# 3D Printing > 3D Printing News, Interviews & Editorials Supplied by 3DPrint.com >  Will 3D Printing Lead to a Utopia?

## Brian_Krassenstein

I wrote this article this morning pinpointing why I believe an Economically Utopian Society is very possible in the next 40-50 years or so.  As the various, up and coming technologies, converge with 3D printing, we will be left with a society that is capable of printing out nearly everything they could ever need, at prices which are close to nothing.  Here is the article:
http://3dprint.com/2430/3d-printing-...opian-society/

I would love to hear your opinions on this.  I believe we underestimate what the future holds.  I also believe in the following of trend lines.  If you do this, by 2050-2060, we will have such incredible technologies at such low prices, that I really do thing the world will be a much better, safer, and economically friendly place.  Of course a lot can happen by then to take us off this path...

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## WildZBill

An abundance of 'things' does not equate to Utopia. 
Plus, as our printers get better and better, the wealthy will just enforce stronger control over raw materials, and pass laws to restrict their use.

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## hiram

Utopia will not exist on Earth, man is too greedy, lustful and prideful for it to ever happen.

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## frederick78

> Utopia will not exist on Earth, man is too greedy, lustful and prideful for it to ever happen.


It's hard to say "never".  Who knows where we will be in 1000 years from now.  If you look at native american tribes, their lifestyles were based on almost no greed at all.  This is philosophy that one day could return.  May not be for another 1000 years but its certainly possible.

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## hiram

The nature of man has never changed, in Utopia, everyone would have to have the capacity to make their own moral decisions.

If man could make his own moral decisions, they would then be no need for government.

The laws and sizes of government prove that man is going backwards, technology has no bearing on man's morality.

If Man was moral, he would be able to obey all the old Testament laws as written in the KJV Bible, and there would have been no need of Jesus Christ who never sinned.

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## Feign

I think the phrase Brian was looking for is "Post-Scarcity Economy", which 3D printing could eventually help bring about...  In 50-100 years.

There's still plenty of room for unhappiness in a post-scarcity economy, though it seems to require some creativity to find where it would stem from.

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## hiram

A "Post-Scarcity Economy" and a Utopia are 2 different things.
Man will never lead to Utopia because man hates his creator, and mans selfishness and pride believes that he can create for himself a better god than the one that he already has. When man has created the god that he wants, he will reap the fruits of his labor because his god will see him as a problem and decide that the answer is man's destruction.

You see, man is not able to create a machine that can love.Only the real God can love and define it. No other god in history has done ---->

Joh_3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

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## Feign

Hiram, I'd say you're getting off topic...  But well, you aren't really.  The word "Utopia" brings up all kinds of other sticky subjects right from the beginning that probably didn't need to be discussed on a technology board in the first place.

In general, I find the concept of a Utopia to be anathema to morality.  If there is no choice that can be made but the "right" one, there is no longer a choice being presented.  Without the freedom to make a wrong choice, one cannot give value to making the right choice, they instead become automatons.  By comparison, a post-scarcity economy still requires choices to be made, skills to be developed, and work to be done, if only of the creative variety.  People would still have drama, but the likes of which make our current First World Problems look daunting by comparison.

As for mankind hating God...  Well, I can't speak for anyone but myself when I say that the more I learn about the universe through science, the more I love the mysterious force that who brought it all into being.  If someday we solve every mystery, science will not make the god you fear so much, but it will find the same one you believe in.

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## atoff

> I wrote this article this morning pinpointing why I believe an Economically Utopian Society is very possible in the next 40-50 years or so...


40-50 years is very very optimistic.   It's interesting that people so often think changes in technology will be so vastly different in such a short time span.  The same things were being said 50 years ago about flying cars and whatnot.  I'd give it more like 1000-2000 years before anything truly exciting occurs, if even then.  But honestly, I couldn't care less, because I won't be here for it (and I think that's why most people are so optimistic in their timelines).  :Wink:

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## hiram

Technology will never lead to Utopia. The end of this age is less than 1,000 years away, probably only a generation off at the most.

