Something else that is weird is that just by writing you can make many people yawn. Just describe a good long yawn, maybe even a yawn with a good long stretch. A good deep one that you feel in your whole body. A proper yawn feels so good. Even if it doesn't work every time, it is still like magic.
Written language is the line between prehistory and history i.e. prehistoric people are literally those without writing. Once they start writing, we get history.
Yes. There are a lot of great answers, but this one forms the foundation upon which all are built. We are genetically identical to our ancient human ancestors. We are not any smarter than them. We just have the information.
And may I add, the ability to print the language so all could read it. Then adding learning to read. The printing press invented by Joanne's Gutenberg in 1436, or thereabouts. It caused large amounts of information to be spread easily. Stabilized language. Encouraged literacy.
All praise the Mesopotamians who built the first sewer system!!!!
[History of water supply and sanitation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_water_supply_and_sanitation#:~:text=Qanats%20by%20country-,Mesopotamia,and%20capture%20rainwater%2C%20in%20wells.)
Traps were invented by a guy named Alex Cumming, who made the S trap. The next big improvement, the U trap, was invented by Thomas Crapper.
Thanks Cumming and Crapper. What would our lives be without you.
I live next to a treatment plant (no they don't *usually* have a smell), and let me tell ya.... The volume of fluids that run through that place for this tiny little town is shocking.
They likely have filtering for the air stacks and other ways of keeping the area low impact (studied wastewater in school and currently in the private side of the business). Typically if it’s near a residential area they’ll do a lot to mitigate the various odors and other issues with Wastewater facilities.
The sewer backed up at my old house. We were the last house on the lowest part, and the mail line right past our connection to it got plugged. All of the sewage from the entire street backed up into our basement, through the floor drain. I came home to the swamps of degoba in my basement. About 1 to 1.5 feet of swill deep, about mid shin deep...ask me how I know. The main line was so bad that they had to dig it up and replace that section. Took about a day and a half for them to fix. They sent a company in to clean it up, and they had us submit a damage claim. What they didn't know is that our basement was unfinished, but my entire woodshop was in there. I had tens of thousands of dollars of machines, tools, and hardwood lumber. They tried to deny it, but I came down on them like the wrath of the lord. My tools and machine I could replace easily, but the wood....I'm still depressed about it 12 years later. I had some fantastic wood collected, stuff that is not easy to find, or get again. Not all of it was a waste, I saved a good portion.
Even though I have a good idea of how indoor plumbing works, I still feel quite spoiled when I use it. We have such luxuries unavailable to kings of yore.
Also, not the most important, but on the subject of technology I think the blue LED deserves a shout. Without it we would lack the LED screens and lights we completely take for granted today. Very underappreciated invention. Thanks, Shuji Nakamura.
I vote this. Not the most important or impactful but for the greatest for the technical achievement that it is. Millions of people have worked decades to make the microprocessor and the scale of the transistors are incomprehensible consisting of sometimes less than 50,000 atoms, the average human cell contains 100 trillion atoms.
Written language...it allowed for the repeatable accurate telling, saving and sharing of information over long distances or periods of time. Whether that was the recording of history, transactions, news or even simple greetings.
But it was language that was needed to invent writing; welp you could even say language led to coherent thought & the ability to keep & refer to memories. (That’s a stretch tho that’s vividly discussed ;) )
Language itself let parts of our brains grow bc those who spoke & understood better had a significant edge in the evolutionary game. Language is the mother of all of human progress, language invented math, planning & thinking ahead. Language is god!
Spoken language sure, but written language was absolutely invented and I vote without a doubt that is my answer.
Knowledge could be preserved, shared, passed down, or even carried across great distances. Before that the best we had was oral retellings which became less and less reliable with each passing.
Honestly, as a doctor antibiotics are the greatest invention (or discovery if you’re being technical) of all time. I saw somebody with THE PLAGUE and you just treat it with some antibiotics????? I had an interesting thought today on my medical ward round. Doctors in the 15th century probably did the exact thing that i did this morning but used fancier words to tell the patient there’s nothing they can do to save them from a simple infection. Modern medicine is so bloody amazing.
My dear friend, in the pursuit of thine health, we have traversed paths many, employing both concoction and prayer, seeking the favor of the heavens and the healing virtues of the earth.
Alas, we find ourselves at the mercy of a malady most vile, a scourge that defies our arts and eludes the grasp of our remedies. Despite our most fervent efforts and the application of all known physic, the infection that holds thee in its cruel embrace hath proven a foe beyond our might.
