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Comment by batbomb | Hacker News Reader

When nearly any service, technology, or community hits an eternal September critical mass, there's going to be people who don't adhere to the "don't be a dick" philosophy of whatever bandwagon it is that they are joining. At that point, the timer to the beginning of true disruption and the end of innocence starts ticking down fast.

AirBnB has hit that (several times, in several ways). Uber has hit that. The general tech industry and tech culture in the bay area has hit that. Drones and to a lesser extent, 3D printing, are getting pretty close. On demand services (Instacart, etc...) are close as well.

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It's also just a scale thing. Activities that most people are OK with as a occasional and informal person-to-person thing turns into something else entirely when "there's an app for that."

Yes. When I lived in an apartment building, I wouldn't have cared if one of my neighbors occasionally rented out their spare bedroom to a friend of a friend. But when half of the units in the building are renting out rooms, and some of them are 100% dedicated to short-term rentals, it gets to be too much. In other words, ruining it for everyone...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

I'm confused.. tragedy of the commons is when nobody owns something thus nobody takes care of it. Folks who rent on AirBnB either own it or have defacto control over it.

This isn't an example of tragedy of the commons at all.

> I'm confused.. tragedy of the commons is when nobody owns something thus nobody takes care of it.

"Tragedy of the commons" is a common name for a multiparty game that bears some relation to the two party Prisoner's Dilemma, wherein each party has a dominant strategy of defection, despite the fact that the resulting universal defection has a lower utility for all parties than universal cooperation would.

(In more economic than game-theory terms, this is a situation where cooperation has an internalized cost and an externalized benefit, and the reverse is true for defection.)

The situation where nobody owns exclusive rights to common grazing land and thus everyone overgrazes their sheep on it and wrecks it, resulting in harm for everyone, is the typical illustrative example from which the name is drawn, but the "Tragedy of the Commons" doesn't refer exclusively to the situation where waste results from the absence of exclusive rights.

Basically, it's when everybody does what's best for them personally, to the detriment of society as a whole.

Yes. When nobody owns something, nobody takes care of it. Consider the sound environment. No one charges you to broadcast your music or your voice through the air. Another example would be odors from cooking or smoking.

People in proximity share resources even if they don't want to. Anonymous temporary interaction affects what people think they can get away with. If we're neighbors for a year, we can sort out our differences and come up with some rules. I promise not to have a loud party without telling you in advance, for example. If we're having a shorter term interaction, say over a weekend, I don't know your expectations, and frankly i don't care. so i'll just go ahead and be loud till you call the police.

Ironically, the historic commons referred to there actually had customary rules that prevented overgrazing -- it wasn't the idealized "free-for-all" that this term now evokes -- and modern neighborhoods and apartment complex likewise have such rules to prevent overuse of public resources or common goods, such as limits on rentals to non-tenants (which are being flouted).

That was the irony I was attempting to point out.

See also Ronald Coase: The Problem of Social Cost.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/03/r...

I can see drones hitting that... I can envision lots of drones in the sky, and some falling down and hurting someone, but 3d printing? Who could ever be pissed off about that? 3d printing is very akin to a molding-clay hobby, I just can't conceive of any harm done through 3d printing. (Hobby CNC milling is getting big these days... now that I can imagine being dangerous/too noisy, but even those complaints are small)

There is already FUD about 3D printing being used to create untraceable weapons for criminals.

Lathes should also be outlawed, they've had the capability to create untraceable weapons for decades!

You can't make a handgun with a lathe, though.

Look, I get the point - excessive regulation is silly. But the idea of a 3D printed gun is without comparison in today's society.

It's not without comparison in today's society. Because, well, guns exist. Equipment that gun manufacturers use (which is probably a combination of lathe machines, milling machines, etc.) are not illegal for someone to have. There is probably regulation that those big machines have to be installed in your facility to some codes, but nothing that a normal person couldn't have have if they had the will and the money.

Anyway, that said, I think you're wrong factually too -- 5-axis milling machines have existed for a long time and they can create practically anything a 3d printer can (with much, much higher resolution if you've got the money).

