Its a space of 1meter×1meterx1meter, basically a cubic meter where the matter replicator works on. (So, no replicating cars, since its too big)
How do you min-max this?
I’d use it to make more replicators. Essentially have exponential replicators
Wouldn’t you need two replicators? One to be replicated and one to do the replicating? And if the replicator itself is a box (assumption since it was not specifies) the replicator would have to be larger than the max size.
I was busy thinking about that. Why not make a replicator without limits if possible? No downsides because then you’d be able to create what you want when you want. Anyone dumb enough not to think of that would be stuck using it once a day while you are able to create all you want.
You say it can create an object of a single M3.
I create a second one by replicating the parts.
May take a while but when the second one comes online the third one will be even faster.
This sounds like owning a 3d printer.
I feel the astounding energy needed to create matter would be the reason for the cooldown, so having more than one would make little difference.
My reading of the question implies that the replicator has the cool down. so having a second one will have an independent cool down.
It can’t be the energy. It has to be a matter rearranger, not something that makes matter from raw energy. Consider a cubic meter of water. It will have a mass of 1000 kg. By E=mc^2, that water has a mass energy of 9e19 Joules. New homes in the US are built with 200 amp panels, delivering power at 120V. The typical new home can draw up to 24,000 Watts from the grid.
At this max output, it would take a house 120 million years to draw enough electricity to create a cubic meter of water from nothing but pure electrical energy.
So this thing must actually work as a matter rearranger. You provide it a supply of pure elements and it synthesizes from there. Or, if it’s fancy, it creates elements by rearranging nuclei. But it can’t be something that truly creates matter ex nihilo.
I suspect a lot of guns, explosives, body armor and anti-armor munitions due to the immediate civil war that would break out in most countries as the wealthy elite tells the government to confiscate everyones matter replicators.
Your view is very dystopian. And also correct.
- Make a nuclear bomb. You don’t need a whole ICBM, a single MIRV warhead can fit in the available space.
- Threaten to set it off if everyone in the area doesn’t give me their fabricator.
- Expand operations/nuke delivery range.
- Have a monopoly on the means of production again.
This is how people brainwashed by capitalism would use it to deprive us all of the post-scarcity future. We can only hope some more reasonable people also think of making nukes first so we can at least have some mutually assured destruction to preserve the fully automated luxury gay space communism.
This is how people brainwashed by capitalism would use it to deprive us all of the post-scarcity future.
That doesn’t work out. Unfortunately.
Reason:
When it was politicians who fought the Cold War, they were few who had actually a say, and these few got some minimum brain, at least.
But in your scenario, it is random jerks who execute that scheme everywhere. There will be some who pull the trigger just for … all kinds of stupid shit that has triggered them. So you’d have nukes going off somewhere, at least every few days, and then nobody can really rule the world anymore with them. The power of the threat will be gone.
Politicians didn’t fight the Cold War. It wasn’t pasty fat men in their 60s training the Mujahideen in Afghanistan or on the front lines of Korea or any of a dozen other proxy wars. Politicians, as a rule, tend to avoid things that pose a serious risk to their health (which makes it kind of ironic that they tend to spend their careers putting other people in proximity to those things instead, doesn’t it?)
Eh… maybe one or two. But most people (like the politicians above, funnily enough) tend to have a pretty strong survival instinct. I agree it would absolutely be chaos, but most people wouldn’t think of making a nuke, much less know what kind of nuke they should make, or even how to make one in a 1m3 box, they would just get regular guns and chemical weapons and shit. Still lots of chaos. Just less radiation.
Mujahideen in Afghanistan or on the front lines of Korea or any of a dozen other proxy wars.
I do not count these as the Cold War.
Proxy wars have their special funding and maybe false motives, but they are hot wars. Real wars.
The Cold War consisted of threats. Piling up weapons, bombs, nukes, and counting and comparing who’s got more of them. These threats were made mainly by politicians. Maybe I was wrong in saying they “fought” it.
…okay. Historians do, though, so I hope you understand if I go with them on this one. Also those were just examples, if you don’t like them there are plenty of other proxy wars you can pick from to see my point illustrated pretty much everywhere.
