If you haven't had a chance to read "Make" magazine yet, please do. It's likely the coolest magazine on the planet right now. The current issue, 21, dives into the rapidly evolving world of desktop manufacturing (additive and subtractive 3D fabs). What should be apparent to anyone reading it, is that desktop manufacturing is on the cusp of becoming as mainstream, inexpensive, and easy to use as personal computers (with similar effect).
What this means in the mid to long term is that manufacturing will quickly become more about manipulation of information (designs, controls, etc.) than materials. The actual physical production takes little space, money, and basic materials (perfect for decentralized resilient communities that need to make their own stuff).
This also means that manufacturing will start to really ride Moore's law, particularly as network platforms are designed to accelerate it. Fortunately, this shift towards information dominance isn't unique to manufacturing. It's impacting nearly every industry, service, and product. It's even taking shape in agriculture, as the first signs of a transformation from energy/labor intensive agriculture to information heavy permaculture design emerge.
What's exciting about this shift to information dominance, is that it makes our efforts to build an instrumented network (a darknet), one that enables the rapid establishment of thriving resilient communities, not only possible but probable. Our opportunity then, is to build our network in a such a way that the information flow for making and doing things is better, faster, and more easily utilized than the status quo system by several orders of magnitude.
Is this possible? Sure. A good starting point is the understanding that our new network's economy will be centered on the production and flow of information 'property'. The only question that remains is whether we use the same broken systems for generating innovation, managing production, and allocating investments. My answer: that's probably a very bad idea. More later.