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 replicate some of these new graphics cards that are so hard to find.
Can… Can I replicate myself?
You can replicate yourself when you were a kid…
…wait a minute, what are you trying to do? I think its illegal. 🤨 📸👮♂️🚓
I’m an average woman, at 168 cm height I can easily fit in a cubic metre if I crouch or lay in fetal position.
I often feel like I could accomplish so much more if I had a clone. Just one, more than one clone would become an expense
Anyway if that’s not an option then I’d replicate a variety of:
dollar bills.
Jewellery, gold and precious gems.
Computers, and phones, especially if I can sell some of its parts such as the graphics card
Other luxury items such as parfum, spirits, etc
Eggs
I don’t know, I feel most of these things would lose their value pretty quickly if everyone had a replicator. Kind of like what AI is doing to the creative arts. Only this time it would be the rich getting affected, not struggling artists
- Alien: Why do you want to replicate things for money?
- Mothra: So I can buy the things I want!
- Alien: Can’t you replicate the things you want instead?
- Mothra: This thing can replicate admiration?!
Cruxifux gang bang!
If you’re short, yea.
Dwarf army!
I’m average. I know I can fit inside a cubic metre
Get together with your neighbor, replicate the parts of each other’s replicator. Repeat this daily for a bit. Exponential growth. Give it a month or so, then just go ham and make everything you want, maybe after renting a warehouse to keep them all in.
I feel the upper limit of this is probably depends on how many simultaneously unrelated things you can put on the print bed at once. Like, can I have it print me a pair of shoes, 6 sandwiches, an SD card and a bag of cat kibble all at once? Or is it going to make 6 SD kibble card sandwiches on shoe-bread? 1m³ will hold my entire groceries list for the week, but if I have to print each item individually I’ll starve.
Well… 1m^3 of rice, then the next day 1m^3 of beans, then the next day 1m^3 of potatoes, etc. - you might not like what you’re eating for the first few days, but I think you could pretty quickly accumulate enough ingredients in massive quantities to make some pretty nice meals, even if that limitation does exist.
Now I’m imagining the prank potential here. Sneak into your Buddy’s house and order a cubic meter of baked beans!
Or get together with a few neighbors, each person makes one of the basic necessities on the first day, you all split it evenly, and now you can make decent-well balanced food from day 1.
Now make enough food to give you time for a project. A complete car engine can fit within 1 m3. So can 4 wheels. Power is going to be a problem, but you could probably make 20 solar panels at once. Now your power problems are solved. And if you have solar power, you might as well make some batteries. How much power can 1 m3 of sodium batteries hold? Not enough? Well, then make another.
So now you have food and power, and you can make a car if you really want. Or you can make an electric scooter in one day. A recumbent electric bike might take 2, and an enclosure for it might take a couple more.
You’re now 2 weeks in, have a month’s supply of food or more left, all your power needs met, transportation. What’s next? Well, the bad news is your TV will have to be slightly smaller than 60" if you print it from corner to corner in the replicator, but that isn’t a bad size. If multiple things can be printed at once, you can also print a high-end computer and VR kit. If not, this might take a couple days extra. Print a small fridge or two, or, better yet, a stackable fridge freezer set. What, those don’t exist? Make them, or get the designs from someone else. Make a nice stove if you don’t have one. Now your food creation and storage options are completely covered, as well as home entertainment. Might as well make yourself some nice furniture, comfort is key, and don’t forget the bed. Make some nice clothes, too.
So you’re about a month in and food is running out. So make some more food before you run out. After that, start adding real luxuries. Spices, seasonings, cookware and other home incidentals. At this point, you probably only need to replace consumables. You should have been doing this earlier, but talk to your neighbors and friends. Visit their places, try new foods, get new ideas for how to make your life better, keeping in mind that doesn’t just include stuff.
If you can disassemble them, this is probably a good way to eliminate bounds on throughput, but honestly, even a little coordination permits for pretty enormous throughput from the get-go. You’ve got a lot of people out there.
“Ugh. I’m tired. Work sucked. Computer, make dinner.”
My real answer in anything because you could split a car up over multiple days just like the 3D printed Lamborghini.
