A Thought Of What's To Come

Kristov

11th May 2009 - 09:34 PM

It’s 2029 and latest version of the Fab-at-Home Desktop Replicator has caused a world-wide economic crisis. The value of industry has collapsed in the face of millions of 3D printers capable of producing ANYTHING the heart desires, even the 3D printer itself. The dependence on corporations to produce the goods and products we need/want/desire has officially come to an end! Companies are reduced to R&D departments and even then individuals with the ideas no longer see the benefit of working for anyone but themselves (and prestige). Traditional factories come to a stand still, warehouses overflow with inventory, transportation of goods is no longer needed, and the shopping center is unnecessary.

Schematics are scanned, uploaded, and spread across the globe for anyone and everyone to access, download, and replicated at near zero cost. Control on this information is attempted; iTunes sells the latest version of the iPhone for home production right alongside music, movies, and applications, but few pay as intellectual property is stolen in mass. The Copy Right violations that rocked the music industry in the early part of the 21st century pales in comparison to the value of the blueprints of devices that are now accessible online to anyone who cares to search for it.

The impacts this scenario will have upon the world’s economy is undeniably unprecedented. I would like to put forth to the community as to what your thoughts are to how these events may play out, and what this will mean to the standard of living in the 2030’s. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome.

Just Wonderful

11th May 2009 - 11:23 PM

QUOTE (Kristov+May 11 2009, 09:34 PM)

[B]
Schematics are scanned, uploaded, and spread across the globe for anyone and everyone to access, download, and replicated at near zero cost.

OK;
I'd like to order three 20 megaton nuclear tipped ICBM's complete with independently guided MIRV warheads....
Er, make that four.....Iran wants one too.

I promise I won't use them to destroy anything.....trust me, really....I promise.

QUOTE

The impacts this scenario will have upon the world’s economy is undeniably unprecedented.

Quite an understatement.

......

MjolnirPants

12th May 2009 - 02:47 AM

I think you'll see a transition similar to the one the music industry made in the past few years, from industries focusing on finished products, to instead focusing on limited-use digital versions.

For instance: Instead of buying yourself a new iPod for $600 at your local Apple store, you'll instead order and download the specs for the new iPod in the form of a digital file which only allows itself to be used once, for the cheaper price of $200, thanks to your prior willingness to invest $10,000 into a desktop fabricator.
Not that this would damage the market overmuch, because somebody still has to build and sell the fabricators, and somebody still has to gather and sell the raw materials it needs.
The replicators on Star Trek seem awesome, but what one has to consider is that by the time we can take the energy such devices run on (in the form of electricity, light, or plasma) and convert that into matter in a form and structure of our choosing, such economic concerns will likely not be an issue.
Most likely, desktop fabrication will require steel for the steel bits, plastic for the plastic bits, and so on and so forth. This means there will continue to be a demand for raw materials, the production of which is the very basis of continued, stable economic growth.

Michael J

12th May 2009 - 04:51 AM

3d replicator seems much more complex than you guys might be thinking to be able to be used on such a scale to disrupt the economy drastically?

Unless we could use raw protons and electrons to fabricate whatever material required, on a small scale, gathering a whole bunch of materials to make something seems too costly and inefficient. To replicate my mp3 player, i would need a few different metals, whatever is used to make the different plastics, and whatever is involved in making batteries. In order to do this some-what cost efficiently, i'd have to have already chosen out the exact materials required. Even then, that would limit me to certain items such as other mp3 players only, and i would have to buy all the raw materials to make something else, such as my subway lunch after

.

If we found a means of teleporting raw goods at a small fee for use in your 3d printer device, that could be more cost effective, and make building whatever you want, whenever you want much more possible.

I think mjolnirpants got it pretty good on the economic growth. The market of fabrication may be down, but raw goods and online sales (if protected) would still thrive. Plus whoever makes these 3d printers (competitors), and those who fabricate accessories will be doing pretty good.

Think of it like in early north america, when canada for example transitioned from selling raw goods to fabricated goods as such industries began to start up. Pretty much, the world reverts back to raw goods mostly, and all that happens is the market is shifted from one thing to another.

MjolnirPants

12th May 2009 - 03:41 PM

QUOTE (Michael J+May 11 2009, 11:51 PM)

Alternatively, you could store respectable amounts of various materials until they are used up, and then replace them as needed, similar to the way desktop printers allow you to replace or refill only the yellow cartridge when it's empty, instead of forcing you to go out and purchase the exact amount of ink you need for each project.
If these fabricators worked with any efficiency (which they would need to in order to be marketable) then the materials you would need would consist of a few dozen elements, stored in tanks in liquid form, with the occasional need to purchase a new tank for some rare element, or to buy a single-use tank for that special project.

QUOTE

If we found a means of teleporting raw goods at a small fee for use in your 3d printer device, that could be more cost effective, and make building whatever you want, whenever you want much more possible.

I doubt that will ever happen. There are a lot of issues with teleportation, and the way it works would essentially require such a desktop fabricator in order to assemble the materials from a pool of subatomic particles. If the desktop fabricators could do that, there would be no need for mining, as you could simply gather a collection of protons, electrons and neutrons with which to assemble any material. And again, by the time this is possible, such economic concerns will not likely be an issue.

Kristov

12th May 2009 - 08:35 PM

QUOTE

I'd like to order three 20 megaton nuclear tipped ICBM's complete with independently guided MIRV warheads....
Er, make that four.....Iran wants one too.

Let’s just assume that Radioactive Materials, especially Uranium will not be a raw material that one can easily obtain in the future.

I'm envisioning these machines are capable of constructing devices on a molecular level. Plastics, metal alloys, and circuits meticulously arranged rather than having materials spewed like today's 3D print machines. The raw material would be available in cartridges which could be a potential economical foundation unless these machines could also deconstruct materials at a molecular level. Thrown in a rock and it would break it down to its basic elements and then rearrange them into cutlery. Don't like the cutlery anymore, throw them in and create a picture frame. Trash becoming a valuable resource, yeah Somalia.

These machines will be able to create the components to produce another 3D fabricator, desktop replicator, whatever you want to call it. As long as you have the raw materials, which will be very cheap and very plentiful, these machines will be able to reproduce themselves and be wide spread in very short amount of time.

The bottom line is, 20, 30, 50 years from now the rise of personal fabrication machines will basically mean the end of the vast majority of corporations that produce goods. Having a factory capable of producing an array of goods at your disposal will eliminate the need for 50% to 80% of what we buy. Perhaps even food can be generated, nature does it why cant we.

AlexG

12th May 2009 - 10:40 PM

The purpose of the economy, any economy, is to provide the populace with goods and services needed. If the populace can provide these goods and services for themselves on an individual basis, there's no need for an economic framework. If everyone can produce what they need, who cares about corporations? They'd be unnecessary.

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