Well we've heard about 3D printers before, but an open source, self replicating 3D printer sounds like just what we need.
The guys at http://reprap.org/ have done just that, created an open source 3D printer that can print a good portion of the parts required to make one.
To call it replicating is a bit of a stretch, but it's a start. Once it can build an entire machine, only then am I happy to give it replication status.
Are we living in a simulation? An unusual question, and Nick Bostrom has an interesting theory.
The abstract:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage;
(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);
(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