Give me a Star Trek-style replicator and I’m never cooking dinner again.
TIL about the 3d printed lambo. this is COOL AS FUCK!
i kind of want to 3d print myself a lambo. gonna dust off my old prusa.
I’ve gotten to see it in person and it’s a real accomplishment. A large part of the frame was made from scratch and a few components were donated by Lamborghini themselves. The dude’s really chill.
I’d probably replicate a 1x1x1m cube of tungsten, then realize I have no way of removing it from the replicator.
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.
Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
The AI summons an extremely attractive and buff version of Charles Grey. He is holding a cup of tea and wearing absolutely nothing.
Damn these AIs are getting good at understanding exactly what I want.
One cubic meter of it.
Classic prank at the Academy - never play it on a Nausicaan.
One big sandwich 🥪
Wait. No. TWO big sandwiches 🤩
Wait. No.
Too late, gotta wait till tomorrorw
Now you have to spend the next 24 hours in regret 🤣
A very large breakfast burrito, maybe.
The obvious answer: Use your replicator to replicate more replicators.
The correct answer: The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer.
The clever dick corollary: 1m3 is actually quite a large volume, and ain’t no rule says you can only replicate one object at a time. If whatever luxury item or commodity you want is small in volume, which it probably is, don’t forget you can replicate a whole bunch of it within a meter cube.
One cubic meter fits a literal ton of whatever you want.
Not booze :(
A metric ton, anyway, and provided whatever you want is water.
Nah, it can also do a ton of anything denser than water, or anything that can be compressed to be denser than water.
A few people could easily coordinate to have one person ceeate food, another clothing and essentials, and another could create charged batteries or other energy producing objects. Hell, with a little planning you wouldn’t even need to coordinate really.
At that point the world is basically post scarcity and anyone can do anything, kinda like star trek.
Assuming no limitations on what it can make we will also be at the stage of mutually assured destruction since everyone can make a mini nuke each day they don’t need something else. This will either discourage violence or wipe out large areas of the planet depending on how fast the technology is distributed, as everyone getting it overnightbwill absolutely lead to a lot of damage in areas where conflict is happening. Not to mention oppressive governments trying to control the populations replicators.
Even if you didn’t want to use it for money, you’d have to use it for money somehow just to keep up with the inflation.
In Stephenson’s “Diamond Age” novel, even the super poor had basic access to in-home replicators. They were limited to pretty basic items, but they were available.
With everyone having access to basic goods, the rich people would go to villages of artisans that would hand make items to get unique, one of a kind things, as most crafts were now basically lost skills to most of society.
Throughout the story, the tech is explored and eventually hacked to upend society by removing limits on what can be generated by the replicator.
Buy land on earth.
As fast as possible.
I tell you right now, it’s gonna be all Lego for me.
The vast majority of people would make as much money as they could. Quickly, the economy implodes. People soon realize they can exchange their matter replicator for eggs. A new billionaire class arises, using their millions of matter replicators to make basic necessities for the worker class. The modern assembly line is now just row upon row upon row of matter replicators. One man per warehouse, just moving from matter replicator to matter replicator.
A few smarter people used their matter replicators to make more matter replicators. Lobbyists quickly pass “safety regulations”, and these “black market” replicators are outlawed. Soon local police start advertising “amnesty”, where you can bring in your illegal matter replicator and exchange it, no questions asked, for a gun.
A few unlucky people used their matter replicators to make drugs. The purity of replicated drugs quickly renders these people unable to continue using their replicators. These replicators are collected by next-of-kin, stolen by the people that exchanged their own replicator for eggs, or accidentally destroyed.
We know it can replicate multiple objects at once, because tea earl grey hot and the cup it comes in are multiple objects, and Picard often gets it on a saucer as well. So I would create a pile of everything I need for that day.
Trek Replicators use patterns, so the tea was programmed to be in a mug. You’d have to program whatever goodie bags you wanted.
Picard’s tea came in different mugs too. We don’t know if he programmed it that way or if AI picked a mug each time. The point is that if it can make tea and a mug in one go, it should have no problem with clean clothes, a frisbee and a hot breakfast.
