3D printing scarier than sharks, claustrophobia, spiders, wasps and even babies

I see a lot of odd videos on Youtube about 3D printing, but this one takes the cake, and was just begging for me to have a little fun with it. I’m horrible, for posting this, I know. But, it’s a slow Sunday morning, so I thought I’d share it so you can have a little chuckle on Saint Paddy’s Day before you head out for your green beer.

The young lady is very afraid of 3D printing. With all the media scare about printing guns, I first thought that would be her subject matter. But no, she’s got a bit larger problem with it — she’s afraid of how 3D printing will cause “an entire collapse of the world economy.” Hell, it’s even scarier to her than sharks, small spaces, oceans, being trapped buried alive, spiders, wasps, and even babies.

Have fun, and Happy Saint Patricks Day.

Sidenote to the Youtube video maker: You actually sound like a smart girl. While I too have wondered what all the low-skilled labor we have will do, don’t be afraid, additive manufacturing will bring unimaginable benefits to the world, including some areas you are probably interested in and haven’t thought of, such as the bioprinting of replacement human organs and the environment.

http://mike.mired.org Mike

I think she’s got one thing right, in that most people involved with 3d printing are still looking at it as a spiffy tool for makers (which it is), whereas to the public it’s going to be another step forward in making our lives easier. Instead of ordering something from iThings and paying extra to get it in a day or two instead of a week, you’ll download it and print it now. While this will certainly be disruptive in ways that we haven’t seen before, it’s no more going to destroy the world economy than the combination of the internet and digital music destroyed the music/movie/book/magazine/newspaper economies. In other words, companies that have problems adopting to the new order will be in trouble, but new ones that take better advantage of it will show up, and when it’s over we’ll have more stuff that’s easier to get.

A more compete analysis can be found at http://blog.mired.org/2012/12/3d-printers-and-thing-store.html
http://www.hearfones.com Pete Mickelson

All is not lost! Gabby Krieble is a master at irony, and an energetic speaker. It’s a miracle that a high school gurrl is even aware of 3D printing and some of the things we hope it can do someday. Her active imagination and humorous concern are what we sorely need in engineering these days, and I — for one — would love to lay some new ‘VLOG’ thoughts on her desk as she goes on to tackle future subject matter and — yes — starts thinking seriously about what she wants to do with herself. Too bad it seems to be a blocked path for responding, but the school does need to protect its students’ privacy.

Mike, I admire your thoughts too, but wonder where our home printer is going to come up with ink bottles containing each of the elements and the appropriate energies that we’ll need to synthesize anything that we need. With an open mind, I can see a middle-school kid synthesizing a dangerous microbe by sheer accident or curiosity. Luckily, we have a few years to work out some of these wrinkles . . . I think.
Orion

You shouldn’t make fun of her. She’s smarter than you. Here’s why:

“While I too have wondered what all the low-skilled labor we have will do, don’t be afraid, additive manufacturing will bring unimaginable benefits to the world, including some areas you are probably interested in and haven’t thought of, such as the bioprinting of replacement human organs and the environment.”

Are you clueless? The western economies, with their large manifacturing and retail sectors, lack a tremendous amount of jobs.
Have you ever wondered what would happen to the developped world if these two key sectors of their economies disappeared?
There would be millions of jobless people struggling for basic commodities such as food and shelter. Sure, 3D printing will be very profitable and wonderful for the wealthy, but the poor should be afraid of it. What’s the point of replacing human orgasms if you can’t even get a basic job to put food on your table? And don’t forget all the high-skilled manifacturing jobs that will disappear with
the awakening of this new technology. It will be a true revolution, sure, but an unpleasant one for the average working men and women of the entire planet.
http://mike.mired.org/ MIke

+Orion, yes, it’s going to disrupt some major areas of the economy. That’s going to be temporary. The US manufacturing economy lost 7 million jobs as it moved outside the country, turning the factory belt into the rust belt. Apple even thought that it was worth pointing out that their new Mac Pro would be built in the US. Economies change with technology – there’s nothing you can do about it. But it generally makes things better for everyone. In this case:

+Pete, the raw materials are largely going to have to be purchased and delivered. A lot will go online, and then be shipped, making those sectors of the economy grow a lot of jobs. I suspect there will be boutique materials stores as well, also creating a new set of jobs. Yes, UPS treats their drivers like shit, but that’s still a step up from being a greeter at Walmart.

The worry about “manfuactured microbes” is equally bogus. Yes, we build really, really nasty diseases for military purposes. But we do that by tweaking naturally evolved diseases. The existing organisms have had a few billion years practice at killing each other, and evolving to get better at it. Nobody is going to build an organism from scratch that’s competitive in that environment, especially not by accident. Ditto for gene modification – unless they get their hands on the same kind of stuff the military starts with. That’s going to be like nukes – it’ll be easier to steal it from the government than to make your own.

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