There is something about self-sufficiency that is deeply embedded in American culture. It’s not that people the world over don’t want to be able to survive on their own, but we seem to have the market cornered on paranoid obsession with self-reliance. The most extreme example of this is the healthy-sized community of doomsday preppers, a group which was recently the subject of its own TV show. If all you know about preppers is what you’ve seen on the show, you might think there could be no possible connection between them and 3D printing as so many reject technology completely and advocate a low-tech, high hoarding approach.
The rejection of technology by preppers is selective and largely dependent upon their ideas of what will be available to them in their own particular post-event picture. Human beings are nothing if not crafty and the likelihood that we would fall back into the stone age, never to emerge again, is fairly slim. So, many of those planning to outwit doomsday plan on some form of energy being available, just not one for which you get a monthly bill, complete with autopay options. In scenarios where solar, wind, or Mad Max guzzolene are part of the landscape of possibilities, having a 3D printer might just be the very best thing you could have.
“The connection was instantaneous. I can create tools much more functional than what’s already out there. I can make homemade knives, toys, even tools that don’t exist. I can make replacement parts for things that broke. Instead of buying a new drill for $120, I 3D printed some gears. It’s been working for years now.”
Yes it would be difficult to imagine using a computer to design a 3D model and then running a 3D printer at 150 watts if power can only be supplied by a centralized electric grid. However, with advances in solar, wind, water, and a number of other generating technologies, it’s not so unlikely that the power necessary to run the equipment could actually be recreated post-disaster. After all, a small number of people in the United States manage to live off the grid, by choice, and some do it quite well.
According to technologist and prepper Steve Spence, he has had no trouble living off of the grid in South Carolina for nearly a decade:
“If the power grid isn’t working, you can still run your prepping equipment on an off-grid system. All you need is a charger to charge your batteries, solar or wind, a set of batteries to hold electricity, and an inverter. You’re your own power company.”
Whatever horrors to future might hold, whether Donald Trump or armies of zombies, the 3D printer is at least a tool to prepare and at best, the key to living as more than just survival. Discuss further in the 3D Printer for Doomsday Preppers forum over at 3DPB.com.
[Source: Motherboard / Images: Estately]