In the classic sci-fi film Metropolis the workers who man the machines that are essential to making that city work revolt against their masters flooding and destroying their own quarters beneath that city. With each passing day we see French workers blocking essential fuel supplies and rioting in the street to protest a rise in the retirement age. America increasingly is becoming more dependent on Chinese workers for all sorts of manufactured goods.
Now, imagine if you could produce goods without workers. A New York Times article published on September 13th raises this tantalizing possibility. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/technology/14print.html?scp=1&sq=3-d%20printing%20spurs%20a%20manufacturing%20revolution&st=Search A technology known as 3-D printing can be used to create an object by stacking layers of plastic or metal material on top of one another. This technology can enable inventors and developers of new products to build prototypes themselves while sitting at their keyboards quickly and relatively inexpensively.
But now that technology has been extended further, to the manufacture of iPhone cases, lamps, doorknobs, jewelry and, potentially, entire houses, by squirting out layers of a special concrete that can be used to build entire walls. See http://www.freedomofcreation.com/collection for examples.
What this could mean for our future; a world with millions unemployed, restless and idle, could make for another classic not so sci-fi film.
