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user-inactivated  ·  4250 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Printing a gun [30 minute video]

Printing ICs is the small scale manufacturing technology I'm waiting for. Getting a small batch done isn't that expensive, assuming you get it right the first time, but once you can fabricate your own most consumer electronics are doable in garage shops. Then hardware is in the same place as software and content.

Drugs are a little different, I think. There's never going to be one device to synthesize them all, but there doesn't really need to be. The regulatory process is a bigger barrier to setting up in that space than any technological problem. You can't remove the need for tons of capital to do the work, because you're just not allowed to do the work without it. If drug patents are to be done away with, it's going to have to be as a side effect of the tides turning against patents in general.