• Invented in 1947, microwave ovens didn’t become a popular consumer product until the 1970s, but by the 1980s most kitchens had one.
•   It changed the way society worked in first and second world nations.  Fewer sit-down dinners; more on-the-go snacks; eating at any time of the day, and all without need of extensive preparation. 
•  While 3D printers are fascinating and amusing toys now, these will soon be an adult necessity. The leap in this technology, from making unmoving block like plastic items, to intricate building blocks, making fascinating structures. And now, printing DNA, to plant based meat that we consume, to the clothes we wear. 

This changes everything, over time. How bows and arrows changed war; the printing press changed literacy; commercial looms put weavers out of business; radio changed information delivery; cars changed how far someone traveled in a lifetime from 40 miles to hundreds per week. our potential move to limitless. 

Looking Closer

The earliest 3D printer was considered an SLA (Stereolithography), first invented in the 1980s. They were cumbersome and mostly useless. 30 years later, and these printers are able to build structures just a few microns thick, slowly printing meticulous detail,like when a person is beamed up to a Starship in the movies.  This is repeated, layer-by-layer until the object is complete.

 

 

 

Not Just Plastics and Resins

What most people don’t know is that we are now printing in many different materials including (for instance) chocolate and sugar to make extremely intricate desserts in fancy restaurants.  We can print in wood, ceramic, concrete, glass, all sorts of metals, and even liquid crystals (like your computer screen).

For example, we 3D print the 10-foot tall nozzles for rocket engines out of copper-chromium alloys with another type of 3D printer called the DED (Directed Energy Deposition) model.  This utilizes powdered metal and lasers, and the technique is so efficient, it cuts production time in half over traditional methods.  What would ordinarily take a large part of a year can be done in a few months.  This is much like how SPACEX makes parts for its Dragon-9 rocket engines.

 

 

The large fuselage sections for a rocket ordinarily take 60 days to manufacture.  Using 3D technology they can be printed in just six days.

 

 

There’s More!

We can print in lab-grown biological materials to create “meat”. Or you can make crunchy fresh carrots, if desired. 

We can now print with any biological cells, with gathering limitations, so you could get all internal organs replaced, if needed. Made from your own cells. The building blocks of your body. Lose an ear to frostbite?  Doctors can print a new one.   

 

 

We can even print permanent skin for burn victims very quickly, while encouraging the natural skin to grow.  Which provides cleaner, better, safer healing, and less scarring.  This versatility, or ability to print perfectly suited parts, means less “patchwork”.

Using your own DNA replacements means you will be safe from one of the toughest news. Organ Rejected. Additionally, 3D printing makes it so you will be far less prone to sickness. And you will gain a longer healthier life. 

While the current 3D technology is like stone knives and bearskins compared to its potential, we’re going to get there—and sooner rather than later.  Within a decade or two, 3D printers will be as ubiquitous as microwave ovens.  Many people may have more than one. 

Imagine having one in the kitchen where you select a food you want and the device prints it for you in just a few minutes.  It could be printed “raw” if you wanted to prepare it yourself, or “cooked” needing only to be heated up.  It is just a small alteration to some proteins to accomplish that simple change.

That second 3D printer might have its very own room in an average house.  It would be larger, sufficient to print a chair or table.  Beyond such simple things, however, it would be able to print extremely complex items using multiple materials, and maybe easier than building Ikea, but we didn’t say that.

Raw Materials

Infrastructure is required since you can’t make things out of thin air.  Materials must be supplied and will probably come in “cartridges”.  You may select various meat and plant proteins, flavors, and other basics for food printing, along with separate seasonings (real or emulated), according to taste.

You’ll have polymers and adhesives to make everyday items whose plans are freely available on the internet, such as bandages for cuts & scrapes, and ordinary household items.  On the other hand you may need custom packages of materials to make artisan items by independent creators/makers/artists.  

There hasn’t been an agreed on terminology, but the name Physibles is becoming popular to describe the mathematical instructions for a 3D printer to make an object. Supported by block chain technology, one could theoretically have ownership of a unique piece of art, or simply buy the rights to print particular items, like a Branded Purse or Watch.  These rights would come from the original creators to print something they have designed, and they’d be tighter locked than the patent office. So no more intellectual theft. Even if an object is a micron off, everyone would know it’s a forgery. Which has it’s positives and negatives. Like with life saving technology. Can that be owned in the future? If not, how do you pay the people you need to invent new cures? And without the currency, how do you motivate? Classic Carrot and Stick dilemma behind this disruptive technology.

