Mobjects

= Objects created by a mob

Description

Bruce Sterling:

"Objects created by a mob. Noncommercial, free (or at least cheap), distributed, authorless objects. Could they exist? Where’s the killer app for something, some object, made by an underpaid, intelligent mob? Who’s the consumer? Who needs this most? It is mobs that need mobjects. Mobs of refugees. Mobs of the dispossessed. This is a perfect technology for disaster relief or refugee camps. People arrive there with nothing. They’ve had to abandon everything they owned. They need everything, and they need it fast. Disposable, temporary, cheap. They have no money. They have no resources. They’re not picky. They need mobjects. How does this work in practice? I envision some kind of universal fabricator. A big, bad, cheap fabricator that makes stuff out of utterly worthless raw materials. Straw and mud, perhaps. Or chopped grass, cellulose, recycled plastic and newspaper, even sand. A big, rugged, dirty, emergency thing like an upended cement mixer. But smart. There’s a lot of code in there. Free, unpatented code. So, how does it work? You’re a mob. You’re panicked; you’re shell-shocked; you’re thirsty. You need buckets. The mobject-maker spits out these generalissue buckets. Khaki-colored maybe, the color of mixed dirt. Ugliest buckets in the word, but they work. They carry water. Now you need latrines, so out come a few hundred of them. Sewer pipes. Shower stalls. Faucets. The appurtenances of urban life. Squeezed out in molds, on the spot. Basic, safe water infrastructure so you don’t die of dysentery like every other dispossessed mob in the world. You wouldn’t normally put up with this mobject way of life, but if your town has been smashed in an earthquake, then mobjects are kind of handy. One helicopter and one fabricator and a week later you’ve got a town. It’s not a pretty town, but at least you’re not dead." (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002142.html)