Vice Wars: How 3-D Printing Will Revolutionize Crime

Right now, the world’s three largest illicit trades are drugs, exotic species and arms, and roughly in that order. Drugs are by far the biggest category, accounting for slightly less than 1 percent of global commerce or, according to a 2003 UN report, $321.6 billion dollars a year. Exotic species, the world’s second largest vice market, adds up to another 20 billion annually. Arms trading, our third category, is also a multibillion dollar proposition, with—as estimated by the Small Arms Survey—the illegal market accounting for roughly 10 percent of that (perhaps 2 billion annually).

All of these markets are, of course, based on principles of scarcity. As anyone who has watched an episode of Breaking Bad know, drugs aren’t easy to make. Nor are they easy to sell. Arms take complicated machinery to manufacture. And exotics species are no picnic to collect nor transport.

But all of this is about to change. About a month ago, global security expert and futurist Marc Goodman, in this TED talk, predicted the world would soon see it’s first 3-D printer gun. This week, his prediction came true.

Read More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenkotler/2012/07/31/the-democratization-of-vice-the-impact-of-exponential-technology-on-illicit-trades-and-organized-crime/