The issue is that I’m fairly certain IAR uses turnkey suppliers in China… which means he does not control his own material lots… which means he asks “is this glass Schott bioglass?” and the vendor says “yes absolutely” while picking up any random glass supply they have and tossing it into the batch.
Because you do not control your own material lots, you have no idea what any of your products are actually made with.
Because you do not control your own material lots, you cannot spot check your batches because materials can change mid-batch, multiple times.
This is a major problem with every other supplier in my opinion. I’ve personally seen shit from biohax with knock-off yellow tinted garbage glass, claiming it was Schott… but it’s clearly not.
Finally, the chip wasn’t even an ntag216 inside, as indicated on the pouch… it was a mifare classic 1k chip.
With this kind of quality continuing to sell like gangbusters at huge events put on by the likes of Deutsche Telekom, I’m seriously concerned for the fate of biohacking in general.
They already do, to some degree (I mean rather experimental stuff). But it is very difficult to make a law that forbids to cut yourself open… and the implants can be sold as simple electronic devices, I guess…
But it will lead to a really bad publicity and serious problems, yes. And that’s why I hope that every biohacker tries his / her / its best to do this stuff in a classical “safe, sane, consensual” way - bad publicity might have an impact on everyone.
I can’t agree with that. This sentiment is why body mod artists like Sammpa don’t like biohackers. They want us to limit our autonomy in order to have a chance of saving the nebulous public image improvements they’ve made over the last 30 years. I can’t abide that. Who defines a “sane” body-mod when what we’re doing has never been attempted before? We can’t be forced into partial bodily autonomy based on the fear of reactionary, lowest common denominator members of our society.
I personally don’t do self installs, but it seems to me that the best way to avoid “bad publicity” is to educate people about best practices so that fewer things go wrong when people do try crazy shit, rather than telling them there are specific authorities who are qualified to do body-mods and all others should step-off to preserve an illusion of “legitimacy”.
Not to call you out specifically, it’s just a sore spot for me.
Yeah, and that’s exaclty what I meant by “safe, sane, consensual”. Nothing else
I’m all for experimental stuff, my bodymodder as well, but is has to be done in a way that the least harm is done. And if there are already practices that work, why not use them? Why do people cut themselves open with stupid stuff when there are sterile scalpels readily available? Why do people desinfect their tools with simple alcohol, when there are medically proven desinfectants available? There are things going on that are just plain - sorry - stupid, not because of the mod itself, but because of the work around it, and that is definitely no longer necessary, as tools and knowledge are available to do it better.
And of course that’s maybe the main reason why bodymodders sometimes have their problems with the biohacking-scene - the general public does not differentiate between them, so something one does bad has an impact on the other, and those are people earning their living with what they do. And it’s already hard enough for them in most countries.
So yeah, it is important to experiment, to do pioneer work, to risk things - but do so in a way that can be considered as “best practice”.