Hmm, it's interesting to think about. My initial reaction to it is that I don't have a day-to-day need to manufacture stuff, because when I moved into my first

Hmm, it's interesting to think about. My initial reaction to it is that I don't have a day-to-day need to manufacture stuff, because when I moved into my first solo apartment, I gradually bought the stuff I wanted to have (thinking things like furniture, various electronics, dishes, storage, etc.). I occasionally add or replace something, but that's something that happens at the scale of once or twice per month at most. I certainly don't need a machine sitting around that I have to buy and maintain and supply to fulfill this need. With computers, there are a lot of day-to-day tasks that become much easier. For example, before computer, everyone had to balance their checkbooks in order to know how much money they had. Now you can just log into your bank website or mint.com. People used to correspond by phone and physical letter to keep in touch with relatives (also on a daily or at least weekly basis), and now that's much easier. It's hard to say though. With computers, our "need" to perform large-scale automation and computation grew to fill the new capacity. Manufacturing is not as clear cut, but it seems reasonable to theorize that if our abilities to manufacture things grows, our "need" to do so will as well. And let's not forget that with computers, there was a period where people were saying much the same things that we're saying now.