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## Compro01

> The end of this age is less than 1,000 years away, probably only a generation off at the most.


Uh huh.  We've been hearing that for a very long time and all predictions thus far appear to have been incorrect, given that we're still here and discussing this.

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## hiram

So have I, and that is why I only trust what the Bible shows me and not what people say.

Fact is that the Bible proves all of the "doomsday prophets" as incorrect to begin with.........

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## Geoff

> I wrote this article this morning pinpointing why I believe an Economically Utopian Society is very possible in the next 40-50 years or so.  As the various, up and coming technologies, converge with 3D printing, we will be left with a society that is capable of printing out nearly everything they could ever need, at prices which are close to nothing.  Here is the article:
> http://3dprint.com/2430/3d-printing-...opian-society/
> 
> I would love to hear your opinions on this.  I believe we underestimate what the future holds.  I also believe in the following of trend lines.  If you do this, by 2050-2060, we will have such incredible technologies at such low prices, that I really do thing the world will be a much better, safer, and economically friendly place.  Of course a lot can happen by then to take us off this path...


Human nature makes this impossible, forever. 

War, religion, politics.. You need to get those out of the way before I can even logically look at a Utopian society.

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## hiram

If everyone was moral, then, everyone would be safe.

Man is not moral......I already wrote what I know, my opinion is irrelevant.

The fruits of man's engineering will end in extinction. Man is imperfect, everything he makes is also imperfect.

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## Feign

Imperfection does not necessarily mean extinction.  Imperfection means the future will change.  While change is often extinction to those who cannot adapt, humans are one of the most adaptable creatures on the earth.

Besides that, Revelations talks pretty specifically about the end of humanity, and its description is _absolutely not_ mankind's technology destroying him.  You can't _selectively_ take the Bible literally only where it agrees with your opinions, you know.

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## hiram

Man will destroy himself with his own technology because he is not perfect and refuses to listen to knowledge and wisdom.

Man is just a bag or dirt with a wicked heart.

Then you do not understand Revelation.

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## Roxy

With all that said...   I look forward to the day our politicians want to start a war and say "They hate us because of our freedom to print!"

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## hiram

Our politicians get their power from the people that they govern acting immorally, all laws come by immoral actions.
If everyone was moral, there would be no laws.

The Founding Fathers knew this and knew that with a majority of the population judging themselves according to the Word Of God(KJV Bible) that they were moral and did not need a government with lots of laws to tell them what to do all the time.

You see, with freedom comes responsibility, think to when you were growing up, good decision making gave you more freedom with your parents than bad decision making, Government is exactly the same way.

A Government is able to control education, is able to create kids that are unable to make moral decisions which now government makes more laws for and is able to tax and remove freedoms away..

The Bible is the foundation of all good decision making skills, knowledge, wisdom, and integrity......No one understands this, which is why we have so many problems in "Utopia"

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## awerby

Of course - and all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds...

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## Geoff

> Imperfection does not necessarily mean extinction.  Imperfection means the future will change.  While change is often extinction to those who cannot adapt, humans are one of the most adaptable creatures on the earth.
> 
> Besides that, Revelations talks pretty specifically about the end of humanity, and its description is _absolutely not_ mankind's technology destroying him.  You can't _selectively_ take the Bible literally only where it agrees with your opinions, you know.


That's a shitload of 'imperfection' that needs to be cleaned up then.

There is one major distinction between *our* extinction and the extinction of animals on this planet. If we become extinct, it will most likely be our own doing.

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## mAcademia

"As 3D printing and robotics advance, and computer processing power, as well as cheap or even free energy takes hold, we may find ourselves in a world abundant with everything one could ever need."

Welp - that is a big assumption, which is totally unargued for in the article. 

Also, agriculture and service industries (doctors and scientist included), would still need to work even when no physical production would be taken place besides 3D printers. Are we assuming they are studying hard for 7+ years while everyone do what they want? In general i am calling sensationalist bollocks on this article, no point is substantiated besides the authors gut feeling.

