Mass Employment - Restore America

Hi There

I am a maker with 3d printer. I live in the heartland - outside Indianapolis.

Come to realize, the 3d printer is just a device. Whether it prints in plastic or with lasers/EBM and metal - just a machine.
I've got a great one, following Quentin Harley's Morgan v1 design. Moving arms cooler than cartesian or deltas.
Certainly cool and fun with all it's intracacies and beautiful creations.

BUT, it's all about the designs.
I keep thinking how to influence employment. Seems having humans connect pieces is good. Robots typically do assembly, but are expensive to buy, and reprogram -humans are easy to reprogram.
Printers are great in that a tray of pieces can be assembled. Clocks are a great example of parts, but there are probably better examples. We can't just be selling clocks. There's some great progress in electronics that can be embedded in a build. We can't reprap the motors yet, but we're getting closer.

Sure, regional manufacturing is a good target. But I think there's more. Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, St Louis - a good starting area.

What can you think of? How can we use this new technology to create more jobs?
Yes, we can use the printers to create new artifacts, but how can we INFLUENCE GROWTH !!!

Is this a good discussion? Never posted before, see if anyone is out there.
Steve

This is the obligatory article to read on this, though i much doubt it is the last word. The idea is that this is a way to put means of production in the hands of people.

Reprap isnt really the only project, there are many small projects out there, and even something done for fun and written about can be found on the internet now. There is also opensourceecology.org, but i am not sure about its status.(what its community is like etcetera)

One thing to note is that you think in terms of jobs, i think it is better to look it as in 'making decent livings'. Though you do need to give people the (mental)tools to control their lives, you dont need to fill peoples' time in the sense of a job per-see.(But of course if that works for people..) If a machine can do the job quicker and people dont actually want to do it, it'd rather have the machine do it...

Next to developping means of production to make an impact finally breaking with consumer society, means consciously developping lifestyles. Afaik by no means does any method need to be 'one size fits all'. I think stuff like hackerspaces would provide the 'social ability' to organize things.