Sorry, it is a kind-of subtle point on using military robotics to enforce a status quo in which most people are forced to work under threat of vast discomfort of some sort of others (even if that means using military robots in some other country, like the USA using drones in the Middle East). It's also an oblique reference to what so many Slashdot articles have been about -- using technology to monitor and direct workers.

For context, consider civilian causalities even in narrowly target military campaigns using drones:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
"Taken together, independent estimates from the non-governmental organizations New America and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggest that civilians made up between 7.27% to 15.47% of deaths in U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia from 2009-2016, with a broadly similar rate from 2017-2019. Civilian casualties as a percentage of overall deaths were highest in Yemen and lowest in Somalia."

In general, historically, civilian casualties in almost any war outnumber military casualties by a factor of 2 or more though:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

And we might well see such numbers if "Slaughterbots" comes true:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
"Slaughterbots is a 2017 arms-control advocacy video presenting a dramatized near-future scenario where swarms of inexpensive microdrones use artificial intelligence and facial recognition software to assassinate political opponents based on preprogrammed criteria."

Consider though what is happening right now in Ukraine and Russia:
"4.5 Million Drones Is A Lot Of Drones. It's Ukraine's New Production Target For 2025. The Russian production goal is slightly lower."
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fd...

Consider what millions of drones could do instead to harvest food or make stuff.

"Drones Revolutionize Fruit Harvesting with AI-Powered Precision"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdronexl.co%2F2025%2F04%2F25%2F...

"Autonomous drones herald the future of constructing and repairing tall buildings"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ribaj.com%2Fproducts...

Millions of robots design to create instead of destroy could potentially have made Ukraine into a post-scarcity paradise instead of making parts of it into a modern-day hellscape. (Same could have been said for the US invasion of Iraq many years earlier...)

But that was not a choice that people involved (including other countries like the USA) saw was possible, in part because most people still don't understand the idea in my sig (distilled from the thoughts of many others, especially James P. Hogan): "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."

So, does the Ukraine conflict make any sense from a post-scarcity perspective? Millions of drones are being created to kill people and blow stuff up in order to control area of the Ukraine -- which means control of the *workers* in an area and thus receiving part of the wealth those workers produce -- when the same numbers of robots could instead be used directly to produce whatever it is that either side thinks they will get from controlling the area. Yeah, I know politics of war is complicated and full of all kinds of moral arguments on all sides. But from a purely physical goods perspective, that is why such military conflicts are increasingly absurd given our advanced technology, as the military drones are in a physical sense ultimately being used to fight over who gets to control the human workers and the goods they produce and the tax revenues and privatized gains from all that (while socializing all the costs). Natural resources in an area have no economic value without workers to turn them into products and services.

That said, if you want sci-fi about using tech and robots to control workers, Marshall Brain's Manna explores that in depth. Example:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarshallbrain.com%2Fmann...
"The "robot" installed at this first Burger-G restaurant looked nothing like the robots of popular culture. It was not hominid like C-3PO or futuristic like R2-D2 or industrial like an assembly line robot. Instead it was simply a PC sitting in the back corner of the restaurant running a piece of software. The software was called "Manna", version 1.0*. ... Manna told employees what to do simply by talking to them. Employees each put on a headset when they punched in. Manna had a voice synthesizer, and with its synthesized voice Manna told everyone exactly what to do through their headsets. Constantly. Manna micro-managed minimum wage employees to create perfect performance."
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarshallbrain.com%2Fmann...
"It doesn't matter if you are a hard worker or a slacker -- once you put on the headset, you are going to be working every minute of the day or you are gone. The system has already fired five people."