This is going down a needlessly technical route. The overarching point is that it's possible to create something that is normally sold in a regulated, tightly controlled setting.

Now, either everyone should be allowed a gun without background checks etc., or lathes/3D printers/whatever that can manufacture a gun are a problem.

More likely, the 3d printed gun fanatics will be evolving themselves out of the gene pool as their printed receivers fail to contain the charge and they all wind up with stumps for hands or worse.

The difference is the learning curve and cost. It was the same thing in 1993, connected computers existed for a long time before that, but they were pricy and there was a steeper learning curve in the 80s to getting online. Even if the learning curve itself didn't drop, it's easier to surmount the learning curve when there is a critical mass.

With computers, prices dropped and the learning curve wasn't much of an issue anymore. CNC Mills and lathes still require a much greater skill and up-front cost than a 3D printer needs. With CNC machines, there's usually still an additional necessary step required to turn a model into a tool path, based on your machines. So you still have a learning curve no matter which way you cut it (pun intended).

I don't think 3D printing will be a viable way to distributively mass-produce weapons, it's the fact that somebody already has been able to produce functional weapons with 3D printing, and it's comparatively much easier buying a $10K mill and generating tool paths.

> CNC Mills and lathes still require a much greater skill and up-front cost than a 3D printer needs.

I think you're not up to date with recent developments in this space. What you say is no longer true with things like Carbide3d and Carvey. With this new line of "Desktop CNC milling" machines, it's as easy as 3dprinting (if not easier). And the price is comparable (if not cheaper). E.g., compare the Carvey with a Makerbot... or an Ultimaker. It's cheaper than both. If you're willing to be brave and buy a kit, it's even cheaper. Heck, even before this wave you could get a CNC router for very cheap. You could be under the 4 figure range -- with 3d printing it's hard to go below 4 figures and get a decent and reliable machine (though admittedly it very much is possible).

That's interesting, I had always thought the same as the poster you're replying to. It really shows the psychological/brand difference. I'm far more likely to go out and buy a 3D printer. Perhaps it's the word "printer" or it's some imagined preconceptions about the learning curve -- there is a lot of effort going into making 3D printing super accessible right now, and that's the problem pointed out a few comments up this thread.

When it's accessible to everybody it's accessible to the people we forgot were also included in "everybody", those with bad intentions -- or simply different ones, such as maximising their personal profit from an apartment rather than living there and being part of the neighbourhood. If we start seeing mainstream magazines talk about desktop CNC milling machines and classes pop up to teach kids how to use them -- and you know, with the Maker movement that's certainly possible and is probably already happening somewhere -- then these technologies become just as "dangerous" as 3D printers.

You can trace back every regulation to its inception a corresponding precedent where someone was being a dick. Of course now comes along the sharing economy skirting many regulations, and of course there are dicks here who abuse the system (which would have been caught by the original regulations which were in effect before this 'sharing economy' disruption).

Systems can be abused through many mediums. If hobby CNC machining had gotten big like 3d printing earlier, certainly we would have seen exactly the same kind of rebuke as some in the 3d printing circles are receiving now. I think now it's particularly hard to come up with good answers. Regulating 3d printers seems difficult. After all, building one yourself from scratch isn't that hard (indeed, many do do this). So you don't know if and when the bad actors with intent to harm are making weapons. I'm an anti-gun person, so I think the answer is having no regulations of 3d printers, but coming down hard on people who misuse 3d printers in making very dangerous things.

Not really, with enough money, you can buy jigs and milling kits that make it as easy for you as possible to complete upper receivers:

http://www.cncguns.com/tooling.html

  You can't make a handgun with a lathe, though.

You can get pretty close with computer controlled mills that exist today, a lot closer than with the 3D printers that exist today.

And, you can put a bullet in the end of a pipe pretty easily. It doesn't have to be a good gun, after all.

If the quality of the gun was irrelevant to the effectiveness of the weapon, the military would be armed with homemade zipguns.

assassinations and such only require single uses.

different tools for different jobs.

We've been building decent guns for hundreds of years. You don't need computer controlled anything to make a working firearm for murder or self-defense.