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## DamianP

There's no need to argue the assumption. There are more than enough resources in this solar system to satisfy a few trillion people. The atoms that make up that cheese burger have been a billion different things. Leeching energy out of the enormous energy surplus raining down on us is the easy part. Developing the positional-chemistry needed for mature nanotech is the Holy Grail. This has already been done with femto-second lasers tweaked by genetic algorithms used to shape the waveform to steer chemical reactions in preferred directions. 
    I have to laugh at doomsayers who claim man is so vile and corrupt that nothing good can come of him. I see the ratio of time it takes to create vs the time it takes to destroy is like 1000:1 and despite that civilization advances. How could this be unless the ratio of people being constructive was more than 1000 times greater than the number of people being destructive?

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## hiram

What assumption are you talking about ? 
Why argue it if there is no need to do so ?
What is a doomsdayer?
Everything man makes is temporary, and technology merely displaces a problem why creating others.
What is the definition of constructive?
History proves that all men are corrupt, and only one man has ever lead a good life. 
It is God who defines what is good and what is evil.

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## heurlabs

At Heuristic Labs, we always knew LazeeEye would be useful for 3D printing; and through discussions with early backers and M3D (famous for record-breaking Kickstarter success w/ the Micro 3D printer), we're becoming excited about the implications of being able to digitize real-world objects, manipulate them digitally, then reproduce them back in the real world. We like to think of this concept as"matter remixing," and if you skip the middle step of editing, it can be considered "3D photocopying."

Why is this important? Well, consider how difficult it used to be to sculpt a statue or a bust of a person: it would require a master craftsman (like Michelangelo) of great skill and many years experience, and it cost so much that only kings and nobility could afford it. The process itself might take hours, days, or years (depending on size and material).

Today, digital tooling makes processes like this easier: some steps can be automated, one can draw on a computer perfect circles/lines/planes, and of course there exists an "undo" keyboard shortcut. Moreover, you can duplicate your models with one click, keep components used often, and let others fork or build upon your work (and vice versa). Overall efficiency is clearly increased compared to the days of yore... but still, being able to sculpt a photo-realistic 3D CAD model of something with complex features - like a person's face - is an ability relegated to a select few experts - who still require significant training or experience or talent or expensive software - and it still takes a while (hours or days). The truth is: 3D modeling is not yet available for everyone, and we are confined to a world of 2D photos and 2D printers.

But no longer! With the advent of commoditized, high-fidelity 3D sensing (like LazeeEye) and 3D printing (like the M3D Micro, or even the Nomad CNC Mill), the power to remix your world is now available for everyone. It's inexpensive, fast, and can be done by anyone with essentially no training.

How inexpensive? LazeeEye is $75, and the Micro is $300. How fast? The "Nickentaur" took about 60 secs to scan from multiple angles, another 60 to automatically stitch the multiple views, 5 mins to find a free horse CAD model online, 5 mins to cut, position, and blend the human torso w/ horse hindquarters and probably a couple hours to print in 3D (in our case, we just uploaded to shapeways.com, and after $50 and 4 days shipping time... we had a precision-crafted 6-inch Nickentaur figurine! It felt quite kingly.

Other examples: want to personalize/monogram your iPhone case? Done. Cup holder doesn't fit your 64-oz Starbucks mochaccino? Scan it, scale it, print a slightly larger one.

In conclusion... if you want a centaur model of yourself, or mermaid, or you want to tweak or remix any real-world object to your liking... go check out and consider supporting LazeeEye on Kickstarter! http://kck.st/1gVCcrB

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## MrSmiley666

Unfortunately a Utopian society is something we can only strive for but never have.
We will never be satisfied and thats the double edge sword that drives us to create a utopian society.

It doesnt matter if you have every thing you desire. You will get used to it and then you will be bored.
Look at the countless examples of the self-destruction of celebrities' lives.

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## Calvin23

I'm going to have to agree with heurlabs.

 :Wink:

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