this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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3DPrinting

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[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 173 points 2 days ago (4 children)

TLDW; billionaire Michael Bloomberg is behind multiple laws in mostly blue states to require spyware be added to all 3D printers under the banner of "gun control".

He's attempted to hide this as a grassroots effort, when in reality it's nearly completely funded by him and his organizations. There's a call to action to contact your representatives if that legislation is being proposed in your state and voice your opposition to letting billionaires control what you can and cannot 3d print.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not positive it's completely about what you can and can't print. It might also be about training AI on everyone's 3d models.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think it's an attack on Free Software and property rights (what some people minimize as "right to repair").

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

As always. And he probably also has investments in certain products too.

[–] potatopotato@sh.itjust.works 33 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Yeah, for people who aren't in the gun hobby space, Bloomberg in particular is really weird about guns. I'm not talking like effective ways of reducing violence, he's constantly throwing money at pushing Kafkaesque regulations like this. His general strategy seems to be trying to reduce violent crime by making as much random unrelated stuff an arrestable offense as possible to the point where it (surprise) just makes it easier for cops to continue the cycle in low income communities.

[–] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 2 days ago

Literally criminalize as many people as possible, to reduce their financial liquidity and secure his place as a rich dude. Look at any Rich dudes actions and it's all about making sure it's harder for other people to get rich.

[–] tristynalxander@mander.xyz 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I heard one of the Green Brothers claim that billionaires tend to develop really strange out of touch opinions. To me, they often seem a mixture of stupid and self-serving. I suspect any actual laws will be undermined within a month, but it's really annoying that these people keep sticking their nose in other people's business.

[–] potatopotato@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I've worked directly with some startup founders and they tend to not understand selection bias very thoroughly. Rather, they see themselves as inherently smarter than other people and eventually they determine that all the decisions they make must be the right ones. Even when their success is very obviously luck they eventually start to think as of they have an infallibility field around them which drives some extremely odd behaviors.

[–] Erusset@slrpnk.net 8 points 2 days ago

That makes a lot of sense and is also really frustrating. You had some luck in life and so everything you think must be absolutely correct.

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 days ago

The goal of a lot of crap gun control (and a lot of weird regulation) is pretty clearly to de facto ban things by nickle and diming endless seemingly reasonable small safety measures that people ignorant of issues will vote for because they seem like easy common sense.

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I see he's afraid of a second Luigi

a second luigi has hit the towers

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Can you use the gun lobby loophole on everything banned for guns and buy your 3d printer as a kit?

[–] Addv4@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (3 children)

They're probably gonna try making the slicer send the print to a central server (based on what I was hearing about the California law), so while making a printer from a kit (like a Voron) isn't a bad idea, they're probably gonna try to aim for the software side. The whole thing is so dumb.

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 3 points 1 day ago

Proposal, all FOSS slicers come with a secondary download with a disclaimer like:

THIS ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE IS definitely not SPYWARE MANDATED BY THE US GOVERNMENT. For residents of XYZ jurisdiction you are "required" to copy this file to your slicer/snitchoneverythingyoudo folder. If you DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS SOFTWARE, your slicer will not be able to report your activities to the government. You have been warned.

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So airgap an older version of Klipper...

[–] Addv4@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

For the printer side, sure. But if they start declaring slicers that aren't phoning to a govt server illegal... they'll be slightly harder to find and install. Which is just why this is soo stupid. Not only is it very hard to enforce, phoning models into a central server and expecting it to know what models contain parts for a gun or the like isn't really possible (you could maybe make some AI to intuit a bit, but it would probably suck at actually figuring out if a print is dangerous or not).

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Prusa already does this if you let it. I have been doing it because its a convenient feature, but now Im definitely going back to the old way