Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

3D printers keep making the news, and for good reason. There are companies using giant versions to create affordable housing in China. New homes built this way take mere days to complete, and cost approximately 25% of what a traditionally built home would cost. Others are using the same technology to create wheelchairs for small companion animals that can no longer walk, or prosthetic limbs for humans. They can use them now to create a perfect 3D image of the insides of a patient before surgery is done, so that surgeons can prepare for difficult or dangerous surgeries more safely. On a lighter note, Hershey’s kisses may soon be printed this way rather than made in the more traditional way.

With all these applications, the process probably isn’t in the news as much as it should be.

It has a very Star Trek feel to me, but this is not necessarily a bad thing by any means. Every jump forward in technology has its benefits and its costs, of course, but the options are certainly exciting.

Crowns for teeth could be printed while you wait, fit perfectly to your mouth, and cost a fraction of the current type. Replacement valves for hearts could easily be made to order, as could other body parts that typically wear out as we age. Given a little time, many of the semi-disposable products we use daily could be essentially printed from garbage. Already there is a running shoe prototype being printed from plastic salvaged from the sea.

Obviously, there are a lot of upsides to this situation. Cheaper goods, better access to housing and health care, and personalized medical equipment are all good things. Mining our own dumps to reuse the materials there may be a very real option in the future, where if we have the necessary elements, we can print what we need.

I don’t dread this progress, I think it is a wonderful thing, but I do mourn for the things we are already losing to an industrialized society.

Skills, once absolutely necessary for survival, are now so close to obsolete that most people have never even seen them done. Losing knowledge of any sort seems like a waste to me. Cheesemaking, tanning hides, making felt or yarn, creating natural dyes, weaving and hunting, among dozens of other ‘old-timey’ skills, were practically abandoned with the advent of the modern age. How many of us can drive a horse and carriage, or cut ice for summer use? Our grandparents or great-grandparents did this as part of daily life. In the 50’s and 60’s carpentry and cooking were expected skills, if they were somewhat rigidly sexist in their expectations, but now both skills are far rarer.

These 3D printers are not a bad thing, they are progress. However, they are just the tip of what is to come, and if we wish to preserve the knowledge of the past while moving to the future, the time to act is now. I’d love to see organized groups preserving skills, but that may not be practical. What I’d suggest instead is a much smaller, grass roots effort. Begin at home. Find a skill that really interests you, and learn it. Once you’ve mastered it, pass it on to another person. If you feel inspired, learn another one. There is a reason that these things are called arts, and while technology is incredibly useful, it doesn’t quite replace the human element in an artform.

Cheers,

Michelle