John Hornick on 3D Printing, and some related comments about America 3.0

John-Hornick

[Note: I am not personally or professionally acquainted with Mr. Hornick. He is in no way associated with any opinions I may have, or proposals I have made. He is not affiliated in any way with the America 3.0 Institute.]

We wrote America 3.0 in 2012, mostly, and it was published in 2013. In the book we present a picture of America in 2040. We predict the demise of the industrial-era political and economic order, which is visibly failing today, and the rise of a new set of institutional arrangements for the country. A big part of this change is the development of several important new technologies which will undermine the existing order, and democratize the economy in radical ways.

We focused on 3D printing, driverless cars, cheap desalination and personalized health care and medication. We were not trying to write a comprehensive book about future technology. Rather, our goal was to indicate the scale of the changes in technology which were coming, and the disruptive impact they would have. If we were to write it now, we would have said more about robotics, drones, and blockchains, for example. Nonetheless, the general trend of things is as we predicted. And as we suspected, things are moving much faster, and the world will be even more different by 2040 than we rather conservatively predicted.

I recently ran across some outstanding videos by John Hornick, an intellectual property attorney at the Finnegan firm in DC. His Twitter is here. Mr. Hornick is an expert on the law and the technology of 3D printing. I have spent a few hours immersed in his videos.

Mr. Hornick has a video, entitled “3D Printing State of the Art: Industrial” from May of 2015 which gets into detail about the current state of the art in 3D printing. It is a good primer if you are interested in the field. His deep knowledge as well as his enthusiasm make for a compelling presentation of a highly technical subject.

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Mike Lotus on Against the Current with Dan Proft

Proft III

Dan Proft, shown above, Chicago’s best conservative talk radio host recently interviewed me for his video podcast series, Against the Current, which is part of a larger initiative called Upstream Ideas. I listened to Dan’s earlier conversations with Vicente Serrano, and John Kass, both of which were good.

I enjoyed the conversation with Dan, which focused on the book I co-authored, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century —-Why America ’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come. We touched on the larger theme of Conservative pessimism, and the need to have a future vision to inspire us and to be working toward. We also teased out the fact that a better future is not in any way inevitable, but it is achievable only if the people who want it make it happen. Our Progressive fellow citizens never forget this. We shouldn’t either.

Dan at one point jokingly said, I paraphrase: Can’t you just leave the Conservatives alone, and let them enjoy their hopelessness in peace?

Nope!

We will all have a lot we need to do in the years ahead. Great days for America are coming, whatever the intervening trials. So, be happy.

It is always a pleasure to speak to Dan Proft, and I hope you will listen and find the conversation interesting as well.

“The Courage of a Reformer”

I recently had a guest post entitled The Courage of a Reformer at the blog of the Illinois Opportunity Project. My post was in responses to an earlier post by Matt Besler of IOP about Illinois State Rep. Jeanne Ives.

My post included this passage:

the Goal

This highlights an under-appreciated reality. You do not just need candidates with good values and good ideas. You do not just need candidates who can also win elections. You need these candidates to stay true to their commitments, which will impose a personal cost, once they are in office.

In our book, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century– —Why America ’’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come, we discuss the decline and dissolution of the economic and political institutions of industrial-era America, which we call America 2.0. We describe a different and better America 3.0 which we expect and hope will replace it. But as we make clear, this process will not be pleasant. The transition from agricultural to industrial America was hard. The change to a world dominated by emerging technology, post-industrial, networked America 3.0, will be every bit as hard, and will happen much faster.

Illinois is a specific case, and an especially difficult one, of the transition from America 2.0 to America 3.0. The Establishment here, consisting of politicians from both parties, is referred to without affection as The Combine. Despite the state’s many inherent strengths, The Combine has “governed” Illinois the verge of ruin. Illinois is the worst-run state in the nation.

America 3.0 is a long book, and we could not put everything into it.

One topic which we hope to write about more in the future is the steps that will have to be taken to make the transition. We got into some of this in the later chapters of the book, but there is a lot more that needs to researched and developed.