Of course, this is not exactly sci-fi anymore if you look at what companies like, say, Amazon are doing.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.com%2F20...
    ""The findings reveal that employers can weaponize elements or effects of algorithmic management against unions via repurposing devices that algorithmically control workers, engaging in 'algorithmic slack-cutting,' and exploiting patterns of social media activity encouraged by algorithmic management," the paper says.
      "Algorithmic slack-cutting" is a term the author uses to describe the softening of the "electronic whip," a characterization borrowed from prior research on algorithmic work demands. It's the proverbial carrot as opposed to the stick - removing the mental burden of being under automated, software-driven oversight. The argument goes that basically, it's such a relief to a worker when it's removed that it feels like a benefit.
      A cited example in the study comes from a warehouse worker's Time-Off-Task tracking system - which tracks the number of minutes that workers aren't actively working - being disabled to win over workers during the union campaign. This allowed workers to take bathroom breaks without being on the clock, ostensibly to soften attitudes toward management."

Not quite the same, but consider this Star Trek episode where disembodied brains (AIs?) control people via shock collars:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

There's also a Dust (I think) sci-fi short about a pregnant woman being forced to were a shock collar "protect" her unborn child, where all here actions are monitored by some sort of computer (I think) and shocks administered supposedly for her own good and the good of the child when she does not comply. I could not easily find the exact title right now though.

I found a different movie though which also uses collars to enforce behavior:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
"Frank is sentenced to 12 years imprisonment at Camp Holliday, an experimental prison where each convict is fitted with an electronic collar containing an explosive device which is electronically connected to another inmate. If any inmate tries to escape from Camp Holliday, or is even just separated from their collar-mate by more than 100 yards, both their collars will explode."

There is a scene in Diamond Age where nanites are used to force someone to move to execute their own death sentence:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

The movie Robocop initially has a robot enforcing human behavior with "20 seconds to comply".
"You Have 20 Seconds to Comply" ROBOCOP 1987" [warning: clip has some gore in it]
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...

Robot guards are a growing industry in general: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fduckduckgo.com%2F%3Fq%3Drobo...

Also related: "Everything We Know About Samsung's Machine Gun Robots"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashgear.com%2F8250...

The Colossus supercomputer in "Colossus: the Forbin Project" uses threat of nuclear war to force people to do what it requests:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fco...

Although here's a sort of reverse dystopia from 1947 where robots end up insisting humans do no work ever, showing the problems with any extreme: :-)
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F......
"In the course of the next day, the new Mechanicals have appeared everywhere in town. They state that they only follow the Prime Directive: "to serve and obey and guard men from harm". Offering their services free of charge, they replace humans as police officers, bank tellers, and more, and eventually drive Underhill out of business. Despite the humanoids' benign appearance and mission, Underhill soon realizes that, in the name of their Prime Directive, the mechanicals have essentially taken over every aspect of human life. No humans may engage in any behavior that might endanger them, and every human action is carefully scrutinized."

A more modern vision on that dystopia from this year:
"A Realistic Scenario of AI Takeover"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...
"This Brain Scribbles episode explores how artificial intelligence slowly integrates into our daily lives through simple conveniences. The video walks through a timeline of how these small changes build towards a future with deeply integrated AI. Watch now to rethink artificial intelligence."

Thanks for the reply and the Astra Taylor recommendation (who is new to me):
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
"Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Taylor grew up in Athens, Georgia, and was unschooled until age 13 when she enrolled in ninth grade.[4] At 16 she abandoned high school to attend classes at the University of Georgia; at the university she studied Deleuze and Guattari under Ronald L. Bogue. She has described herself as a "teenage Deleuzian."
        Taylor enrolled at Brown University, where she attended classes for a year before dropping out. Reflecting on her decision to leave, Taylor stated "Why had I felt compelled to enroll in an Ivy League school, to excel by the standards of conventional education and choose a 'difficult' major, instead of making my own way? What was I afraid of?" Taylor completed a Master of Arts in liberal studies at The New School, though stated that she ultimately "wearied" of academia. ..."