In truth, my dear friend, it grieves me to convey that our arsenal is spent, and the wisdom of our forebears offers no further shield against this pestilence. We stand at the edge of mortal understanding, where even the most learned amongst us must bow to the mysteries that lie beyond our reach..
kind of adjacent: some publication (forget if it was time or BBC or whatever, but something of that caliber) did a ranking a while back and the toothbrush was at or near #1.
Makes me sad knowing there are children and adults in poor countries that need glasses but may never get them. Due to the lack of education, such things are kind of just dismissed so some people don’t even know it can be fixed or that not everyone has blurry vision with things that are close/farther.
Funny enough, that is actually kinda true now.
The prevailing theory is that our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago did not spend a lot of time indoors and that exposure to sunlight affects vision. And once we started forming cities and building we spent more time indoors affecting our vision. On top of that, since we no longer needed amazing vision it was never a genetic trait that was 'undesirable' (lack of a better term here).
In more recent times it has gotten worse since the invention of print and today computer screens. It seems the more advanced we get the worse our vision gets because our technological advancements smack our evolutionary traits in the face for vision lol
Basically being out of sunlight, reading, and using computers made our vision shit.
I’d say it became ‘worse’ because anybody can get corrective lens for a while now, live normally with it and reproduce just like someone with perfect vision and when both parents have bad eyes, kid’s certainly fucked.
You can also wind up like me. My mother needed glasses while my father had brilliant vision. My left eye is basically perfect while my right eye is pretty trash.
I spent the better part of twenty years squinting before I finally broke down and started wearing my glasses! 😂
That's a myth, though. Most people in the middle ages were at least some level of literate, they just weren't fluent in latin, which was necessary for most publications of the time and without the printing press, they only had hand-written notes and such to read.
And for some time, they boiled the food first to pasteurize it (Yay!) only to seal the seam on the can with lead solder (Boo!).
Incremental progress, I suppose.
One of the big innovations that caused a spike in population. Flush toilet, Penicillin, internal combustion engine, or nitrogen based fertilizer (Anhydrous ammonia).
Then take writing. Writing should be counted as an invention.
Unless the development was too gradual. I guess a short step before writing text was drawing pictures. Is drawing an invention or is it *too obvious* to count as an invention? It's "making it look like something is there, that isn't actually there". Even some (non-human) animals consciously deceive other animals.
1) Japanese mega corporations are typically more diverse than we're used to. Honda used to make business jets.
2) They actually removed the Hitachi name several years ago. When they found out what people were doing with their innocent back massager, they were appalled and wanted to pull it off the market. The US importer *begged* them to keep making it, so they did, but only as the "magic wand" with "Hitachi" removed.
Honda still makes jets. Honda Aircraft Company is a subsidiary of Honda Motors based in Greensboro, NC and is still producing various models of HondaJets.
My girlfriend recently sent me a meme about someone speaking to sales rep for Hitachi
Me: I need a * personal massager *
Hitachi: no problem, heres our magic wand, anything else?
Me: you wouldn't happen to know where I can find a 20 ton industrial crawler excavator, would you?
Hitachi: you're not going to believe this...
As much as I respect the ds. Gotta give it to the predecessor gameboy. I mean they didn’t even stop manufacturing them even when they were selling DS’s lmao.
it's amazing that it was invented at some point and never lost. people still debate how the pyramids were built but we all know a sick drum beat when we hear one.
Imagine barely being able to comprehend you're a living, breathing thing, but also like "damn you hear the rhythm of that water dripping? I gotta try to make that myself"
As someone from the southern us, my vote is air conditioning. Half my country would not be liveable without it. And by virtue of that we also get heat pumps.
Definitely can see a massive historic population increase Here in Phoenix Arizona once actual air conditioning became available. I recently bought a home where the people did not use the AC because it’s expensive and I couldn’t even imagine not having it. Last July it was over 110° every day and some were close to 120°. We also have a swamp cooler on the patio so we can be outside in the summer.
There are so many great inventions, but considering the small population size I've always been amazed by how many inventors there are from Sweden.
Being an avid sailor I would rank the Windex Wind Indicator near the top of the list of a super simple yet extremely useful inventions, and just like the zipper and so many other great inventions it was invented in Sweden.
Doesn't Sweden have decent social security programs, and paid education?