You can sure as hell make a zip gun with a lathe, while you can't make a handgun or a zip gun entirely out of ABS plastic.

Watch this kid's YouTube channel - you don't need anything as fancy as a 3D printer or even a lathe. Basic welding or even just sawing off pipes gets you a lot. Here's a handgun he made at home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFzmt3q3msQ

They used to be called "zip guns" or "Saturday night specials": Cheap, sometimes home-made firearms with mostly coincidental accuracy (You hit what you were aiming at? Pure coincidence!) and a penchant for exploding in the user's hand.

They're to mass-produced firearms what cheap bathtub hooch is to Jim Beam.

Wikipedia mentions them along with much more sophisticated designs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm

I once watched a Vice documentary about Afghanistan, name escapes me at the moment, and they showed this blind guy making a replica of a Russian Makarov handgun by hand, with very basic tools. We used to manufacture revolvers before 3D printers, the industrial age, modern welding techniques, or pretty much most of the technology we enjoy today. The truth is, you can make a perfectly untraceable, very reliable, simple gun with out 3D printers.

> The truth is, you can make a perfectly untraceable, very reliable, simple gun with out 3D printers.

... if you invest a lot in the proper materials, tooling, and skill set.

Takes way, way less time and energy to learn how to use a mill than to try and print a single-shot ABS weapon on most hobby-grade 3D printers.

Not to mention, the results you'd see from a mill are much safer, reliable, effective, etc.

"You can't make a handgun with a lathe, though"

Well, you'd need a ball end mill, but you can definitely convert an 80% handgun to a 100% handgun in your garage, and it is 100% legal to do so.

http://aresarmor.com/store/Item/rudius1911

To add to other comments - it's not that we invented guns after developing CNC technology. We've been using firearms for hundreds of years, and this alone should tell you it's entirely doable to manufacture a gun at home, especially with ammunition being already available. And even using old manufacturing methods, you can still apply all the scientific and technological development we've made, because the knowledge is available on the Internet.

It's legal to produce a firearm for personal use (in the vast majority of the US).

I can personally 3D print one, turn one on a mill (CNC or not), drill-out an 80% AR lower with a drill press, purchase one, be gifted one.

A 3D printer is a poor, poor device among most of those options (and mostlikely more expensive).

You'll also notice that none of the above manufacturing devices are outlawed or regulated in any form.Why do 3D printers need to be called out?

Because lots of people don't understand what 3D printing is and figure it's a device where you do....something...and the thing you're printing pops out, ready to use. Most people who have seen what ~current hobby-grade 3D printers are capable of with ABS or PLA realize how ridiculous it is, but people who see "you can now 3D print a gun!" on TV news might not.

I'm not sure "purchase one" and "be gifted one" count as "personal use". Purchasing, in particular is (I am guessing, I am not a lawyer) commercial activity.

I become the sole, lawful owner of the firearm in both scenarios.

The firearm itself serves no commercial purpose.

That is what I meant by "personal use."

Both activities are protected by the Constitution of the United States of America.

"FUD". So you think that the worries are unwarranted?

"FUD" is a totally loaded term. Unwarranted doubt is pretty much exactly what is meant.

As, @NathanKP said, there's the gun debate, but there's also copyright (and other IP) debate as well, which I feel is far more dangerous to the technology because there is a lot more money behind that and seriously entrenched interests.

Instead of looking at it as a licensing opportunity, they are doing the same as music industry did with every new recording medium that came about.

3D printing will have a "Napster" moment where some technology comes along and raises awareness to the mainstream level, and suddenly all the big IP holders will be up in arms and come after that technology.

But by then it will be too late, and the true disruption will happen and change everything about manufacturing small goods at home.

I'm not sure if it'll have a Napster moment, or a moment quite like Napster. Napster was about having specific songs that other people made. Most of the makers in the 3d printing scene are not exactly printing from cad files stolen from manufacturers, they're building the models themselves with Autodesk software and Solidworks and Blender and so on. So there isn't going to be any day in which a manufacturer sues little folks to get money like companies were and still are able to do, because the manufacturer didn't create it, or have any part in creating it.