She's probably like this then by Manuel de Landa (and you might too):
http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/me...
"To make things worse, the solution to this is not simply to begin adding meshwork components to the mix. Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation. Certain standardizations, say, of electric outlet designs or of data-structures traveling through the Internet, may actually turn out to promote heterogenization at another level, in terms of the appliances that may be designed around the standard outlet, or of the services that a common data-structure may make possible. On the other hand, the mere presence of increased heterogeneity is no guarantee that a better state for society has been achieved. After all, the territory occupied by former Yugoslavia is more heterogeneous now than it was ten years ago, but the lack of uniformity at one level simply hides an increase of homogeneity at the level of the warring ethnic communities. But even if we managed to promote not only heterogeneity, but diversity articulated into a meshwork, that still would not be a perfect solution. After all, meshworks grow by drift and they may drift to places where we do not want to go. The goal-directedness of hierarchies is the kind of property that we may desire to keep at least for certain institutions. Hence, demonizing centralization and glorifying decentralization as the solution to all our problems would be wrong. An open and experimental attitude towards the question of different hybrids and mixtures is what the complexity of reality itself seems to call for. To paraphrase Deleuze and Guattari, never believe that a meshwork will suffice to save us."

Thanks for the moving short sci-fi story describing what such a shoplifter-chasing-robot world might feel like.

Here was a story I wrote on a related robotic-enforced dystopia (though with more positive ending):
"The Richest Man in the World: A parable about structural unemployment and a basic income"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...

See my other posts here for other sci-fi stories by various authors (Brain, Pohl, and Hogan) showing alternative futures using potentially-abundance-creating robots from a post-scarcity perspective.

The Skills of Xanadu by Theodore Sturgeon is another positive story -- although robots are specifically not there by choice in favor of wireless-networked-wearable-computer-mediated skill sharing (an impressive set of ideas for 1956, which helped inspire Ted Nelson to create hypertext for the Xanadu system, which helped lead to the World-Wide Web).
"The skills of Xanadu (Episode 8 of 14)"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fpr...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fia801205.us.archive.or...
"He remembered something Tanyne had said once, casually, about men and their devices:
      "Ever since there were human beings, there has been conflict between Man and his machines. They will run him or he them; it's hard to say which is the less disastrous way. But a culture which is composed primarily of men has to destroy one made mostly of machines, or be destroyed. It was always that way. We lost a culture once on Xanadu. Didn't you ever wonder, Bril, why there are so few of us here? And why almost all of us have red hair?"
      Bril had, and had secretly blamed the small population on the shameless lack of privacy, without which no human race seems to be able to whip up enough interest in itself to breed readily.
      "We were billions once," said Tan surprisingly. "We were wiped out. Know how many were left? Three!""

P.S. One other vision of a better future involving robots is James P. Hogan's 1982 sc-fi novel "Voyage From Yesteryear" which I am rereading for the fifth or so time (this time via an audiobook version).
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fvo...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
"The Mayflower II has brought with it thousands of settlers, all the trappings of the authoritarian regime along with bureaucracy, religion, fascism and a military presence to keep the population in line. However, the planners behind the generation ship did not anticipate the direction that Chironian society took: in the absence of conditioning and with limitless robotic labor and fusion power, Chiron has become a post-scarcity economy. Money and material possessions are meaningless to the Chironians and social standing is determined by individual talent, which has resulted in a wealth of art and technology without any hierarchies, central authority or armed conflict."

In particular, on the "shoplifting and robots" theme, there is a scene where teenager Jay Fallows comes back from visiting a "store" on the planet Chironia where he just walked out with a bunch of high-quality good like hiking boots, a backpack, and a painting -- and his parents are extremely suspicious of his story that it's just the way things work there according to some local teenagers and also the robot who ran the place.

The 1954 short story "The Midas Plague" by Frederik Pohl also explores the topic of dealing with a surplus of robot-produced goods. An audio version is available here:
"The Midas Plague - Frederik Pohl (Novella)"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...
"In a world of cheap energy, robots are overproducing the commodities enjoyed by humankind. The lower-class "poor" must spend their lives in frantic consumption, trying to keep up with the robots' extravagant production, while the upper-class "rich" can live lives of simplicity. The story follows the marriage between a lower-class man and an upper-class woman."

