NASA is working on a 3-D printer to print food.
We're edging closer and closer to the replicators of ST:TNG. And when we get there, won't that crush most of the manufacturing around the world? What you need to make shit would be a replicator, energy (probably lots of it) and raw materials.
Hell, wouldn't it wipe out most of the service jobs? ST:TOS had people eating in a chow hall (though they got their food from a replicator of some kind [tribbles notwithstanding]). TNG didn't, when they showed people eating, they were usually eating in small groups in one person's quarters. The only group setting I remember seeing on TNG was the bar, which mostly served fake booze, anyway. So the service jobs go away when people don't need to go to Mickie-Ds for a burger and fries.
What will most people do when there is no need to make any kind of shit, from steel beams to pancakes? Steel Beach had a lot of people doing ceremonial jobs, so they at least had a place to go and money in their pockets. What good is money if energy is relatively cheap and it costs almost nothing to make anything from a cup of tea to a 1911 in a home-sized replicator?
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3 comments:
I cannot imagine Food ever 'going away', there will still be a market for fresh food, no matter the price.
What I see is that rations will be available as a substitute for those that have "food availability problems". Ending world hunger, so to speak.
w3ski
w3ski, I work with kids under the age of 25. Few of them know what fresh food even looks like, much less eat it. All they eat is processed crap from the supermarket that they shove into a microwave oven then eat a few minutes later. They'd have no trouble eating the output of a 3-D printer. It'd probably taste no different from the processed crap they're already eating anyhow.
It'd probably be healthier, too.
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