6 ms·

If you view 3D printing as a baby-step to Trek-like replicator technology^, then you may see that its more of a moral imperative that 3D printing technology bec

by zephjc 14y ago

If you view 3D printing as a baby-step to Trek-like replicator technology^, then you may see that its more of a moral imperative that 3D printing technology become as cheap and elaborate as possible, as quickly as possible. The only bottleneck to providing material objects for free or next to free should be in finding raw materials that can be printed out, and as a start, there's lots of that filling up the world's landfills. Where sharing music and movies was pretty much zero real gain for file-sharers (you can live without the latest Lady Gaga album or Transformer movie), having access to super cheap working replicas of things like refrigerators, water purifiers, clothing, house-building materials, etc., can dramatically affect countless lives, especially in developing countries. The rug absolutely must be pulled out from under the feet of the manner in which material objects are created and distributed, hopefully diminishing the number of have-nots in the world. ^ Not necessarily real energy->matter conversion, but something nearly as cheap and elaborate.

vecinu 14y ago
> The rug absolutely must be pulled out from under the feet of the manner in which material objects are created and distributed, hopefully diminishing the number of have-nots in the world. I don't necessarily agree with this statement. I believe that even though overpopulation IS a pressing issue at the moment, its effects aren't as devastating because half of the world's population does not have access to a lot of materials. If everyone in developing nations suddenly manufactured their own parts, we would see a huge strain on non-renewable resources really quickly. I'm still curious if we have enough copper available to keep up with the demand for housing, electrical components and all the wires we are using to power our devices.
- ktizo 14y ago
  see a huge strain on non-renewable resources With a plastic chipper, feedstock extruder and a suitably stocked waste dump, this becomes less of an issue.
  - simcop2387 14y ago
    Two thirds of that is being attempted to be provided by a kickstarter that ran a while ago [1], he hasn't shipped anything yet but once he does I'll probably write up a review of how well it works. So far it looks to be shaping up to be working but how well it'll work altogether is another question that can't be answered by me yet. [1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocknail/filabot-plastic-filament-maker http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocknail/filabot-plastic...
- brohee 14y ago
  "If everyone in developing nations suddenly manufactured their own parts, we would see a huge strain on non-renewable resources really quickly." The plastic darling of 3D printing is PLA, which is as renewable as it get, and as non polluting as it gets.
crusso 14y ago
> If you view 3D printing as a baby-step to Trek-like replicator technology^, then you may see that its more of a moral imperative that 3D printing technology become as cheap and elaborate as possible, as quickly as possible. Nah, that's faith-speak. We don't have any idea if this technology will go much further beyond what is currently possible. This could be the "flying car" of the next 100 years that never fulfills its promise. While you declare it a "moral imperative" and we bend all laws and societal rules to accomodate it, what suffers? What great technologies and solutions are killed because you (and other true believers) have decided that this is the thing we should all worship and sacrifice everything to achieve? What of our liberties go away because you have a vision? 3D printing is very cool and I see great things coming from it, but it's not Star Trek. It's not Star Wars. It's not the Matrix. It is what it is and we'll see where it goes. In the meantime, my interest is in protecting the free market principles that have consistently created the greatest good for the most people. That means respecting some level of Intellectual Property rights in other markets and not just steam-rolling some game-making company because a guy with a 3D printer wants to use this humanity-saving tool to print out some versions of legally trademarked action figures.
- Bjartr 14y ago
  >This could be the "flying car" of the next 100 years that never fulfills its promise. Although I understand your point here, I thought I'd point out that this is a weak analogy because the problem with the flying car isn't that it's not technologically possible (it is, relatively trivially these days in fact) the problem is that it's a stupid idea. People have bad enough accidents when dealing with the two dimensions on a road, there's no way to make the technology safe enough to achieve the kind of market penetration the traditional automobile has. Without that the market forces for scaling the infrastructure necessary to produce and maintain such a 'fleet' don't exist. >While you declare it a "moral imperative" and we bend all laws and societal rules to accommodate it, what suffers? Those that want to continue to rely on a market model that is obsoleted by shifting the means of productions to individuals. >What great technologies and solutions are killed Those that are not pursued because there is not enough money in them under the new system. As opposed to those that are not pursued because there is not enough money in them in the existing system. >What of our liberties go away because you have a vision? The ability to make a bet that your creative work will be a success without the danger of someone in a better position to make money from the idea doing so. In fact we are already seeing the beginnings of a return to the modes of commerce prior to intellectual property laws such as an artisan being commissioned ahead of time to produce something by way of tools like Kickstarter which finally attempt to solve the discrepancy between our ability to produce and distribute and our ability to communicate. >my interest is in protecting the free market principles that have consistently created the greatest good for the most people My interest is in creating even greater good for even more people. Now, I'm not so arrogant to claim I know these new modes of commerce are better outright, I'm just saying that we don't actually know and we should give them their fair shot. Why should we settle when we could do even better? wow did I get off topic and start ranting or what?
jerf 14y ago
"super cheap working replicas of things like refrigerators, water purifiers, clothing, house-building materials," For the most part, the point is to prevent the laws from changing for these, rather than fixing current law. There is already no reason why you can't print those things. There are some reasons you can't just copy existing things, but in the end that's not a problem anyhow because we probably need to significantly modify the designs to account for being easily printable anyhow. Raw copying is just a bootstrapping note. Though I suppose the next generation of "X, but on a computer" patent will be "X, but printed via 3D printer".
gaius 14y ago
Right, but in Star Trek, you don't replicate a kettle. You replicate tea, Earl Grey, hot.
iamwil 14y ago
"The only bottleneck to providing material objects for free or next to free should be in finding raw materials that can be printed out, and as a start, there's lots of that filling up the world's landfills." Just to let you know, for desktop 3D printers like makerbot, you can print in either ABS or PLA. PLA is biodegradable and made from corn starch (iirc). While ABS (the plastic that legos are made from) smells like death when you melt it, PLA smells like popcorn. It doesn't have as wide as adoption as ABS at the moment since it's a little bit harder to work with. It tends to gunk up your extruder.
rprospero 14y ago
I'd argue that 3D printing isn't a baby step along that road. The road points toward the replicator, but it hits a dead end long before you get there. You still run into a basic materials problem. For instance, you mention 3D printing up a refrigerator. You'll still need some sort of compressor gas for the actual cooling sections. You're also not going to be able to print the permanent magnets for your compressor motor. The 3D printer will help you make the doors and shelves, but the parts that actually make the refrigerator worthwhile have material properties that you can't simply print out. You also mention clothes. Now, this is a possibility, if you're willing to clothe people in plastic shirts and pants. Effective, but highly uncomfortable and they're going to get pretty sweaty, especially in the developing countries where you want to do this. Now, if we want cloth clothes, things suddenly become much more difficult. First, the printer will still need plain fabric for input. Thus, all the machine is saving us is the cost of dying, cutting, and sewing the fabric. Considering that the jobs of cutting and sewing fabric have been shipped out to developing nations precisely because they have so much cheap expertise in those areas, it's not likely that a 3D printer is going to change much there. To put it differently, how would access to a 3D printer change things that their current access to a sewing machine hasn't? Don't get me wrong. I love 3D printing and can't wait to own my own. There's a lot of neat stuff that can be done with these. However, it will ultimately be a joint approach. Third world amputees won't be printing off prosthetic limbs. They'll be printing off adapter cups that connect to a mass manufactured limbs. There's just too much material science for most things to just be printed.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by zephjc 14y ago