I think he was talking about objects that have value because of their name/brand. Someone could probably print little Jedi action figures far cheaper than they cost in the store, because in the store you're paying for the IP, not just the plastic or the design work. Even if I'm designing my ripoff action figure myself, I'm modeling it after one I see in the store.

> Most of the makers in the 3d printing scene are not exactly printing from cad files stolen from manufacturers, they're building the models themselves with Autodesk software and Solidworks and Blender and so on. So there isn't going to be any day in which a manufacturer sues little folks to get money like companies were and still are able to do, because the manufacturer didn't create it, or have any part in creating it.

New sensors coming down the pipeline will allow your smartphone camera to image objects down to micron resolutions from ~1 meter away.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2906232/camera-chip-could-tur...

Okay... so what would you scan and make?

Consider everyday things around you: smartphones, laptops, etc. None of these can be 3dprinted. Things you can 3d print are... smartphone cover, smartphone stand... things you can afford to be plastic in its entirety. I think you guys are overestimating what 3dprinters are capable of. There's a lot of tinkering required to create anything of even moderate complication. And it's almost always cheaper to just buy it if it's available at the store, because the printer costs and the consumables (pla, abs or whatever filament) costs, and time costs.

You can't even 3D print a good smartphone cover. The one I use was injection molded to very tight tolerances and involves multiple different kinds of plastic joined together. Let's see a 3D printer do that.

Several 3D printers exist that can change materials mid-print. Resolution continues to increase every year.

I'm not convinced either about 3D printing having a Napster moment. But Napster does provide another good example of how scale totally changes things. The music industry didn't really have a serious problem with personal mixtapes or copying a friend's album. (Not saying they necessarily liked it but it wasn't a public issue.) Napster, on the other hand, that let you trade songs with 100,000 of your closest friends...

> The music industry didn't really have a serious problem with personal mixtapes or copying a friend's album.

I don't know about the RIAA and mixtapes, but the MPAA tried to get VCRs banned. As Jack Valenti (MPAA) explained to a congressional panel, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

Just wait until Disney finds out that you can make Mickey Mouse shaped pieces of plastic on an Ultimaker.

Yeah, I'm aware of the Sony case. And there was also often copy protection on commercial VHS tapes. AFAIK, nothing similar happened with music pre-P2P sharing although RIAA never actually condoned it.

I expect part of the reason is that the genie was already so far out of the bottle with cassette tape (and even reel-to-reel) that even they probably felt that it was pointless at that point to fight. However, a number of countries did impose a fee on blank media: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

The music industry didn't really have a serious problem with personal mixtapes or copying a friend's album.

Au contraire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music

drones will really 'hit that' when they shrink to the size of a large [fairly quiet] bug, and the ML gets good enough to follow someone around without incident... yikes.

3D printing isn't going to harm the neighbors. It has the potential to disrupt existing product development and manufacturing economics if people can easily and accurately create copies of physical objects at home. If 3D printing becomes common, we will have to re-think how we regulate intellectual property around the design of phyiscal objects, in the same way that digital music and cinema have forced us to re-think how we pay for and get paid for those goods.

I'm skeptical that 3d printed objects could replace very much of what we now obtain from factories. In industrial design, the materials and fabrication process are (supposed to be) selected very carefully with an eye towards cost, physical properties, chemical properties, etc. Even my phone case, which might be the simplest product I own, was made not just from any old plastic, but from a very particular plastic that's optimized for phone cases.

Whereas with 3d printing, we're currently stuck with a kind of plastic that's optimized for compatibility with a 3d printer. It's unclear whether we'll ever be able to print from other, better plastics. And that's saying nothing of other materials like steel, glass, and ceramic, which are often necessary in useful consumer products.

http://3dprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/IMG_1259_zps95...

I'm not sure I'd want an amateur's DIY 3d printer in a 40 story apartment building. These things are usually left running unattended overnight.

Problem with Uber is not users or drivers. It's the Uber upper management itself that's being dicks. Scale or lack of it won't make a difference here, unfortunately.

What externality about 3D printing did you have in mind?

Sorry about going off-topic.

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