Slashdot Mirror
Peer To Peer Meets Manufacturing
Crashmarik writes "Small times has an article detailing UCB advances in desktop manufacturing. They raise the possibility for effectively downloading physical objects through the net. We have allready seen the reaction "Property Holders" over downloading music, what is the likely upshot of being able to copy physical objects. More importantly what are the implications for our society as we move out of an age of scarcity to an age of plenty ?" Great article - the author of it also won The Foresight Institute's prize in communications for 2002.
When we have desktop universal constructors, then I expect the manufacturing world will kick up a stink, but unless I misunderstand the article the printers it describes can only make certain sorts of devices - mainly those containing plastics and certain types of electronics and specific sorts of movement in them. Sure, this is going to cut into the manufacturing market for some things, but nothing like a real UC could do...
The "Age of Plenty" will make (cough) intellectual property king, until we all realise that the resources have to come from somewhere.
Intellectual Property will die out just the same, as once people learn that sharing is the better of the 2. Each item mapped gives inventors more power and leverage to work with, hence more goods. It'll turn this capitalistic country into a pure form of socialism, one where all needs are provided. Or at least, could be capitalistic with a socialism base floor.
Still, fabs would have to be made and sold, and only a large fab could make smaller fabs. You also have the problem with Energy consumption. Fusors may be the only realistic way of capturing large amounts of energy.
There will STILL be an economy, just the balance of power will be radically shifted.
Desktop manufacturing is a long, long, long way off. You can do it with plastic bits, MAYBE circuit boards, but not much else. Technologies like these have revolutionized the manufacturing process - rapid mold prototyping for casting, and C&C machining of parts.
The fact remains though that you're not going to get the strength of cast aluminum or forged metal without very expensive equipment - that's not pessimism, that's physics.
..don't panic
These are cool. You can build any *shape* you want. Too bad you're limited to one (or a few) specific materials chosen more for their useability in this process than for other useful properties. What do you do when you need a copper winding for a motor? Iron core for a transformer? Hardened steel for a bearing race?
Basically, you can use these to make toys, mockups, and maybe most of the parts for certain items. But don't expect them to replace real manufacturing anytime soon.
Infinite free energy, along with infinite free labor, = socialism/communism, just like the P2P networks.
You say that like it's a bad thing. You are, of course, still free to be a dirt farmer, you just won't have to.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
and why would people continue to invent things?
Currently people create things (for the most part) to make a profit. If there is nothing to protect those profits (copyrights, patents, etc), what motivation is there to create something?
Where will the money needed to fund the economy come from? Taxation on the purchase on materials needed to use the replicator?
What motivation is there to create something, you say?
For recognition perhaps, but probably for the same reasons that open source projects work. Because somebody needs the invention to solve a problem.
You're confusing capitalism with innovation. People don't create things to make a profit. People create things to solve problems. Companies sell things to make a profit.
If there were not companies and no profits, the need for new inventions would not go away. When there are no more problems to invent solutions to, human nature dictates that we'll make more problems to solve!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
"More importantly what are the implications for our society as we move out of an age of scarcity to an age of plenty?"
Why would it be the age of plenty? Probably it will be the "age of more-power-to-the-DIYers", but you will still need the raw materials (which are scarce) and the design (which is scarce, too). Of course, it has the potential to cut down on costs, but there are lots of things that has cut the costs of manufacturing but we still live in the age of scarcity - and frankly, I don't see how it could change anytime with any technological advance: people will always find something that is scarce.
Real life is overrated.
"This technology is going to be bought out and buried, just like hydrogen combustion engines in the mid-nineties."
... would get STOMPED in the market if everyone could start selling their own designs"
That is entirely an urban legend, like the 200 mpg carburetor. This did not happen: the grave is empty.
"Big Business will never let this go through, ever."
Not true either, since business can profit from such things if they actually exist
"Corporations
It does not work this way. Look at music: people still prefer to download (legal or not) the products of the major record labels, even though "Self-designed" stuff is all over the place, often legally free.
"Corporations, with their long product cycles, their relatively low rate of innovation,"
Low rate? What do you mean?
and why would people continue to invent things? Currently people create things (for the most part) to make a profit. If there is nothing to protect those profits (copyrights, patents, etc), what motivation is there to create something?
Becuase it will make life easier, duh.
Sheesh, it the patent system were to disappear tommorow, it's not as if people would suddenly stop inventing things.
Problems exist, people invent things to solve those problems. I invent things all the time without patenting them. I invent them because the are useful to me, that's the incentive. Besides, people also do it just for fun.
Where will the money needed to fund the economy come from? Taxation on the purchase on materials needed to use the replicator?
There's so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start. Fund the economy? WTF?! Where does the money to fund all the beta-tape manufacturers come from? It doesn't. Nor should it. If everyone can get hot, fresh waffles from their household replicator, we won't really need waffle manfacturers anymore. What crazy idea makes you think we should keep giving them money?
"The economy" would still exist, it would just be different. Different things would be traded. No funding necssary
There seems to be a really weird idea floating around these days that just because you were able to make money with a certain business model, it's the rest of society's responsibility to preserve that situation. It makes me want to scream. (Think Sam Kinison) Should you be forced to buy horse feed just because, once upon a time, people rode horses? If course not the idea is ridiculous. If your business is obsolete, move on with the rest of society.
Life is too short to proofread.
You'd still have to buy raw materials, energy, designs, software, Repairs to your fabricator, newer versions of the fabricator that can make more elaborate products, etc...
Maybe economies will be more centralized around this method of production...
Maybe a lot of blender-assemblers will loose their jobs, but the overall system would still be the same... Think of when Automotive assembly lines went robotic... did that destroy the market for AutoWorkers? did the UAW collapse? no. Some jobs changes, some were ended, but new ones were created too (maybe nobody welds the frames, but somebody welds the robots!)
Think of the infinite new permutations the marketplace would develop for thes products too -
- Your Target/Michael Graves Fabs (everything comes out pastel blue and gray and bulbous)
- etc.
And then theres the Fabs that build Fabs, and those that build them... and all the materials that THEY'RE made of, and all the energy needed to create them.. and all of the food and entertainment and transportation and services and drycleaning and telecomunications and everything else that this development would hardly affect at all!"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." --Benjamin Franklin
No, no, no.
What you are concerned about was "totalitarianism", i.e. the philosophy that the state was all, and all citizens were subservient to it, existing only for the state. This is a separate concept from communism and socialism. The USSR, the Fascists under Mussolini, and the Nazis, were all good examples of totalitarian governments. "1984" was written as a warning against totalitarian policies.
Communism is a little different. It suggests that the means of production should be shared equally by all, and the fruits of the labor be equally divided as well. Communism as suggested by Marx was not evil at all. Modern-day china seems to be making a pretty good go of the idea; I think that aside from being a little overzealous in censorship (and their organ donor program, ha ha), they're doing fairly well.
Socialism (different yet again) suggests that a society's first duty is to its citizens, and that the purpose of government is to take care of the people (rather than, for instance, ensure the welfare of corporations, or wage ridiculous wars to help the oil industry). Canada, the most innocuous nation in the history of nations, is mostly socialist. Do you consider the canucks evil? Aside from the Kids in the Hall, I mean.
Let's be fair, kids.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!