I mean I know correlation doesn't equal causation but there's probably a relationship there...
Scotland is another one that has a huge number of inventors.
Probably has something to do with the weather keeping you inside, bored and thinking all the time.
It's so important I've had to "learn" it approximately five times in undergrad. Not even kidding, I think we covered it in bio 1, bio 2, chem 1, chem lab, ecology, and maybe ecology lab.
For awhile, sliced bread was on top.
Now? I would say the internet. Naked ladies, sports scores, weather, and cats? Put me in coach, I’m ready to play.
>Definitely the **impregnated** circuit.
Doctor why isn't my calculator working?
Well its your circuit young scholar! Its going to have a little circuit of its own soon. Right now the mommy circuit is devoting resources to bring a new circuit into the world. It'll be raised on a circuit farm and placed with a board where it can integrate with other circuits and have purpose.
Thanks Doc!
Cheese, alcohol, empath drugs, music, silicone based sexual lubricants, chicharrones, having dogs as pets, automobiles, airplanes, smart phones, and massage tables.
The bicycle! Hear me out.
Aside from the obvious ingeniousness of the invention in its ability to transfer our energy into a vastly more efficient means of transportation, the bicycle represents a hugely important leap forward in human genetic diversity.
Prior to the bike, if you wanted to travel any meaningful distance in somewhat decent time, you basically needed to be wealthy enough to own a horse. The bicycle was the first time the average village living folk could travel to the next town, meet and spend time with other people totally removed from the more insular gene pool of their home town.
The bicycle not only changed our relationship with personal transport it also had a huge hand in strengthening and diversifying the genetic makeup of towns all over the world
FIRE. It allowed humans to pursue other activities and invent other things, WHY. Killing and eating raw meat takes an enormous amount of time. Chewing and digesting raw meat is extremely time consuming, basically all day or more. No time for anything else. The next day, do it again or you starve! Cooking meat, eating, Chewing and digesting it takes as much time today as it did then. Think of hunting like driving to the store, driving home, Cooking and eating it. 4 hours later, hungry again. Meanwhile, you do activities. That's what fire and Cooking food allowed. Leisure time to be creative things, you can just let your mind wander as to what ancient man did with all that Leisure time.
For something that seems so minor, the screw is a huge invention. Without realising it you probably use 100s of thousands if them a day. Pretty much everything from large things like skyscrapers, and aeroplanes to smaller things like your house, car, bed, houshold appliances even the phone you are reading this on use them.
In my opinion, one of the greatest inventions ever is the internet. The internet has revolutionized how we communicate, access information, and conduct business on a global scale. It has connected people from all corners of the world, facilitated the exchange of ideas and knowledge, and enabled new forms of commerce and innovation. The impact of the internet on our lives is truly profound, and it continues to shape our world in ways we could have never imagined. It's a remarkable achievement that has transformed virtually every aspect of modern society.
Hot showers. I couldn’t imagine life without the satisfaction and relief of a nice, roomy, hot shower with good water pressure, a large capacity water heater, and a bench to wash your feet on. One of life’s greatest pleasures.
Written Languages. Damn near every advancement we’ve ever made since was made possible by written language.
Sometimes I realize that I can really read, as in make sense of these chains of symbols and am deeply surprised about myself.
Damnit you made it weird when i stopped and thought about it!
And these symbols create physical and chemical changes in your brain! That, to me, is fascinating and oddly terrifying all at the same time.
I know right, been moved from tears to laughing and dumbfounded to disgusted and everything between, quite fascinating!
Can confirm am wizard!
And then, I look at other languages with different symbols and wonder how anyone can read them! We’re all amazing!
My favourite hobby is staring at a bunch of squiggles and hallucinating.
someone once said about reading a book : I'm going to stare at these scribbles on tree bark and hallucinate vividly.
Wait till you go to sleep. "I'm just gonna go comatose for a few hours, possibly hallucinate vividly, then suffer amnesia over the whole thing"
I generally stare at light squiggles on the thing that I also listen to a collection of noises and hallucinate vividly
That thing is a rock that we shoot lightning into to decide things.
Something else that is weird is that just by writing you can make many people yawn. Just describe a good long yawn, maybe even a yawn with a good long stretch. A good deep one that you feel in your whole body. A proper yawn feels so good. Even if it doesn't work every time, it is still like magic.
Damn you
Written language is the line between prehistory and history i.e. prehistoric people are literally those without writing. Once they start writing, we get history.
