Going off on a purely hypothetical and somewhat morbid tangent…

Some people protest the behavior of public entities by protesting: for example, picketing and handing out flyers on the sidewalk in front of Urban Outfitters. Sometimes, though, I wonder about more subtle ways to damage an organization. Most people don’t realize it, but scents are extremely powerful. I’m not just talking about putrescine: Butyl isocyanide, for example, is a shockingly effective deterrent at low concentrations, and defies all attempts at containment:

Butyl isocyanide proved to be so disagreeable to manipulate that none of its physical constants except boiling point were determined. Even when a hood with an extra forced draft was used, the odor pervaded the laboratory and adjoining rooms, deadening the sense of smell and producing in the operator, and in others, severe headaches and nausea which usually persisted for several days.

Would you enter a store which smelled that bad? Depending on the target, we could be talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

A few drops just inside a storefront could effectively deny sales for days. You could introduce it to the HVAC intake of a structure, possibly inducing the evacuation of the building within minutes. Heck, can you imagine what would happen if a political candidate’s offices were infected with a compound like this in the final days of an election? Any time-sensitive operation could be interfered with invisibly.

A smashed ampule could render a vehicle inoperable for weeks. These things could be tossed through windows or against walls. In some dystopian future, a detestable person might weaponize such scents, designing rifles which could deliver clouds of unbearably smelly n-butyls into a board meeting or against a military target, or deliver them by microlight drone.

Or worse yet, hollowpoint bullets leaving wounded nobody can stand to rescue.

I suppose the only reason people aren’t routinely gassed out of their apartments by vengeful exes is that isolating and delivering these compounds is almost as unpleasant as the intended results. I don’t think anyone has the gastrointestinal fortitude to actually work with these chemicals. Lucky for us: I don’t think society could take the consequences. Shit like this is impossible to guard against.