Devils Advocate

I found an article in the The Philadelphia Inquirer about 3-D printing, a recently new way of being able to produce almost anything without going to a retailer. “Invisalign, a San Jose company, uses 3-D printing to make each mouthful of customized transparent braces. Mackenzies Chocolates, a confectioner in Santa Cruz, uses a 3-D printer to pump out chocolate molds. and this year, Cornell University researchers used a 3-D printer along with injections of a special collagen gel, to create a human shaped ear.” Many people that love this machine feel that this is the way of the future, the new industrial revolution. They also say this will benefit us so much, by enabling us to download blueprints of anything and being able to print them in our own homes. I am not so sure if the benefits out way the cons. 

Yes the average person will be able to make complex things that they would never have been able to before. But thats going to hurt companies who were the only people making the product. This would destroy many companies financially. Not only because they are not selling enough products but because of the competitive market. If someone decides to make their own company with the same product they can now do it cheaper with 3-D printing. There would be no way the original company would be able to match the price without taking a loss.

Another reason this is not a good idea to mass market 3-D printing, is because there are blueprints for guns and ammo. That means if someone wanted to hurt people they no longer need to buy ammo they can make as much as they want to in their own house. That would mean all the new laws about how much ammo can be sold is pointless. It would be very hard to regulate this new threat. The idea of weapons and ammo are so promising from the 3-D printing “The Obama administration has launched a $30 million pilot program that includes researching how to use 3-D printing to build weapons parts.” 

This is all happening on todays 3-D printers imagine what we will be able to make in a few years when these machines become even more complex then they are now. We will literally be able to make whatever we want, when we want it. No one will be able to stop us. Besides that this machine will hurt our economy so much. I don’t think we realize the impact it is going to have on us.