One area which we barely touched on, but which is critically finasteridehair important, is the personal character which will be called for from a generation which will in effect be a new “founding generation.” The old order will have many defenders, many of them with good motivations, many with not-so-good motives. There will be unrelenting efforts to prop up the world everyone is used to, and to crush any person, group or business trying to make serious innovations and necessary reforms.

As I said in my IOP post:

To really matter, to really do something, to really change the direction of our state, means that there will be hardship, rejection, unpopularity, vilification, rejection of material benefits, making people mad by refusing to do what “everybody does,” attacks by the people who benefit from the status quo, not many pats on the back, and incomprehension even from good people.
 
The committed reformer has to be willing to go up against all that.
 
What is the reformer’s motivation, then?
 
If it is not money, prestige, popularity, an easy life, what is it?
 
Faith is part of it. Patriotism is part of it. Moral principles are part of it. A sense of duty is part of it. Gratitude for what we have been given is part of it. A commitment to a better future for ourselves, our families, and our children is part of it.
 
A hopeful vision of how things could be, should be, must be, will be better if we change course in Illinois, that is also part of it.

Substitute “America” for “Illinois” and it still works.

This challenge is going to require a lot of effort, from a lot of people. We need to be realists about that. But we must not be cynical. With a hopeful and realistic picture of the future to inspire us, there will be enough people, enough talent, enough drive, enough fortitude, to build America 3.0.

We plan to say much more about this.

Stand by … .

Quote of the Day from Jeff Carter

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Quote of the day, from Jeff Carter’s Points and Figures blog, a post entitled “Disrupting Government”:

Tech initially toppled major corporations. Motorola and Kodak are shells of themselves. Now, technology has the opportunity to eliminate wide swaths of government and all the cronies, cartels, employees and economic imbalances that come with them. As a society, we shouldn’t fight that. We should embrace it. Automation of government will make things cheaper for taxpayers. Elimination of old fashioned out of step government will make things better for society.

RTWT.

Jeff wrote very favorably about America 3.0.

And the “Disrupting Government” post is a very “America 3.0” view of the future, which I heartily share and endorse.

But that is not the only reason I like his stuff. Jeff is a former floor trader, angel investor involved in the start-up scene in Chicago, and all around astute, sensible and articulate observer of politics, business and the economy.

A few other good recent posts from Jeff include:

Dodd Frank; Total Fail,

Hillary Skewers the Gig Economy,

Greece and Traditional Hierarchy,

The Third Wave, and

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But Echoes, which said, among other insightful things, “I encourage you to read a book, America 3.0. It charts a realistic way forward given the kind of government we have, and the history our country has had.”

Be sure to drop by Points and Figures frequently.

And don’t just take it from me.

Instapundit frequently links to Jeff’s blog, because it is just that good.

Big shout-out from Glenn Reynolds for America 3.0

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Huge thank you to Glenn Reynolds, a/k/a (of course) as Instapundit.

Glenn had a short post up today that said:

ARE YOU A CAMPAIGN POLICY ANALYST OR SPEECHWRITER? Then you need to read Jim Bennett & Michael Lotus’s America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century: —Why America ’’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come.
 
Trust me on this. You’ll be glad you did.

And of course we heartily agree that all of the campaigns should heed our sage analysis, policy proposals, historical acumen, and hopeful vision of America’s future!

There are times of big changes. It is time to think big The problems we face are big. And the opportunities coming our way for a better America are even bigger.

Glenn wrote the introduction to America 3.0, and his own writing is highly congruent with ours.

For example, we strongly commend Glenn’s new book The Education Apocalypse: How It Happened and How to Survive It. Note the — literally — apocalyptic title. Many people are drawn to the idea that the world is ending. But the title is a little out of sync with Glenn’s message, which not only talk about the problems of education, but some of the great opportunities for positive change which are within our grasp.

We need more of that kind of thinking. The current politico-economic regime is indeed coming to an end. Hopefully that end will not be too apocalyptic. (As an aside, can there be degrees of … apocalypticness?) We need to be thinking about getting through the transition and laying the foundation for the better America to come.

The next administration will be a critical one, with many hazards, and many important opportunities.

And for those who have not yet read America 3.0, you may enjoy this podcast interview which serves as a good, short summary of the book.