vecinu 14y ago

> The rug absolutely must be pulled out from under the feet of the manner in which material objects are created and distributed, hopefully diminishing the number of have-nots in the world. I don't necessarily agree with this statement. I believe that even though overpopulation IS a pressing issue at the moment, its effects aren't as devastating because half of the world's population does not have access to a lot of materials. If everyone in developing nations suddenly manufactured their own parts, we would see a huge strain on non-renewable resources really quickly. I'm still curious if we have enough copper available to keep up with the demand for housing, electrical components and all the wires we are using to power our devices.

ktizo 14y ago
see a huge strain on non-renewable resources With a plastic chipper, feedstock extruder and a suitably stocked waste dump, this becomes less of an issue.
- simcop2387 14y ago
  Two thirds of that is being attempted to be provided by a kickstarter that ran a while ago [1], he hasn't shipped anything yet but once he does I'll probably write up a review of how well it works. So far it looks to be shaping up to be working but how well it'll work altogether is another question that can't be answered by me yet. [1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocknail/filabot-plastic-filament-maker http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocknail/filabot-plastic...
brohee 14y ago
"If everyone in developing nations suddenly manufactured their own parts, we would see a huge strain on non-renewable resources really quickly." The plastic darling of 3D printing is PLA, which is as renewable as it get, and as non polluting as it gets.

crusso 14y ago

> If you view 3D printing as a baby-step to Trek-like replicator technology^, then you may see that its more of a moral imperative that 3D printing technology become as cheap and elaborate as possible, as quickly as possible. Nah, that's faith-speak. We don't have any idea if this technology will go much further beyond what is currently possible. This could be the "flying car" of the next 100 years that never fulfills its promise. While you declare it a "moral imperative" and we bend all laws and societal rules to accomodate it, what suffers? What great technologies and solutions are killed because you (and other true believers) have decided that this is the thing we should all worship and sacrifice everything to achieve? What of our liberties go away because you have a vision? 3D printing is very cool and I see great things coming from it, but it's not Star Trek. It's not Star Wars. It's not the Matrix. It is what it is and we'll see where it goes. In the meantime, my interest is in protecting the free market principles that have consistently created the greatest good for the most people. That means respecting some level of Intellectual Property rights in other markets and not just steam-rolling some game-making company because a guy with a 3D printer wants to use this humanity-saving tool to print out some versions of legally trademarked action figures.

