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The 3D Economy — What Happens When Everyone Prints Their Own Shoes?
cold fjord writes: "According to Reason, 'Last May, Cody Wilson produced an ingeniously brief but nuanced manifesto about individual liberty in the age of the ever-encroaching techno-state-a single shot fired by a plastic pistol fabricated on a leased 3D printer. While Wilson dubbed his gun The Liberator, his interests and concerns are broader than merely protecting the Second Amendment. ... Wilson is ultimately aiming for the 'transcendence of the state.' And yet because of the nature of his invention, many observers reacted to his message as reductively as can be: 'OMG, guns!'... But if armies of Davids really want to transcend the state, there are even stronger weapons at their disposal: toothbrush holders, wall vases, bottle openers, shower caddies, and tape dispensers. ... In many ways, it's even harder to imagine a city of, say, 50,000 without big-box retailers than it is to imagine it without a daily newspaper. So perhaps 3D printing won't alter our old habits that substantially. We'll demand locally made kitchen mops, but we'll still get them at Target. We'll acquire a taste for craft automobile tires, but we'll obtain them from some third party that specializes in their production. Commercial transactions will still occur. But if history is any guide, more and more of us will soon be engaging in all sorts of other behaviors too. Making our own goods. Sharing, swapping, and engaging in peer-to-peer commerce. Appropriating the ideas and designs of others and applying them to our own ends.'"
I have to imagine that the climb to that level of 3D printing (assuming we ever get there) will be so gradual that society will have plenty of time to adjust.
So if I understand this correctly, thanks to the 3D printer we will soon have access to affordable items made of plastic.
Wow, it's difficult to even imagine what the world will be like!
Unless 3D printers can start molding metals, rubber, paint, and various other base materials then this is a non-issue. The article reads like 3D printers are going to become Star Trek replicators and somehow end the concept of branding. They're useful for fabricating small unique plastic parts, not making a stove, Benz, or Macbook Pro.
Show me a 3D printer that can print the following and maybe that can print a tire;
1. Different vulcanized rubbers for tread abd side wall. Currently there are no 3D printers that can print vulcanized rubber.
2. High tensile strength steel wire for the tire bead. Metal printing can be done but tempering is difficult especially when it is next to rubber.
3. Long Nylon fibers for the strengthening plies.
A tire is actually a very complex object requiring many different materials most of which can not be 3D printed.
Seriously before we go off in a discussion of how 3d printing will change everything, it'd be helpful to first understand how modern things are actually made, currently. When people talk about printing car tires, I just laugh. They don't have a clue what's inside a tired. I highly recommend watching "how it's made." then we can talk about what 3d printing is good for. I think 3d printing will revolutionize things but maybe not in the way most people think.
Creating moulds, tooling, prototypes, one offs, that's where 3d printing is hitting its stride. Or maybe structural plastic manufacturing. But complicated items like tires always will be complicated involving many materials and many construction techniques and steps.
What happened to supermarkets when people started being able to grow their own food?
Thanks for all the stuff, Foxconn, but we get our gadgets from Pirate Bay and MEGA now.
I really hate these kinds of articles. Foxconn mainly makes electronics like iPhones. There is no way to 3D print an iPhone. The glass can not be printed, The circuit boards can not be printed. The chips can not be printed. Lets get down to reality. 3D printing can make plastic objects and metal objects from a very limited range of material. Most objects we buy use other materials. Where they work they work very well but there are more things than can not be 3D printed than can. Many items that can be 3D printed are still much more economical to produce using conventional methods. For example a stainless steel mixing bowl can be 3D printed but it would take quite a while on a very expensive printer to make one and then would need to be polished. Using presses one could stamp out hundreds in the same time. Just because one can does not mean it is economical.
This whole "3D printing will change the world" meme is just stupid. Will some things change? Sure. Will a significant portion of manufacturing change? Not likely.
Assuming you could do all that, there'd be a massive safety concern as well.
You may have concerns about safety. But the people who subvert the evil tire cartel may not. To attempt to impose your narrow view of "safety" upon others is the very essence of statism.
It's amazing that one company has been able to obtain 80% market share in eyeglass frames in the US. It's not like they're hard to make. Frames start at $0.60 on Alibaba.
For really cheap glasses, you make them round. Ordinary lenses have three parameters - spherical radius, cylindrical radius, and cylinder axis. For round lenses, only the first two matter; the third is determined when the lens goes into the frame. So there's a briefcase-sized kit used in India with a set of standard round lenses moulded from polycabonate, standard round frames, an adjustable temporary frame for the eye exam, an eye chart, and a little gadget to notch the lenses to keep them from rotating once the desired cylinder axis is determined.
This is what people that think 3D printing will take over the world fail to realize.
THE MATERIAL PROPERTIES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SHAPE
You cannot 3D print out high tensile strength steel wire, because that strength comes from the orientation of the atom and molecules. That orientation is achieved by drawing it through a die.
Same the polymers that make up the Nylon wire.
Also the strength in a tire also comes from the directions rubber sheets are applied in.
the problem is instant manufacturing. It won't be a 3D printer in your home, it'll be one at the store. That'll be doable in my life time. Heck, some officemaxs already have 3D printers, and there's a little commune of hobbyists doing 3D printing too.
It means the end of an entire industry of logistics, shipping, etc. That combined with automation (most factories employee less than 100 people unless they're paying subsistence wages) is going to cause huge social upheaval.
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