I’ve been known to cheerlead for fabbing (or ‘rapid prototyping’) here on occasion, but it’s important to realise that such technologies are a double-edged sword – literally. DefenseTech considers the risk of weapons proliferation that hi-tech CNC set-ups could produce in the wrong hands; extrapolate this a few decades to the nanofactory era, and there’s a serious potential for nastiness.
2 thoughts on “Print Me A Pistol, Pronto”
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I’m pretty sure we would all be better off if everyone carried a weapon, instead of just those who actually want use them (and do).
That’s a tough argument to call either way; I’m instinctively opposed to it (as a pacifist by nature), but I can see the logical fallacy of opposing free possession of weapons in a world where weapons are always going to be available to someone who wants one badly enough. It’s a heart versus head dilemma, for me at least, and I’ve not reached a conclusion that satisfies my personal philosophy yet.
Now, if we had a world without projectile weapons, and all combat was one-to-one, hand-to-hand with swords or suchlike … well, let’s just say I think there’d be a lot less people willing to start a street fight where weapons were involved! To face a man with a sword, close enough that you could strike him with your own, takes a lot more guts than popping caps at him from down the street. An improbable situation, I’ll grant you, but there you go.