[ClearCase_guy]

3-D printing is an important step toward nanotechnology. The idea that from a basic mass of material I can produce whatever I need, is a new way of thinking about scarcity. With nanotechnology it gets even more encompassing.

Science fiction author Neal Stephenson said (in "The Diamond Age") that there exist only the business of things and the business of entertainment, and the business of things is not very interesting when nanotechnology can produce anything.

And that sort of observation gets us back to Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" where information/entertainment simply becomes a control mechanism in a post-scarcity society which should have more freedom but which may end up with less freedom.

[ckilmer]

And that sort of observation gets us back to Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” where information/entertainment simply becomes a control mechanism in a post-scarcity society which should have more freedom but which may end up with less freedom.
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limited government requires unlimited natural resources. you move toward unlimited as you reduce the price of both water and energy.

A world where the cost of energy and water was 1/10th or 1/100th of todays cheapest energy and water would look very different than the world we know today.