Less Employment

You’ve probably noticed a trend here—that 3D printers will cause job loss.  For example, if you print something you need at home, it won’t need a factory; it won’t need a delivery truck; it won’t need a salesperson, or a store, either.  That will have a strong cascade all through society.  To solve that society will probably adopt UBI, or the Universal Basic Income (and all its variations); it is a direct (unqualified) payment to every person of a subsistence wage.  It helps poor people, and does little for rich people, but nobody is excluded. So expect rent to be about Two-Thirds of whatever the UBI is per month. 

Such a stipend might be $2,000/month per person.  Some research has shown that people benefit by having enough to cover all the basics.  They buy better food (and lose weight), pay for prescriptions (and stay healthier), return to school (to qualify for whatever jobs are available), and take the risk to open a business.  It gets rid of a lot of government overhead (too many managers and rules) and actually costs less to pay everyone and give them basic security than all our combined social programs!  

It is inevitable as the future unfolds even though some people think it won’t work.  All political parties have recognized some value value. But the downside is that we will need to instill a new sense of purposefulness in people

A Joblessness and Purposeless Life means massive lethargy, drug use, and aimlessness. If a person’s basic needs are being met, are they motivated to do anything productive? There’s no easy answer. Take a poll of people that grew up with millions of dollars at their disposal, never wanting for anything. How do they turn out? Mostly, not well.

There may be two outcomes to all of this. Maybe it’s the first chapter from the Star Trek universe where money is essentially useless, and people do jobs not for “pay” but for the thrill, desire, recognition, joy, excitement, and the pursuit of knowledge.

Or, there will be something put in place to control what anyone can make/consume in a given period. Those people would have total population control. Think China, but put in high gear. Yikes!

Recycling

Vitally important is the idea that used (and no longer needed) materials will be recycled.  A broken ceramic sink or toilet would be collected for a reprocessing center, ground down into powder, and used again to make a new ceramic object whether it is a ceramic capacitor for electronics or as pothole filler for a roadway.  

Our recycling technology will have to take significant steps forward to maximize the ability to reuse things, but it means we’ll need fewer original resources and thus reduce our impact on the planet.

Base Stocks

Although highly automated, we’ll still need to mine minerals.  A dozen people might be sufficient to run an open pit mine, and a similar sized crew even for underground mining.  Most of the equipment could function autonomously, be monitored remotely, and it would be safer for those remaining workers.

We already have machines that can almost auto-plant baby trees based on Grid Programing.  Resource gathering, maintenance, and replacement should be child’s play to automate, no matter what the resource.  

What Will We Do Without Jobs?

Ultimately jobs are going to remain in infrastructure (water, electric, sewers), but even those will be reduced.  For example, hydroelectric dams, windfarms, solar power stations, and nuclear reactors only need a few people to act as monitors for the generators. These could also be The Pillars of control.

Electrical distribution will still need electrical workers to fly alongside cross-country power lines by helicopter to make repairs.  Daily inspections could be carried out by drones, minimizing the actual time spent in the air by repair crews burning hydrocarbons.

Water purification plants would work well with just a few employees, too.  Chemical monitoring could be continuous instead of a human doing it just 20 times an hour.  And the process becomes perfectly reliable.

Sewer pipes might be constructed entirely by boring machines underground—too small for a human, and serviced entirely by robots with some humans watching through cameras.  You might never see a stretch of road closed for pipes, ever again.

The Future of Jobs

The focal jobs will be the creative occupations, once humanity has the burden of boring, dangerous, or repetitive work removed by automation.  Artists, whether they’re musicians, chefs, or painters will be sought after.  Programmers will still be needed to create for your VR or AR, or just a plain old XBOX.  Design engineers will make the Physibles needed, while massive mobile 3D printers will remove the hazards and drudgery of laying our foundations and building our homes on top of them. There will unfortunately be less need of people. But a lot more mouths to feed.

The Takeaway

It’s true and undeniable that 3D printing will change everything we think of as normal today, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.  The result of our 3D printing technology maturing is that many of us will have more leisure, and more time to be creative, but doubtful that will be the average. For a Positive future, there must be a fundamental change in the reward structure of society. Something must replace the standard form of payment as we see it. Or almost all people will just be on Welfare, sitting around unmotivated to progress.

In the long run, there is an interesting story about when the Loom was invented. All the people that were put out of work due to this great invention, threw their shoes into looms. To break them, or sabotage.  Those shoes are called sabot, and some people suggest that this is the origin of the word sabotage.

New Technology increased all our capabilities. And the people upset by change can often obtained new jobs, society advances, and look where we are now—gearing up to become a multi-planet species.