This is the UN, remember. They aren't worried about people with options. The question is if this thing is actually easier and cheaper than local labour.

[–] Steve@startrek.website 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Another good point- lets fix poverty by replacing local labor with a 3d printing machine!

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 10 months ago

I'm no luddite, if it makes sense to automate some menial task we should. Let's do the napkin math.

It says it costs 180,000USD. A labourer in rural Columbia might cost 1USD per man-hour. If we assume it replaces two workers, and produces a house generously 3 times as good, that's your investment back in 30,000 hours, or ~3.5 years.

Actually, that's decent. I guess I was expecting it to cost millions. If you make less generous assumptions, you get a less generous result, but they have a shot.