- **Constructivist design principle**: A blueprint is only valid if it explicitly includes the manufacturing steps needed to build the object; this “constructivist” stance (coined by maaku) treats the fabrication recipe as part of the design itself and is seen as a practical route to automated factory generation and self-replicating systems.

- **Specialized vs. generic tooling trade-offs**: Discussion mapped how volume dictates whether to use universal machines (lathes, 3-D printers) or invest in custom molds, dies, and jigs; micron tolerances or cold-forged parts can force specialization even at low volumes.

- **Wear and redundancy in self-replicators**: muurkha emphasized that replicators need only survive long enough to produce >1 viable offspring; high part counts and modest redundancy (e.g., 10–100 identical screw-making sub-assemblies) can relax reliability requirements compared with traditional industrial machinery.

- **Failure-rate math for 1000-process replicators**: To keep the expected number of critical failures below one per replication cycle, each of 1000 non-redundant processes must have a mean lifetime ≥1000 replications; adding redundancy or reducing the number of critical processes is preferred.

- **Fluidic, pneumatic, and mechanical computation**: kanzure noted that computation is not limited to electronics—fluidics, pneumatics, and mechanical motion can all serve as computational substrates.

- **Bio-inspired process modularity**: A linked paper (Sci-Hub | Process Innovation through bio-inspired design) argues for modular, cell-like process units to tame the combinatorial explosion inherent in highly specialized, constructivist manufacturing chains.

- **Historical motor integration insight**: docl observed that the second industrial revolution pivoted on small motors embedded in individual machines, replacing centralized steam engines and belt drives—an abstraction missing from many “bootstrap from nothing” simulations.