So the latest big booster for the 3D printer revolution … Glenn Beck? Would be interesting to see a conversation between Mr. Beck and Mr. Pettis — certainly they would have a lot to say about hopes for manufacturing in the United States. But imagine a 2009-era Bre on the Glenn Beck show?

From WIRED Design:

Glenn Beck has seen the future, and it is 3-D printed.

On Tuesday, he featured one of MakerBot’s Replicators on his radio show/online broadcast, making it clear that he was impressed by the desktop device.

“This can make anything,” he says as the machine diligently prints out a tiny shark model. He’s no less impressed by how easy it is to create the models for a print, too, pointing to Autodesk’s 123D Catch as an exemplar. “Now I can take a picture of anything and it will make it.”

While this isn’t — strictly speaking — true (Beck would do well to remember Steve Jobs’ famous dictum that design is how it works, not what it looks like), it’s not that different from what we hear from the most enthusiastic advocates for 3-D printing.

In the segment, Beck is quick to highlight the societal implications, worrying about what it could mean for patents, art and currency. But his main focus is on the means to use this kind of technology to restore American exceptionalism.

“Jobs will come back to America because you’ll be able to make things again, remember this is early technology here,” he says. “However, those aren’t manufacturing jobs, they aren’t labor union jobs, they aren’t dolt jobs, per se. You will be able to make anything you need. So our economy in the entire world is turned upside down. You don’t need little slave children in China to make stuff. The Replicator 2000 will do it for you.”

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