More on the Midas Plague story and related ones here (but spoilers):
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

Thanks for your insightful points on potential drone misuse. The issue goes even deeper, as I suggest here: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpdfernhout.net%2Frecogni...
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead? ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."

So, just think of all the robots that will be deployed to maintain an artificial scarcity of consumer goods when roughly the same amount of robots might just produce the goods at little-to-no cost (like explained in Marshall Brain's Manna):
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarshallbrain.com%2Fmann...

Or as Reddit user harebrane put it recently (replying to a comment of mine): https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fsingu...
"The manner in which I've discussed that paradox with various AI's is positive sum tools of abundance in the hands of zero sum extractive actors. I mean it's slightly harder to parse, but pretty concise. I also agree with the whole concept as you frame it - tools of abundance and amplification in the hands of people who only thinks in terms of zero sum scarcity and belligerence making us all more insecure. That said, a key point of framing it as positive sum vs. zero sum - is that life as a concept is not compatible, AT ALL, with zero sum. Every ecosystem, every organism, is arrayed around the central concept that entropy takes a bite out of every single transaction. You HAVE to produce more than is needed, and invest in the well being of not only your peers but your prey, or the whole board eventually disappears. Zero sum is a game that ends in extinction *of the winner.*"

If you read the article carefully, they are talking about lenses THINNER than a hair. I see several of the posts here thinking the width/radius of the lenses is this small, a reasonable mistake given the way this was written. Having a radius that small would severely reduce their light gathering ability, requiring very bright light or very dim images or very long exposure times.

-

...and thanks for all the fish.

I don't care about a touchscreen, but if it folded over and took pen input, I'd be a big fan.

Something I wrote on this in 2001 and posted to gnu.misc.discuss: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgroups.google.com%2Fg%2Fgn...
        "... I definitely do not want to see a future world of only proprietary intellectual property where basically everything I want to do requires agreeing to endless licenses and royalty payments, such as described in [Richard Stallman's essay] "right-to-read". ...
        However, on a practical basis, living in our society as it is right now, any software developer is going to handle lots of packets of information from emails to applications to program modules under a variety of explicit or implied licenses. If a developer is going to do this in a way that makes his or her work most useful to the community (under the terms he or she so chooses), proper attention must be given to the licensing status of all works received and distributed, especially those that form the basis for new derived works to be distributed. Note that even in the case of purely GPL'd works, one still needs to know that a user contributing an extension to a GPL'd work was the original author and/or he or she has permission to distribute the patch (if say an employer owns all the contributor's work).
        My question is: should software tools, protocols, and standards play a role in easing this required "due diligence" license management work (at least as far as copyright alone is concerned)? ...
        For example, consider this situation. I go to the Choral Public domain site and download a MIDI tune picked at random, say "Ecce nunc benedicite" by "Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina" edited by "Claudio
Macchi". Let's say I like it and want to pass it on. ...
        As soon as I have this file on my computer, much of the "meta data" about licensing is lost, since the meta-data is not all kept in the same file but is implicit from having the file on the site. If I pass the file to you, how do you know it is freely redistributeable? Do you tak my word for it? Do you check the site? Am I myself even sure enough what license it is under when I downloaded it that I can give you assurances you can use it? Why should you trust me if I do? Did you get the identical version I downloaded, or did I slip in a change which I might later use to make a claim against you if you use the file in a work of your own? If I (not the author) bundle the midi file with a CPDL license in a zip file, how do you know I had any right to do that? How much time do you need to take to verify the situation? ...
        Note that ultimately, having such meta-data in every file might require operating system support, or at least very smart tools, like a MIDI player that ignores the meta-data when actually playing the file. That in turn might require a more sophisticated repository approach to storing all file data (at a minimum, perhaps "license forks" like the Macintosh has "data forks", although this doesn't address the notion of one license covering multiple files taken as a whole). ..."

