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Worthless: 3D printing is nothing but a nerd fad that won't leave hobbyist workshops.

6 (3%)

Unimportant: 3D printing will become common but won't be useful for much other than tiny full plastic objects.

8 (4%)

Minor Importance: 3D printing will function as a light industry that will coexist with existing manufacturing methodologies.

43 (21.4%)

Moderate Importance: 3D printing will challenge and slowly replace a large number of existing manufacturing businesses.

104 (51.7%)

Major Importance: 3D printing will completely flip the table on conventional manufacturing and quickly destroy existing business for anything you can make with them.

20 (10%)

Critical: 3D printing will disrupt conventional ideals of work and money so much that they collapse and are replaced in a paradigm shift.

20 (10%)

Total Members Voted: 199

[Scoops Novel]

Presumably, the shift in (the intent of) employment would be to making certain there will be resources.

[Akura]

3D printing technology used to build a bronchial splint to save a baby's life.

Hopefully this will lead to other medical uses?

[SalmonGod]

Hold on, now. Most of the human race consists of middle men. There will be huge consequences for cutting them all out without something to fill the void. Even with something to replace all those jobs, that's a huge social-economic upheaval.

Just food for thought.

This has been my exact point.  In fact, I've been making this point even when 3d printers weren't the subject.  The function of our economy is stupid, and needs to be deeply re-thought.  It's only going to keep becoming a more pressing issue.  People should not go obsolete along with their jobs.  People should not work merely for the sake of working.

[Scoops Novel]

Where do you think it will go, and will it be a blindside, particularly if we see it coming?

[forsaken1111]

Hold on, now. Most of the human race consists of middle men. There will be huge consequences for cutting them all out without something to fill the void. Even with something to replace all those jobs, that's a huge social-economic upheaval.

Just food for thought.

This has been my exact point.  In fact, I've been making this point even when 3d printers weren't the subject.  The function of our economy is stupid, and needs to be deeply re-thought.  It's only going to keep becoming a more pressing issue.  People should not go obsolete along with their jobs.  People should not work merely for the sake of working.

People will only 'go obsolete' with their jobs if they refuse to continue their education. Not much call for punch card readers these days even if it was a big calling at one time. Those people, if they didn't pick up new skills, are out of the job and 'obsolete'.

[Scoops Novel]

Not when your economy hinges on it, like say China.

[Pnx]

Hold on, now. Most of the human race consists of middle men. There will be huge consequences for cutting them all out without something to fill the void. Even with something to replace all those jobs, that's a huge social-economic upheaval.

Just food for thought.

This has been my exact point.  In fact, I've been making this point even when 3d printers weren't the subject.  The function of our economy is stupid, and needs to be deeply re-thought.  It's only going to keep becoming a more pressing issue.  People should not go obsolete along with their jobs.  People should not work merely for the sake of working.

People will only 'go obsolete' with their jobs if they refuse to continue their education. Not much call for punch card readers these days even if it was a big calling at one time. Those people, if they didn't pick up new skills, are out of the job and 'obsolete'.

Except of course there's just not enough jobs to fill the ones that are disappearing. When mechanisation took away the demand for farmers, people moved over to the manufacturing industry, when mechanisation took away the factory workers, people moved to the service industry, when mechanisation takes away the service industry, where are people going to go for work?

[SalmonGod]

People will only 'go obsolete' with their jobs if they refuse to continue their education. Not much call for punch card readers these days even if it was a big calling at one time. Those people, if they didn't pick up new skills, are out of the job and 'obsolete'.

A human being should never be considered obsolete and disposable on the basis of their skillset.  Period.

And besides, your expectations are unrealistic for many reasons.

1.  A person who gets laid off because they're not needed anymore still needs to have some way of supporting themselves while they retrain for something else.  What you're saying is that someone who finds themselves without income should somehow magically afford to continue living and paying for a new education, until they have an income again.

2.  Many of the people whose jobs are going obsolete have been doing those jobs for a very long time and are getting old.  Besides the fact that it's generally more difficult for people past middle age to learn new things, especially pertaining to technology.  It's really unfair to expect someone who had another 10 years to finish up preparing for their retirement so they can live out the last years of their life expectancy to suddenly have to set themselves back who knows how long on a bunch of educational debt that will probably keep them working until they die.

3.  There is simply less work that needs to be done.  We're going to hit a point where actual labor is in very, very low demand, and all that's left is scientific, creative, medical, or engineering work.  Plus, the standards and complexity of those types of work is constantly increasing.  Not everyone is cut out for it.  You can't expect every person alive to go out and get a hard science or art degree to survive.

[forsaken1111]

If there aren't enough jobs, I guess the only solution is to start removing people. We're certainly not going to stop progress just because there aren't enough unskilled labor positions for people with outdated skills.

[Pnx]

...

Sure, why not? I mean we can just phase the human species out of existence as we become obsolete.

[FearfulJesuit]

Well, what do you do then? You can't just hand everyone a $25k/year minimum income stipend- that's financially unfeasible.

[Lagslayer]

I've said it a dozen times before, and I'll say it again. We need to enhance our own biology! Not replace, enhance! We have the technology. We know how to make steroids for brain and muscle power. We just need to use it. But somewhere along the line, it all became taboo.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

3D printing technology used to build a bronchial splint to save a baby's life.

Hopefully this will lead to other medical uses?

Not surprising. 2012 was when we hit the threshold for decent artificial, modified, and grown organs. Expect to see major changes in the next couple of years.

...

Sure, why not? I mean we can just phase the human species out of existence as we become obsolete.

A direct resource or post-scarcity economy does not equal the end of humanity any more than cybernetics equal the end of humanity. No offense Pnx, but I find your fears on this stuff to be totally arbitrary. We do things today that are radically different from how humans used to act, but it did not mean that we stopped being human.

[forsaken1111]

At one time the thought of life outside of a feudal system, or a society NOT built on owning slaves, was equally unthinkable.

[Scoops Novel]

I've said it a dozen times before, and I'll say it again. We need to enhance our own biology! Not replace, enhance! We have the technology. We know how to make steroids for brain and muscle power. We just need to use it. But somewhere along the line, it all became taboo.

It's unlikely to be universal. The problem here is that it wouldn't be post-resource, it would be easy access. Actually, i wonder how the price cut as opposed to all the middle men will weigh up in resource use.