth Industrial Revolution and other related progress. Phew!

Thank you, our super wealthy, caring masters! Thank you! Please monitor us harder! Harder! Harder! (We are feeling a little ecstatic!)

Oh and about that self-heating graphene wallpaper (that may or may not shed little particles that may or may not damage our bodies … sorry for an obviously selfish and irresponsible train of thought … sorry sorry)? Yes, please also give us the self-heating graphene wallpaper! And please give us a big glass of glyphosate to drink while we are at it!

Being one with the system is totally worth it, since what’s good for Monsanto is good for our bodies! And may we also please request another safe 5G tower next to our bedroom?

We may live a shorter life as a result but who cares, at least we’ll have meaning, and a sense of belonging granted by our masters for being zombies, and “community values”! And please keep monitoring and controlling us harder!

On a side note, how we’ve managed to survive to this day without multiple 5G towers and self-heating wallpaper is a mystery to us peasants. It must be all the glyphosate in our food that kept us going. We just love the progress, and we just love love love marching in line with anything the masters give us for our good and their profits.

Wait … we are feeling weird … our brains … our hearts … the room is swirling … we may be collapsing … we are not pretending … we think we are dying … why are those other people still laughing, clapping, and screaming to continue the show?

Now let’s pause, scream, cry, ponder the tragedy, and proceed to the serious part of the story. By the way, my sarcasm was directed at the blind fanaticism, not at chemistry, and not at the poor, disposable model citizens. Graphene … graphene is just a material.

If we took the predatory motives and the Internet of Bodies and the greed and the cruel arrogance out of the equation, and if graphene materials were properly tested for short-term and long-term health safety before even considering putting them in everything, there would be no need to write this story.

But alas, our world of today is driven by cruel, headless maniacs with a propensity toward totalitarianism, who are obsessed with the Internet of Bodies and who care about our well-being as much as a cockroach farmer cares about his “cattle.” And my sarcasm is a protective reaction to mask the grief I feel over the fact that the headless people are trying to invade my everything, and to trick my brothers.

The temporarily enchanted may be acting proud and self-destructive due to enchantment, but underneath the spell, they have a soul, and they are my brothers, and I pray for them to break free from bad magic, so that we can hold hands and dance together. And to hell with the self-heating graphene wall-paper, unless it is thoroughly tested. Anyway, the serious part of the story.

What Is Graphene?

Graphene is a carbon material with unique and lucrative properties. It’s “a single layer (monolayer) sheet of carbon atoms that are bonded together in a repeating pattern of hexagons.” This sheet is only one atom thick. Monolayers of graphene stacked on top of each other form graphite. Since a typical carbon atom has a diameter of about 0.33 nanometers, there are about 3 million layers of graphene in a 1 mm thick sheet of graphite.

“Thanks to the unique structure of graphene, it possesses other amazing characteristics: Its high electron mobility is 100x faster than silicon; it conducts heat 2x better than diamond; its electrical conductivity is 13x better than copper; it absorbs only 2.3% of reflecting light; it is impervious so that even the smallest atom (helium) can’t pass through a defect-free monolayer graphene sheet.”

It is considered a new class of materials, the so called 2D material. It’s called 2D (arbitrarily, in my opinion) because it’s only one atom thick, and so the scientists decided to measure its height at zero.

It’s the talk of the town. Its inventors won a Nobel prize. It’s harder than steel, it shrinks from heat and expands from cold (which is the opposite of what other materials do), and it is extremely conductive. And again, I would personally be cautiously excited about such a wonder material if it weren’t in the hands of the maniacs who have no respect for my body! I am not a conspiracy theorist, I am a conspiracy realist!