"...from the point of view of technology, a code generated within a digital computer is now self-replicating as the genome of a line of living cells. From the point of view of biology, a code generated by a living organism has been translated into a digital representation for replication, editing, and transmission to other cells." George Dyson in response to Craig Venter's announcement of "synthetic" life.

Now that we have a self-replicating biological platform (yeast -- likely one of many different platforms that will be floated over the next couple of years) that can accommodate a completely synthetic genome, the race in on: towards an abundance in nearly every material or process that can be enabled via biological means.

For resilient communities, this will likely lead to the ability to replicate on the micro scale, many of the difficult to produce materials currently available only through a global industrial system. All that needs to be shared is the information necessary to do it. P2P pharmaceuticals and fuels?

Of course, this also means that the global system is about to become even more prone to massive instability than it is today (and it's pretty bad already). Threats will emerge out of nowhere as errors, failures, and misuse of this technology occur (inevitably). These threats, in turn, will be quickly amplified by the network dynamics of our tightly interconnected global system, which converts relatively small events into global scale catastrophes.

There is a bright side to this: This technology makes resilient communities both more necessary and more viable at the same time.

The localization of production and the virtualization of everything else precludes the chance that damage from this technology will spread to a global scale via network amplification. It contains any potential damage to a small area. On the other hand, the virtualization of production and portability of discovery/productivity enabled by this technology will make it possible for very small communities to replicate the industrial power of a nation-state. Very nice.