3D Printers For Peace Contest

First time accepted submitter Bas_Wijnen writes "3D printing is being condemned in the media because of the potential for printing guns. Engineers at Michigan Tech believe there is far more potential for 3D printers to make our lives better rather than killing one another. To encourage thinking about constructive uses of 3D printing technology Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology (MOST) Lab and Type A Machines sponsor the first 3-D Printers for Peace Contest. Designers are encouraged to consider: If Mother Theresa of Ghandi had access to 3D printing what would they print? What kind of designs could help reduce military spending and conflict while making us all safer and more secure? Anyone in the United States may enter and there is no cost."

Re:Guns are, what ensures peace

[Anonymous Coward]

In this country, the first gun control came about because blacks were firing at KKK lynch mobs. (It's surprisingly easy for a few defenders to fend off an angry mob with firearms. The defenders are already behind cover, whereas their attackers have to close ground. And the defenders have nowhere to go, whereas each attacker has the option of retreating.)

At the time, the KKK was basically the terrorist wing of the Democrat party, and the Democrat politicians passed the first gun control laws to enable the lynching. The NRA got their start as a civil rights organization fighting those laws.

Re:Armor?

[narcc]

Not sure what Mother Theresa would print.

Maybe chains to help keep her strange little cult of suffering well-populated.

Re:Armor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dudes, Mother Theresa was a bitch.

Re:Mother Theresa is an unfortunate choice

[foreverdisillusioned]

Hitchens was not the only one. I've seen interviews with people who worked at her hospice were shocked at the degrading, restrictive, at times deadly treatment of people who weren't always terminally ill. Her and her church's despicable decision not to return stolen money (they probably could and would have been criminally charged if they weren't the Catholic Church) is a matter of public record, not anyone's opinion. Her decision to not spent the donations she received on improving her original hospice's conditions, but instead on a religious-geared order modestly bearing her name, is also public record.

The fact that there was virtually no controversy over these events is not evidence that they didn't happen. It is evidence that the public at large didn't care because once she reached a certain level of fame she was far more useful as a figurehead for anyone to bother looking at what she'd actually done.

Re:Armor?

[ozmanjusri]

Not sure what Mother Theresa would print.

Nothing.

Poverty and pain are good for people. "'the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ"

Re:Mother Theresa is an unfortunate choice

[webgiant]

So you're saying she was a Republican?

Backwards. The party with a vested interest in keeping people dependent on professionals who dole things out to them is the Democrats. That's the backbone of their entire constituency and the framework within which they describe everybody: needing a handout, or needing to be used to pay for handouts. Without playing middlemen to that one-way street, there would be almost not power in that camp. And so they seek to preserve it at every turn.

No, the guy to whom you replied got it right: Republicans are the most dependent on a culture of people dependent on professionals who dole things out to them. Red States are more dependent on the Government Dole [slate.com] than Blue States, because Red State policies create a constituency which needs a handout just to survive [cnn.com]. Poverty-stricken, uneducated white people vote Republican more often [guardian.co.uk] than middle class educated people (who tend to vote Democrat [politifact.com]), so Republicans seek to preserve a constituency trapped in poverty, voting Republican on social issues even as Republicans pull the economic rug out from under their collective feet.