[extropy-chat] Rapid prototyping makes police state more likely

[John]

> This is not a problem for next week.
> Obviously, nobody is going to buy a 50,000 euro fab to build a 500
> euro readily available gadget. But when the price of fabs come down to
> hobbyist prices, then.....

You should consider my point about whether or not this will actually happen
within the next few decades.

For a few hundred, you can already buy desktop CNC machines and still very
few people own them. Most of them are old guys making model steam engines or
younger guys making parts for their model helicopters.

Most people just don't want to be bothered with any kind of finishing on a
product. Unless it can emerge from the desktop machine entirely ready to go,
or just needing the batteries, I don't think there'll be anywhere near the
market demand needed to make them cheaply. And kids toy producing versions
wouldn't be particularly useful for making weapons.

The only way I can picture desktop fabricators based on things like
stereolithography becoming popular is when a user can go online, choose
something like an iPod and print it out. Without a vastly expensive setup,
it obviously won't include any of the processors etc. So the user will
either have to manually fit them (which almost none of their market won't 
do) or
the machine it's self will have to do it (more cost and complexity). Also, 
the
IC's would have to get to the machine somehow. Post, or pick them up from
somewhere? The only way to get round that would be for the machine to
include it's own silicon production line or be capable of nano-assembly.

People are ultra-lazy, but even still I think they'll probably just go to
Tescos and pick it up on their next shopping trip - precisely because
they're lazy.

> Ten years ago, who would have thought that 12 year old kids with a
> small amount of coding knowledge would be able to copy plans created
> by experts and make viruses that bring down computers all around the
> world? Or run botnets of thousands of controlled computers provided by
> ordinary users?

And yet terrorists have yet to utilise this, preferring the fertiliser bomb
and AK47.

John




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