Colorado passes Gun Control Laws

[Ironside]

In my dystopia, it's a post-materialist world - it is post-materialist in the sense that in the absence of any other social relations, materialism and material goods are no longer something distinct from the society that they exist in - materialism ceases to be the phenomena it once was. Material wealth is so abundant that it has no value as material wealth - it is just a form of social expression. But rather than expressing natural social relations as in the pre-materialist society, material goods form the actual basis of social relations. Like I said earlier, people will not identify by community or faith etc, but by the mass culture that they buy and reflect in their material possessions. Whether it's their clothes, or their CD's, what they collect, or whatever.

A strange and scary world...

Also, I should note that I came up with the terms pre or post materialism by myself, maybe other people use them for what might be other meanings, but that is coincidental. I'm not meaning to identify with them.

I'm curious on how you come to that conclusion. The abundance of material goods will increase the value of non-printed products and non-material things, aka much as it is today. Retail will be hit hard in the west, but most consumer items are already produced in another country (like China).

The big expenses are housing and eating. Those doesn't disappear do they? So the need for work will stay, the excess money will be expressed in exclusive items, travels and "experiences" (like today). I can see it driving towards "worker redundancy" where normal employment will be less than the number of workers, but there's a lot of factors involved there.

[Papewaio]

It's not going to get rid of economies of scale or mass production.

It is going to open up mass production to more people. Shorten the speed to market.

Essentially as think of the ease with which a web page can be updated, so can 3D printing and its ilk.

However do not mistake 3D printing from removing factories anymore then home printers removed industrial printers. Nor think that everyone will become an artisan maker anymore then laser printers made everyone a published author.

It will level the playing field and allow smaller more dynamic outfits to get their designs out there. They still will use mass manufacturing... But it won't rely on their direct capital, it will be a pay per item model.

[HopAlongBunny]

Pffft! why not just scan your trinkets?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/st...atterform.html

[HopAlongBunny]

The death of Freedom?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/st...crackdown.html

[drone]

ITAR rears it's ugly head. Pretty ridiculous, but them's the rules.

[ICantSpellDawg]

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">ITAR</a> rears it's ugly head. Pretty ridiculous, but them's the rules.

We are being blocked from accessing information that we are legally entitled to because people around the world are not free. This is a bad omen, but we will begin fighting back harder. The government has decided to make their response a clumsy and rights abusing one. Our position will gain more traction than it had before.

International Isps who don't believe in freedom should block access to these sites, our government should not block American Citizens access to information which we are legally entitled to ESPECIALLY for the crappy rationale that "other people arent free to access, so our freedom should be curtailed"

Imagine how else this line of reasoning could be used against us. In the end, the files have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times in a matter of days and have now entered into the realm of the indominable common use around the world. They have been endlessly torrent seeded and will now exist on the global black market. Americans can still access the files legally, but new development will be curtailed, at least by defense distributed. And as 3d printers become diffuse we will see these guns pop up left and right

[Lemur]

ICSD, it would be a lot easier to take your arguments seriously if you hadn't been celebrating the filibuster of the background check bill.

Your credibility on this subject, outside of the self-selecting circle of NRA true believers, took a major hit from that.

On the face of it, sounds like the government was faced with a weird new situation and responded stupidly. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THAT HAS EVAR HAPPENED.

You might want to look at the case law surrounding cell cameras and police, as a parallel example. The guvmint always responds stupidly to a new technology that potentially threatens or limits their power. Then the courts come in and knock the executive back a bit. It's a process. It takes a while. Your NRA-style panic-hyperventilation does absolutely nothing to move the process along.

[drone]

We are being blocked from accessing information that we are legally entitled to because people around the world are not free. This is a bad omen, but we will begin fighting back harder. The government has decided to make their response a clumsy and rights abusing one. Our position will gain more traction than it had before.

Not really sure you understand how ITAR works. These are firearms (cheap POS's but still), which fall under the US Munitions List section of ITAR. If Defense Distributed wants to legally publish the printer files, they need to make sure downloads are limited to US IPs. If they want to publish to the rest of the world, they need to open a site in another country, and maybe form a non-US corporation to run it. Or, just maybe, get State Department approval before putting it out there.

ITAR is not about treaties or appeasing the commie pinko Euro gun-grabbers. ITAR is all about keeping weapons tech inside the US. Giving or selling military tech to other countries is controlled by the State Dept.