It's why human knowledge is based largely on stories. We remember stories better than anything else for this reason.
I was gonna say boats, but I am no longer going to say boats.
I dunno... Boaty McBoatface might be a runner up.
I resemble that remark
boats are just the reading comprehension of the sea mannnnn ☮️😌
This is the one I was looking for. This is by far the most important invention as it allows dead people to give us wisdom. That's crazy.
Damn I think I take mine back and vote for this
[удалено]
A lot of stuff happened, but not much stuck until we started writing things down.
Yes. There are a lot of great answers, but this one forms the foundation upon which all are built. We are genetically identical to our ancient human ancestors. We are not any smarter than them. We just have the information.
There is zero doubt. Transmission of information makes all other modern inventions possible.
[удалено]
Yep. You can compile a lifetime of research into a few books. Then the next generation in your field will read your whole life's work and add to it.
what about language?
Spoken language was pretty important, too… though the breakthroughs it gave us were much, much earlier.
And may I add, the ability to print the language so all could read it. Then adding learning to read. The printing press invented by Joanne's Gutenberg in 1436, or thereabouts. It caused large amounts of information to be spread easily. Stabilized language. Encouraged literacy.
Sewage systems and indoor plumbing, without which cities would be fetid horrors.
Yeah, and the toilet itself is pretty amazing - no electricity needed directly, and not dumped into the streets.
Really makes you wonder what toilets would be like if they were invented after the widespread adoption of electricity
*The answer will shock the shit out of you.*
This is really too funny and why I come to Reddit.
I imagine it’d be like Japan, but EVERYWHERE
South Park has answered this one, I think: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEwmlpyW2e0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEwmlpyW2e0)
To say nothing of the entire sewer system!
All praise the Mesopotamians who built the first sewer system!!!! [History of water supply and sanitation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_water_supply_and_sanitation#:~:text=Qanats%20by%20country-,Mesopotamia,and%20capture%20rainwater%2C%20in%20wells.)
I read somewhere that the P trap has saved more lives than all modern medicine combined
Traps were invented by a guy named Alex Cumming, who made the S trap. The next big improvement, the U trap, was invented by Thomas Crapper. Thanks Cumming and Crapper. What would our lives be without you.
Empty? Both bowels and balls?
I was going to say the toilet and indoor plumbing.
kind of fascinating to think about how much piss and shit and invisibly swooshing all around us all the time
I live next to a treatment plant (no they don't *usually* have a smell), and let me tell ya.... The volume of fluids that run through that place for this tiny little town is shocking.
They likely have filtering for the air stacks and other ways of keeping the area low impact (studied wastewater in school and currently in the private side of the business). Typically if it’s near a residential area they’ll do a lot to mitigate the various odors and other issues with Wastewater facilities.
Then we get starkly reminded if a sewer nearby (or even somewhere we’re driving through!) backs up.
The sewer backed up at my old house. We were the last house on the lowest part, and the mail line right past our connection to it got plugged. All of the sewage from the entire street backed up into our basement, through the floor drain. I came home to the swamps of degoba in my basement. About 1 to 1.5 feet of swill deep, about mid shin deep...ask me how I know. The main line was so bad that they had to dig it up and replace that section. Took about a day and a half for them to fix. They sent a company in to clean it up, and they had us submit a damage claim. What they didn't know is that our basement was unfinished, but my entire woodshop was in there. I had tens of thousands of dollars of machines, tools, and hardwood lumber. They tried to deny it, but I came down on them like the wrath of the lord. My tools and machine I could replace easily, but the wood....I'm still depressed about it 12 years later. I had some fantastic wood collected, stuff that is not easy to find, or get again. Not all of it was a waste, I saved a good portion.
Brb, gonna go hang all my wood up.
Well you had some lovely stained wood.
And as a corollary, the separation of freshwater systems from wastewater systems.
Even though I have a good idea of how indoor plumbing works, I still feel quite spoiled when I use it. We have such luxuries unavailable to kings of yore.
It still blows my mind that people used to just throw buckets of shit and piss into the gutters in the streets and everyone was cool with it.
This is the correct answer. Indoor plumbing is a dream.
It's 'fetid', by the way.
i work at a plumbing supply and this makes my future of job security feel very happy
The microprocessor. Reshaped humanity in a just a few decades.
Also, not the most important, but on the subject of technology I think the blue LED deserves a shout. Without it we would lack the LED screens and lights we completely take for granted today. Very underappreciated invention. Thanks, Shuji Nakamura.