That’s fair though, it was more than just one thing, and like most things in life it’s far more complex than it seems on the surface. I just take particular exception to any suggestion that politicians in any way risked their neck for literally anything ever.
Why do you go for a MIRV if your warhead doesn’t even leave the atmosphere?
I can fit me in about that space, so maybe a copy of myself. We could trade off working and playing. That would double my leasure time.
hmm… since you’d still need to remember what happened at work, you’d have to let your replicant continue going to work… unless they want to replicate themselves and join you on the couch
Well, that gives you infinite energy, since you can produce energy-containing stuff.
Hmm.
On one hand, a lot of competition for resources go away.
On the other hand, that’s also pretty disruptive.
I think that that world is going to have a lot of sudden challenges. You don’t have scarcity of any material or existing item that you can break down to less than a 1m cube unless you need it in great bulk, but you also have no ability to control production of things like firearms, explosives, drugs, physical proofs of identity, missiles, weaponized drones, etc.
I can imagine countries or organizations trying to seize the supply of replicators.
You might like the novel Singularity Sky. It’s about a planet, artificially maintained at a 19th-century tech level by its authoritarian government, which is suddenly visited by a post-scarcity civilization. Cellphones begin to rain from the sky all over the planet and whoever picks one up is given an offer: Tell us a story and we’ll give you anything you desire. One person asks for a self-replicating replicator with a fully stocked blueprint library and it ends up being extremely disruptive in many of the ways you’re imagining.
Everyone’s talking about money, but I’d try to eliminate costs. First day I make some food and a couple of (full) power banks. Next few days I make some food and solar panels.
I know you say no cars, but I have family I’d trust to put one together. (I’d trust them to take mine apart to work on it.) The only odd part would be body panels? Similarly I’d try to figure out some small housing a cubic meter at a time, but that’s probably also a work in progress.
I’d mix in a few personal items over the coming days of course. A new PC, new clothes, and food variety. I don’t know how to get rid of Internet and land costs. I wonder if the resulting economic crash might lead to that being figured out for everyone, but I somehow doubt that.
family…trust them to build a car…guys! I found Vin diesels lemmy account!
You mean after gold and diamonds essentially become worthless? A lot of people would definitely use it for medications.
Me getting a cubic meter of each ADHD drugs see if any works better than mine… Except on sunday, I get my weekly supply of coca cola
Day 1, I replicate a replicator kit and put it together. I also contact a realtor and let them know I’m interested in buying some land. Off grid, far from cities, doesn’t matter.
Day 2, I replicate two replicator kits and put them together.
Day 3, I replicate four replicator kits. I’ve now got eight of them. I’m not sure I’ll need sixteen, at least not right away, and my basement is starting to get a bit crowded. So I’ll leave it at that for the moment, but the moment I think I need more replicator capacity I can have it.
Plot twist: every replicated replicator degrades slightly in subtle ways, like making glass less smooth, or making food taste a little bit stale. After the fourth cycle, bananas taste a bit like warm mayo.
Thanks for the input von Neumann.
I’d replicate some of these new graphics cards that are so hard to find.
Can I adjust dimensions? Like, can I replicated a car, but a tiny one that will fit in a 1x1x1m cube?
If so, I’d replicate 1/8th of the replicator, but double sized. Repeat for all other parts, assemble, and now I have a 2m³ replicator. Repeat until I have one big enough to replicate a house.
Then, the whole point of the exercise: replicate a house-sized Funyun.
I’d use it to make food
Obviously everybody now has high end computers, cameras, a variety of lenses, phones, etc. Foldable Ebikes like the aipas would fit in the space.
1 meter solar panels are a hit but since most batteries and capacitors require materials difficult to handle it becomes highly demanded.
Every political building now has thick blastproof exteriors as making bombs has never been easier, judges live in the courthouse now.
I’d make my own studio ghibli paintings.
Solid cube of antimatter. Fuck you world!
That would definitely end you and a majority of the New York metropolitan area… but it wouldn’t end the world.
Understandable. Have a great day.