Bjartr 14y ago
>This could be the "flying car" of the next 100 years that never fulfills its promise. Although I understand your point here, I thought I'd point out that this is a weak analogy because the problem with the flying car isn't that it's not technologically possible (it is, relatively trivially these days in fact) the problem is that it's a stupid idea. People have bad enough accidents when dealing with the two dimensions on a road, there's no way to make the technology safe enough to achieve the kind of market penetration the traditional automobile has. Without that the market forces for scaling the infrastructure necessary to produce and maintain such a 'fleet' don't exist. >While you declare it a "moral imperative" and we bend all laws and societal rules to accommodate it, what suffers? Those that want to continue to rely on a market model that is obsoleted by shifting the means of productions to individuals. >What great technologies and solutions are killed Those that are not pursued because there is not enough money in them under the new system. As opposed to those that are not pursued because there is not enough money in them in the existing system. >What of our liberties go away because you have a vision? The ability to make a bet that your creative work will be a success without the danger of someone in a better position to make money from the idea doing so. In fact we are already seeing the beginnings of a return to the modes of commerce prior to intellectual property laws such as an artisan being commissioned ahead of time to produce something by way of tools like Kickstarter which finally attempt to solve the discrepancy between our ability to produce and distribute and our ability to communicate. >my interest is in protecting the free market principles that have consistently created the greatest good for the most people My interest is in creating even greater good for even more people. Now, I'm not so arrogant to claim I know these new modes of commerce are better outright, I'm just saying that we don't actually know and we should give them their fair shot. Why should we settle when we could do even better? wow did I get off topic and start ranting or what?

jerf 14y ago

"super cheap working replicas of things like refrigerators, water purifiers, clothing, house-building materials," For the most part, the point is to prevent the laws from changing for these, rather than fixing current law. There is already no reason why you can't print those things. There are some reasons you can't just copy existing things, but in the end that's not a problem anyhow because we probably need to significantly modify the designs to account for being easily printable anyhow. Raw copying is just a bootstrapping note. Though I suppose the next generation of "X, but on a computer" patent will be "X, but printed via 3D printer".

gaius 14y ago

Right, but in Star Trek, you don't replicate a kettle. You replicate tea, Earl Grey, hot.

iamwil 14y ago

"The only bottleneck to providing material objects for free or next to free should be in finding raw materials that can be printed out, and as a start, there's lots of that filling up the world's landfills." Just to let you know, for desktop 3D printers like makerbot, you can print in either ABS or PLA. PLA is biodegradable and made from corn starch (iirc). While ABS (the plastic that legos are made from) smells like death when you melt it, PLA smells like popcorn. It doesn't have as wide as adoption as ABS at the moment since it's a little bit harder to work with. It tends to gunk up your extruder.

rprospero 14y ago

I'd argue that 3D printing isn't a baby step along that road. The road points toward the replicator, but it hits a dead end long before you get there. You still run into a basic materials problem. For instance, you mention 3D printing up a refrigerator. You'll still need some sort of compressor gas for the actual cooling sections. You're also not going to be able to print the permanent magnets for your compressor motor. The 3D printer will help you make the doors and shelves, but the parts that actually make the refrigerator worthwhile have material properties that you can't simply print out. You also mention clothes. Now, this is a possibility, if you're willing to clothe people in plastic shirts and pants. Effective, but highly uncomfortable and they're going to get pretty sweaty, especially in the developing countries where you want to do this. Now, if we want cloth clothes, things suddenly become much more difficult. First, the printer will still need plain fabric for input. Thus, all the machine is saving us is the cost of dying, cutting, and sewing the fabric. Considering that the jobs of cutting and sewing fabric have been shipped out to developing nations precisely because they have so much cheap expertise in those areas, it's not likely that a 3D printer is going to change much there. To put it differently, how would access to a 3D printer change things that their current access to a sewing machine hasn't? Don't get me wrong. I love 3D printing and can't wait to own my own. There's a lot of neat stuff that can be done with these. However, it will ultimately be a joint approach. Third world amputees won't be printing off prosthetic limbs. They'll be printing off adapter cups that connect to a mass manufactured limbs. There's just too much material science for most things to just be printed.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]