The rich and powerful are treating it like a tiger running after them. They know that they don't have to be faster than the tiger, just faster than other running from the tiger.

Well, you know the difference between a BMW and a porcupine.

(A porcupine has pricks on the outside.)

I prepared a five minute "lightning talk" for LibrePlanet 2021 on "Empowering users through Dialogue Mapping using IBIS".

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Flibreplanet.org%2Fwiki%2FL...

The text of the talk in IBIS outline format with some minor changes is available here.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpdfernhout.net%2Flibrepl...

That talk is a much-shortened version of a longer talk I gave in July 2019 for the Cognitive Systems Institute Group Speaker Series where I suggested using AI to help with the Dialogue Mapping process:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fsumalaika%2F...

More on Dialogue Mapping with IBIS:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcognexus.org%2Fid41.htm
"Dialogue Mapping is a radically inclusive facilitation process that creates a diagram or 'map' that captures and connects participants' comments as a meeting conversation unfolds. It is especially effective with highly complex or "Wicked" problems that are wrought with both social and technical complexity, as well as a sometimes maddening inability to move forward in a meaningful and cost effective way. Dialogue Mapping creates forward progress in situations that have been stuck; it clears the way for robust decisions that last. It is effective because it works with the non-linear way humans really think, communicate, and make decisions. ... As the people in the meeting speak, the facilitator paraphrases and captures what they are saying in a hypertext diagram on the screen. ... The icons represent the basic elements of the Dialogue Mapping grammar (called IBIS): Questions, Ideas, Pros and Cons. ... In Dialogue Mapping, as the conversation unfolds and the map grows, each person can see a summary of the meeting discussion so far. The map serves as a "group memory," virtually eliminating the need for participants to repeat themselves to get their points made."

Dialogue Mapping could potentially help people who take different sides on so-called "settled issues" to help understand the different points of view, assumptions, and priorities involved.

As an example, while not exactly Dialogue Mapping with IBIS, Kialo uses a pro/con format to structure online discussions related to controversial topics. Here are some Kialo maps on abortion:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kialo.com%2Fsearch%3Fq...

A specific example there: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kialo.com%2Fshould-a...

People may not all agree after participating in such systems, but at least they will get a better understanding of where specifically they agree or disagree with others as they all collaborate to build a visualization of the topic.

Most of the restaurants I go to don't even serve alcohol. Of course, I live in Utah, which is at the very bottom of the alcohol consumption per capita chart. Here restaurants all have normal fountain drinks, water, and then a wide array of specialty drinks, many of which are just normal sodas with some stuff added in.

Being a restaurant owner is hard. The margins on most food is slim. The margins on drinks (alcoholic or not), on the other hand, are ridiculous. There's a reason why sit down restaurants start you with something to drink, and why fast food places bundle sodas. To a very real extent these businesses make their money upselling you from drinking plain water.

One of my neighbors whoâ(TM)s in his eighties wound up switching to a recumbent tricycle because he had balance issues. Which sucked. But the tricycle is awesome and probably would be comfortable for you to sit on.

Nevertheless, you should ride what works and is enjoyable for you. The point is not to punish 80-year-olds by forcing them to ride bikes they arenâ(TM)t safe on. I have an Azore city bike that I really like. Wouldnâ(TM)t mind still being able to ride it at 80.

