I do agree with some of what you are saying but also disagree in some ways.
When computers were first invented, everyone was talking about computers translating languages. Turns out it was a tougher nut to crack than they thought. Meanwhile, we used LED’s as that little indicator on our stereos way back in the 70’s. Then they discovered how to alter the chemical compound to make multiple colors and finally, white. And now the “white” can be tuned to any color temperature you want. and they are revolutionizing lighting as much as the invention of the incandescent bulb.
And back in the early 70’s, a remote controlled TV was a costly option. It was getting better and better, but then one day the electronic tuner was invented and with it the infrared LED remote. Now you can get remote controlled LED candles.
Yep, candles are virtually obsolete now.
And I compare the old mechanical tv remote control to the modern 3D printer. Give it a decade or two.
What technology does, often is not improve the current way of doing something, but attack it from a completely different angle, suddenly making the once impossible into a very simple and cheaply done thing.
Think Digital Photography. And we are nowhere near done exploiting that little gem of a technology. Many of us are STILL thinking of it from a “film” paradigm.
I think that in some ways the author is overly optimistic and in others not nearly optimistic enough.
“... When computers were first invented, everyone was talking about computers translating languages. Turns out it was a tougher nut to crack ...”
The reasons for lack of success in translating are not lack of computing power, nor lack of software innovation. No language translates precisely one-to-one, into another. Go ask the most junior employee of an international technical publishing firm.
Just because advances in digital computing have occasionally advanced farther, at quicker rates, than this or that wild forecast, there is no reason to assume all aspects of life will advance indefinitely, everywhere, at ever-steepening rates, without limit. Believing such is immature: unworthy of people who presume to style themselves “conservative.”
Making complete firearms by 3D printing will continue to present extraordinary challenges, in part because gun owners are iron-spined traditionalists of the most die-hard sort. No civilian buyer will be inclined to purchase an arm that doesn’t fire traditional cartridges, no matter how inexpensive such a gun might be. Bear in mind that the first metallic cartridge introduced is still in routine production: 22 rimfire short. It first appeared in 1857.