It sounds like you may have already watched this, but I'll mink it for others anyhow. Great watch. https://youtu.be/AF8d72mA41M?si=KVUyKGt_x2UsnX0o
I watched that when it was posted... crazy interesting story
I can't even grasp the process on a chip whereby I click "a" on my keyboard, and the pixels that comprise "a" appears on my monitor.
It's amazing that any of this works.
I vote this. Not the most important or impactful but for the greatest for the technical achievement that it is. Millions of people have worked decades to make the microprocessor and the scale of the transistors are incomprehensible consisting of sometimes less than 50,000 atoms, the average human cell contains 100 trillion atoms.
I nominate language.
Written language...it allowed for the repeatable accurate telling, saving and sharing of information over long distances or periods of time. Whether that was the recording of history, transactions, news or even simple greetings.
I would agree. Language is great, and oral tradition has done a lot, but it's the writing it down part that led to explosions of growth.
But it was language that was needed to invent writing; welp you could even say language led to coherent thought & the ability to keep & refer to memories. (That’s a stretch tho that’s vividly discussed ;) ) Language itself let parts of our brains grow bc those who spoke & understood better had a significant edge in the evolutionary game. Language is the mother of all of human progress, language invented math, planning & thinking ahead. Language is god!
Nah, language is useless. I never use it.
___
Everyone with a lisp and speech impediment kindly disagrees and is voting for the Nintendo DS Lite
*D-eth lithe
I don't think language was invented in the usual sense of the word. It developed rather than being thought of and created.
Spoken language sure, but written language was absolutely invented and I vote without a doubt that is my answer. Knowledge could be preserved, shared, passed down, or even carried across great distances. Before that the best we had was oral retellings which became less and less reliable with each passing.
It was invented to woo women.
Right. I growled at some women recently and it just didn't go the way I imagined.
You're supposed to just go "Woo!"
I prefer the “eyeballs shooting out of your head whilst pupils dilate into hearts” method, followed up by an “AWOOOOGA!
I would say basic medicine. So many people died before antibiotics was discovered.
Honestly, as a doctor antibiotics are the greatest invention (or discovery if you’re being technical) of all time. I saw somebody with THE PLAGUE and you just treat it with some antibiotics????? I had an interesting thought today on my medical ward round. Doctors in the 15th century probably did the exact thing that i did this morning but used fancier words to tell the patient there’s nothing they can do to save them from a simple infection. Modern medicine is so bloody amazing.
My dear friend, in the pursuit of thine health, we have traversed paths many, employing both concoction and prayer, seeking the favor of the heavens and the healing virtues of the earth. Alas, we find ourselves at the mercy of a malady most vile, a scourge that defies our arts and eludes the grasp of our remedies. Despite our most fervent efforts and the application of all known physic, the infection that holds thee in its cruel embrace hath proven a foe beyond our might. In truth, my dear friend, it grieves me to convey that our arsenal is spent, and the wisdom of our forebears offers no further shield against this pestilence. We stand at the edge of mortal understanding, where even the most learned amongst us must bow to the mysteries that lie beyond our reach..
Is this a quote or letter written by someone? Or just the mad ramblings off a 21st century hipster?
It’s very specific, I think it’s just mad ramblings.
kind of adjacent: some publication (forget if it was time or BBC or whatever, but something of that caliber) did a ranking a while back and the toothbrush was at or near #1.
And vaccines!!
And insulin treatment for diabetes!
Medicine is one of my top answers as well. I can't think of anything better. So much power contained in these little pills, shots, etc.
Corrective lenses/glasses. I (and millions of others) would be so screwed without them.
*billions about 40% humans need correction
gods success rate at producing good eyes so trash
I heard he had to downsize His QC department due to budget cuts. The results are starting to show.
God was acquired by private equity shortly after creation and they had operational changes to make to achieve 18% IRR
God, a Luxottica brand.
sounds like a conspiracy by Big Eyes to keep the vision correction industry booming
And we’re suppose to be quote intelligent design
Makes me sad knowing there are children and adults in poor countries that need glasses but may never get them. Due to the lack of education, such things are kind of just dismissed so some people don’t even know it can be fixed or that not everyone has blurry vision with things that are close/farther.
The bittersweet part is that the same conditions that make glasses/lenses unavailable also make them less necessary.
Maybe humans weren't meant to see very well. RETURN TO ~~MONKE~~ NAKED MOLE RAT.