See the HF Acid Leach Process on page 290-291 (and in general the rest of Appendix 5E LMF Chemical Processing Sector, all outlined with an eye towards self-replicating lunar factories, from NASA under the Carter presidency): https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2FAd...
        "[From the Intro] Mission complexity has increased enormously as instrumentation and scientific objectives have become more sophisticated. In the next two decades there is little doubt that NASA will shift its major focus from exploration to an increased emphasis on utilization of the space environment, including public service and industrial activities. The present study was sponsored by NASA because of an increasing realization that advanced automatic and robotic devices, using machine intelligence, will play a major role in all future space missions. Such systems will complement human activity in space, accomplishing tasks that people cannot do or that are too dangerous, too laborious, or too expensive. The opportunity to develop the powerful new merger of human intellect and machine intelligence is a result of the growing capacity of machines to accomplish significant tasks. Indeed, the growth in capability of onboard machine intelligence will make many missions technically or economically feasible. This study has investigated some of the ways this capacity may be used as well as a number of research and development efforts necessary in the years ahead if the promise of AI is to be fully realized. ...
        [From Appendix 5E] Mining robots deliver raw lunar soil strip-mined from the pit to large input hoppers along the edge of the entry corridors into the chemical processing sector. The primary responsibility of the materials-processing subsystems is to accept lunar regolith, extract from it the necessary elemental and chemical substances required for system growth, replication, and production, and then return any wastes, unused materials, or slag to an output hopper to be transported back to the surrounding annular pit by mining robots for use as landfill.
        It is possible to achieve qualitative materials closure (see sec. 5.3.6) - complete material self-sufficiency within the Lunar Manufacturing Facility (LMF) - by making certain that chemical processing machines are able to produce all of the 84 elements commonly used in industry in the United States and the global economy (Freitas, 1980). However, such a complete processing capability implies unacceptably long replication times T (on the order of 100-1000 years), because many of the elements are so rare in the lunar or asteroidal substrate that a vast quantity of raw soil must be processed to obtain even small amounts of them. By eliminating the need for many of these exotic elements in the SRS design, replication times can be cut by as much as three orders of magnitude with current or foreseeable materials processing technologies."

Whether that is "reasonable technology" in today's economic system is obviously debatable. I also did not see any of the critical minerals in the article (like Cobalt or Neodymium) on the list of the "Total of 18 elements" the study listed as key to build these systems in the box on page 282 on "TABLE 5.11. MINIMUM SEED ELEMENT AND PROCESS CHEMICAL REQUIREMENTS" . So maybe, as you suggest, they are harder to extract but the study participants knew of workarounds -- for example using Iron in a battery or to make electromagnets?

Anyway, I had a copy of the page with that HF Acid Leach process up on the wall in my office for many years as a symbol of hope and abundance -- even if in reality HF acid is nasty stuff best avoided (or left to automation in far-off places).

It would be ideal to find a better way on Earth like perhaps bacteria or plants or other organisms that concentrate specific materials... The short-story "The Skills of Xanadu" from 1956 by Theodore Sturgeon, for example, suggests breeding a shellfish that concentrates strontium in its shell...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fia601205.us.archive.or...
        "At first, it seemed to Bril totally disorganized. These attractive people in their indecent garments came and went, mingling play and work and loafing, without apparent plan. But their play would take them through a flower garden just where the weeds were, and they would take the weeds along. There seemed to be a group of girls playing jacks right outside the place where they would suddenly be needed to sort some seeds.
        Tanyne tried to explain it: "Say we have a shortage of something -- oh, strontium, for example. The shortage itself creates a sort of vacuum. People without anything special to do feel it; they think about strontium. They come, they gather it."
        "But I have seen no mines," Bril said puzzledly. "And what about shipping? Suppose the shortage is here and the mines in another district?"
        "That never happens any more. Where there are deposits, of course, there are no shortages. Where there are none, we find other ways, either to use something else, or to produce it without mines."
        "Transmute it?"
        "Too much trouble. No, we breed a freshwater shellfish with a strontium carbonate shell instead of calcium carbonate. The children gather them for us when we need it." ..."

For example, on Cobalt, maybe we could breed cows and their gut bacteria to concentrate it? See: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...
"Cobalt is essential to the metabolism of all animals. It is a key constituent of cobalamin, also known as vitamin B12, the primary biological reservoir of cobalt as an ultratrace element. Bacteria in the stomachs of ruminant animals convert cobalt salts into vitamin B12, a compound which can only be produced by bacteria or archaea. A minimal presence of cobalt in soils therefore markedly improves the health of grazing animals, and an uptake of 0.20 mg/kg a day is recommended because they have no other source of vitamin B12."