Every new tech that will radically change the future starts as a "novel lab discovery." Sure, most of the discoveries don't lead to much, but that doesn't mean we should see the glass as entirely empty and shrug our shoulders at everything. It is healthy and useful to be excited by new science and new possibilities.

Also, I think it is important to separate the impact of discoveries in physical sciences vs medical science. Medical "discoveries" are often in controlled petri dishes, and turn out to not be effective in a whole human where many complex complex systems interfere. It is usually appropriate to be pessimistic toward these over-hyped in vitro medical "discoveries."

On the other hand, a physical discovery or product like this one is fully REAL. The hurdles to making it "useful" are usually manufacturing and cost, which are only limited by current technology. We can innovate such things into existence in ways we cannot do with medicine. Thus, I think it is appropriate to be excited by physical discoveries and have them inspire wonder and innovation.

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Not every inch of progress will revolutionize our world. It’s your expectations you should re-evaluate.

And more specifically, people seem to want a quick fix. We are talking about very complicated topics ones that affect far more than just humanity which, unfortunately most people seem unwilling to tackle.

To reiterate, there's more to life than people. Until we can have a more holistic view of what life actually is, all of these things are temporary Band-Aids.

We must always consider new tech risks in the context of the benefits. How useful is this new technology vs how likely and severe are the risks? It is wise to be concerned about potential risks, but we cannot ignore the known benefits.

Also, we should not fear unintended consequences based on a decades-old perspective. Over the last 40 years especially, the world has shifted from mostly ignoring the environment to having national and international regulations and watchdogs to address unintended consequences and new pollutants.

Of course, the regulations and watchdogs are still mostly weak and we still must be watchful, but it is time to evolve our default assumption from "no one has considered the unintended consequences" to "experts are testing and considering the materials and processes used."