We live in a terrifying time
Well, the nanobots that you are describing do not exist, so they aren't what is making the time terrifying
this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2025
16 points (62.5% liked)
Showerthoughts
38746 readers
854 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Wait until you hear about viruses or prions. Truly terrifying nanobots. Worst of all, they already exist. Those things are out there right now.
Prions are absolutely wild. There is no cure, no "vaccine" - not that that would even be possible because they're not viruses, bacteria, or even living things from outside your body. They're just a faulty version of something that already exists in your system and they make your body self-destruct.
Prime horror movie material.
You trust your body. You trust your mind. But what if the enemy... is already inside you?
They’re not viruses. They’re not bacteria. They’re your own proteins... twisted. Hungry.
They hide in the folds of your brain. They wait in the silence of your cells. And when they strike... you won’t even know you’re already lost.
PRIONS
COMING TO AN ENDOPLASMIC RETICULUM NEAR YOU
Congratulations. I am now terrified of my own brain.
New fear unlocked.
If a plausible zombie virus were to exist, it would definitely be those long-incubating stuff
Prions(tm): not a virus
There have never been enough concerns to be worth to develop a vaccine for a prion, and current used techniques are those for being efficient for their targets, but as far as I know prions are just proteins and proteins can be (and are) targeted, the whole immunitarie system often relies on those...
That sounds much more complicated than just using a gun. And they even work on people in hazmat suits.
Why would you destroy potentially useful human resources?
Are you insinuating that your nanobots wouldn't kill people?
no violence needed
How is this entire thing not violence?
unless you have the EMP tech
So you mean like robots with electronics in them? You should read less science fiction. This is beyond bill gates microchip injection nonsense.
Also how is this different form just gassing the enemy?
Astronomically more complicated and expensive, therefore cooler.
Also, you can't EMP gas, though I guess that's one the smallest downsides of nano robots.
When I say, "their bodies are yours," I'm talking about the nanobots being used to mind-control or pacify them, not kill them.
Robots with electronics in them and when they bark they shoot electronics at you?
This is different from poison, how?
It's way more expensive!
Nanobots, son. It's hi-tech and sexy, don't question it.
The thought process skips a few steps steps the same way as the idea to terraform mars when we can't even do that to earth.
I mean, we're doing a great job terraforming earth, just not for us.
It's arguably a lot easier to terraform a planet when we don't have to worry about messing up and killing off our entire species. Though the are some who would make the argument we're doing so anyway
They most probably won't, there is literally zero chance that someone would kill you with nanobots.
probably won’t
zero chance
I mean biological warfare already exists so no need to go 21st century with it. I'd imagine that even if the tech existed, it just wouldn't be cost effective.
We already had a sublime propaganda machine, yet here we are with AI anyway...
And cost effective only matters if you actually want to solve problems for people, not if you want to make money by creating something nobody wants and have you and your friends in the military-industrial-political complex get astronomically rich together.
Do you believe that nanobots like this exist?
What do you mean by "believe?" They're already out there; do you not follow the news? https://www.inside.lk/lifestyle/health/microscopic-robots-offer-new-hope-for-treating-clogged-arteries/
Nanobots that hijack bodies don’t exist. What exists are lab particles that barely survive blood flow and need giant external machines to do one trick. No internal power supply, no brains, no autonomy. Your immune system deletes them like spam. Breathing in murder-robots is sci-fi anxiety, not tech analysis. If this were real, you wouldn’t be the first to notice.
It'll be mosquito sized drone that stings you in the neck and then you die
Or, again, injects nanobots through that stinger, which then take control of your body. Why let a perfectly fine slave body go to waste by dying?
the borg, replicators(milky way) all use nano-robots as a method to attack thier intended victims, or assimilate them.
its actually the basis of borg assimilating a planet, deploy cloud of nanoprobes into the infect the population through the atmosphere, they dont seem to do it often though.
nano-tech is also big in sg1, where the goauld use them to infect and age the population, in sga they were use to infect humans and wraith.
Someone's seen the movie Upgrade lol
I've actually never seen that! I guess I've gotta, now!
Loved that movie!! Always thought the nanites were a bit lazy but how else can you threaten an AI i guess
This is literally the concept of a popular science fiction TV series. I won't say which one because I don't want to spoil it, but its next season is eagerly awaited, and it was huge when it was airing its previous season(s).
The series is based on books, and some fans of the series have read ahead; some have finished the books and know what all happens. Of course adaptations do change things, but killer nanobots that were used to wage war were the catalyst and a hidden plot point. I think the next season will reveal this.
(No, it's not Fallout. Fallout is good old-fashioned nuclear war. The show doesn't follow any of the games, but they share the same lore. The show is changing some of that, adding onto it (e.g. Vault Boy origin story in the first season), but they aren't changing that. Also, not based on books.)
If you know, don't say. Or at the very least use spoiler tags.
Fallout the Show doesn't follow any of the games because it's an entirely new story told in that same universe. The games and show all share the same timeline, and yet each game (including the show) has an entirely different story, taking place at a different location and point in time, in each installment.
So there's really nothing for the show to follow, other than the established rules of the world it inhabits, and imo it does a very good job of that.
Gimme the spoiler tag! I wanna watch this!
I'm on the last part of the Wool/Silo series. No spoilers.
Really excellent books. I didn't think the second one could be better than the first or reveal more secrets, man was i pleasantly surprised
The nanobots we have need a light as power source and only work in a strong magnetic field. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ9aXoah5DA
Just try to avoid having a endoscopic lamp inserted into you while you sit inside a MRT and you should be good, no fear needed.
[...] there's just no way to dodge this sort of stuff unless you have the EMP tech [...]
I think that we are closer of advance EMP technology than remote controlled operative war nanobots that supose a non violent threat more than biological weapons (which I find quite violent and inhumane), not to mention that countermeasure evolution seems much easier than (if not as easy as) the effective sophistication of nanobots, just to say a few...
If you’re into this concept you should read the Blade series by Linda Nagata