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

[John]

I too have an major interest in machining and prototyping.

The sten gun is a good example, you can even download the files with the 
instructions for building your own from mainly stamped metal parts (just 
like the original). 
http://www.btmon.com/Other/Unsorted/Weapons_Pistols_SMG_Rifle_blueprints_and_construction_manuals.torrent.html

Might be worth noting that stamping foil for christmas cards at home and 
stamping sheet / plate aerospace materials for 4t robot drones are two 
considerably different tasks. The latter is not something that's cheap and 
easy to tool up for at home.

I believe the US (and probably Europe) already has a policy setup on 
exporting machine tools due precisely to the concern that they could be used 
for weapons manufacture, in the same way they have export policies on toxic 
chemical precursors.

I must say here that I suspect a great deal of this is at best scare tactic 
weapon lab talk to justify their tax expense.

Out of all of the sites I've ever visited on the net about machining, the 
only ones that seem particularly interested in the idea of making guns are 
those in the US. In fact, there's a guy in the US who was in the process of 
building his own cruise missle from off-the-shelf parts to demonstrate that 
a terrorist "could do it" - before he was stopped by the government I 
believe. A lot of these sites are doing it under the excuse of 
"demonstrating that a terrorist also could".

The problem is, a terrorist "doesn't need to do it". Nore do they need to 
make automated drones or hand build their own guns when they have guys 
willing to strap bombs to themselves (eager to do so and who'll be admired 
by their friends) and can buy AK-47's for a minute fraction of the cost it 
would take to setup the machines to make their own - I think an AK47 costs 
about $40 in Africa, or less.

In the US, you can legally pick up a guns in a matter of weeks as I'm aware 
of things. My brother was explaining how he'd been watching a TV show about 
US guys who'd formed their own armed group and where patrolling the Mexican 
boarder and inspecting people's Visas.

Perhaps in the future some terrorist group might want to have a go at 
building a cruise missle just for the fear factor. But in terms of realism, 
it's no where near a big enough threat to suggest banning the sale of 
machine tools to the public domain in my opinion. I also suspect that 
they'll probably just try buying a prebuilt missile of some form - maybe 
from a Lockheed stock clearance sale.

There are newer and more advanced kinds of rapid desktop prototyping being 
released now, like stereolithography. That's presently limited to resins and 
plastics mainly. Combining it with some form of sintering process would 
allow for people to print metallic and ceramic items. Again, are terrorists 
going to bother when the machine costs $30k and the weapon $30? I doubt it.

A terrorists version of a high tech bomb is one with a 555 timer and LEDs - 
beginner electronics stuff.

Personally, I was amazed at how much complaining people did about not being 
able to take things into the cabin with the aeroplane problems. You're going 
to be sitting there for a few hours. Are you planning on doing a touch of 
water colouring painting along the way?

Whilst on the topic of weapons, the US is currently looking at redesigning 
it's nuclear warheads with some form of more reliable version featuring 
environmentally friendly material subsitutions (no, I'm not joking). Only 
problem is, Bush Senior signed up for an end to nuclear weapons testing. 
Lets see how that stands in five years - it doesn't take a whole lot of 
imagination to work out how the Middle East might react to such a change of 
heart.

John 




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