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Photo by Minku Kang on Unsplash
Currently, states like California and New York are trying to but into your 3D printers. They’re trying to mandate technology that would prevent you from being able to print guns or gun components with printers sold to residents of those states, and they’d like to pressure the companies into doing it on printers sold everywhere.
This bothers me because while I’m far from an early adopter of new tech, I’ve been intrigued by 3D printing from the moment it entered the market. The idea of making something with a few keystrokes, then coming back in an hour or whatever and having a finished component? That’s as close to a Star Trek replicator as I could expect to see in my lifetime, and it’s cool as hell.
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The issue with what these anti-gunners are doing goes beyond the question of gun rights, or even your right to do what you will with your own property—they also penalize jailbreaking the software, after all—but what it says about what they will try to do in the future, too.
If they can successfully stop you from printing a component of a certain size and shape because of what it could be used for, what else follows?
I’m no Luddite by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not an early adopter, either, but I love technology. I think it’s cool that I can rent a movie online, watch it immediately, then go about my day without ever leaving my desk. I think it’s awesome that I can order groceries or food with a few taps of my cell phone, from multiple places at the same time, and get everything brought to my house. I love all of that.
But there’s something to be said about the old ways when you think about how the world is shifting around us.
I remember when you bought software, and while you might see it become outdated in the future, you didn’t have to keep paying monthly just to access it. Now, more and more companies are embracing the much more profitable subscription model, and damn anyone who doesn’t want to play that game.
3D printer makers may have to include tech into your printer that tells you that you can’t make a part because it looks like some other part that some state says you can’t have.
Movies you “buy” on a streaming platform can vanish the moment that platform decides it’s not going to host them anymore.
Sony has decided to end physical media on its PlayStation platform as of January, 2028, which means they can also yank a game anytime they want, really.
For all the marvels of the modern world, and some of them I refuse to do without, there’s a lot about living here in the future that sucks, which makes me think we really do need to start thinking more and preserving as many of the old ways as we can.
3D printers are new, but the current system gives users freedom. This is good, and for as long as there’s power and files, people can print whatever they want or need, and this may soon become the old way of things for that platform.
Ebooks have been my go-to for years, especially as my eyesight starts to fade. I can make adjustments and not have to put on reading glasses that I really don’t like to wear. However, if Amazon decides I don’t need a book on my Kindle, they have the power to remove it. Much as I hate the feel of glasses on my ears, hard copy is now my go-to for anything that matters.
Blogs were the rage in the earliest days of the internet, and I’ve done them as a private individual and professionally for years. It’s how I know that they’re more fleeting than many people think. Hundreds of pieces I worked hard for are gone, but physical copies of my work will remain no matter what happens.
The truth is that the government and massive corporations cannot be trusted to leave information alone. They can’t be trusted to put something out into the world and then just let it be. It’s why some are fighting for “right to repair” laws. They buy a thing, but they don’t really own it. The company that made it still thinks it has the authority to dictate what you do with that thing.
We don’t own as many things. We license them, which is just a fancy way of saying we rented them via a one-time payment.
The left has a massive problem where they talk about the right side of history. They’re convinced they’re always on it, but the reality is that history doesn’t have a right side, a wrong side, or a linear progression. No one knows where it will go, and governments and companies that seek to dictate that we will own nothing and we will like it forget that revolutions have been launched over far less.
Recently, I’ve been considering that an underlying theme in most of my life and my work has been stewardship. It’s about the preservation of things that matter. Not that they are the most efficient, or the most celebrated, or anything of the sort. It’s the things that were important and might be once again, all in case they’re needed.
One of those things, though, is the idea that Americans are the masters of their own destiny. That we buy a thing and it’s ours, that we can do with it what we will. Ovens didn’t include a device that somehow stopped you from burning dinner or even making things you weren’t supposed to make. Cars don’t have breathalyzers built in, so you can’t drive while intoxicated…unless the court makes you install one, that is.
We owned things, and we liked it.
One of the things I will die trying to preserve is that neither the state nor any corporation should have a say in what you do with your property so long as it’s actually your property and no one else is physically harmed.
Yes, I understand some of the arguments against “right to repair” laws, but I also find them retarded, for the most part. They’re often more excuses than actual reasons, and that’s not enough.
The old ways aren’t universally better than what comes afterward. Slavery wasn’t a good thing. That’s best left behind rather than being preserved. But this idea that you will own nothing is bad enough, but that this is somehow a benefit to you?
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It’s enough to make me want to burn down the textile mills in the midst of the Industrial Revolution and say to hell with progress if that’s what it means.
Luckily, it doesn’t, and we don’t have to go quite that far.
What it does mean, though, is that we need to view anyone with power over our lives and our property with extreme skepticism and make them justify everything. Even then, though, don’t just assume benevolence, because I promise you, they’re not the good guys in this.
At best, they’re neutral and focused merely on their own profit margin. That’s fine, because it’s what their stockholders expect.
We just need to start convincing them that the bottom line requires them to know their place in the world, and it’s not telling us what to do unless they’re giving us a paycheck.
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