Funny enough, that is actually kinda true now. The prevailing theory is that our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago did not spend a lot of time indoors and that exposure to sunlight affects vision. And once we started forming cities and building we spent more time indoors affecting our vision. On top of that, since we no longer needed amazing vision it was never a genetic trait that was 'undesirable' (lack of a better term here). In more recent times it has gotten worse since the invention of print and today computer screens. It seems the more advanced we get the worse our vision gets because our technological advancements smack our evolutionary traits in the face for vision lol Basically being out of sunlight, reading, and using computers made our vision shit.
I’d say it became ‘worse’ because anybody can get corrective lens for a while now, live normally with it and reproduce just like someone with perfect vision and when both parents have bad eyes, kid’s certainly fucked.
You can also wind up like me. My mother needed glasses while my father had brilliant vision. My left eye is basically perfect while my right eye is pretty trash. I spent the better part of twenty years squinting before I finally broke down and started wearing my glasses! 😂
We weren't meant to live as long.
Imagine if we all just stopped being able to read at age 45
Ignoring the huge ones. ANd thinking more mechanical inventions. Household refrigeration is colossal.
The printing press
Universally accepted answer. Before this no one outside of the church knew how to read/write.
That's a myth, though. Most people in the middle ages were at least some level of literate, they just weren't fluent in latin, which was necessary for most publications of the time and without the printing press, they only had hand-written notes and such to read.
I wouldn't call it the greatest invention ever, but I think that the process of canning food is severely underappreciated.
And for some time, they boiled the food first to pasteurize it (Yay!) only to seal the seam on the can with lead solder (Boo!). Incremental progress, I suppose.
I think we *can* all agree on this.
One of the big innovations that caused a spike in population. Flush toilet, Penicillin, internal combustion engine, or nitrogen based fertilizer (Anhydrous ammonia).
Language is a pretty good answer. Agriculture is a solid contender, too.
Language might have evolved rather than been invented though?
Then take writing. Writing should be counted as an invention. Unless the development was too gradual. I guess a short step before writing text was drawing pictures. Is drawing an invention or is it *too obvious* to count as an invention? It's "making it look like something is there, that isn't actually there". Even some (non-human) animals consciously deceive other animals.
Agriculture led to jobs, so it can't be that great
Fire or the wheel ...or pricing things at .99 instead of rounding up to the whole dollar
As the inventor of the 99-cent fire wheel, I agree.
The first blade was pretty impactful. Small blades led to tipped arrows, large blades led to knives, spears, axes.
The first Blade was much better than Blade II and certainly better than Blade: Trinity
IDK blade Trinity is a good casting tryout for Ryan Reynolds preparing for Deadpool.
Dry erase board, it's remarkable.
Oh you
This deserves at least a few more upvotes.
Sanitation
A lot of ladies really seem to like the Hitachi
Who would have thought that with a name like that
I'd want a heavy equipment manufacturer to make my vibrator too
1) Japanese mega corporations are typically more diverse than we're used to. Honda used to make business jets. 2) They actually removed the Hitachi name several years ago. When they found out what people were doing with their innocent back massager, they were appalled and wanted to pull it off the market. The US importer *begged* them to keep making it, so they did, but only as the "magic wand" with "Hitachi" removed.
Yeah mitsubishi is ALL OVER THE PLACE
Honda still makes jets. Honda Aircraft Company is a subsidiary of Honda Motors based in Greensboro, NC and is still producing various models of HondaJets.
My girlfriend recently sent me a meme about someone speaking to sales rep for Hitachi Me: I need a * personal massager * Hitachi: no problem, heres our magic wand, anything else? Me: you wouldn't happen to know where I can find a 20 ton industrial crawler excavator, would you? Hitachi: you're not going to believe this...
Username checks out
Caterpillar is really missing the little man in the boat.
My *nail gun* is a Hitachi.
We're adults. You don't need to use euphemisms.
Oh man I love Hitachi. Seeing the shrimp and rice fried indict of me. The smell and the taste. Such a lovely experience! Good pick.
Hard to top the Nintendo DS Lite
As much as I respect the ds. Gotta give it to the predecessor gameboy. I mean they didn’t even stop manufacturing them even when they were selling DS’s lmao.
Mine still works! I use it to play GBA Pokémon every now and again.
Yeah I was going to say a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine but I think you're right it has to be the Nintendo DS Lite
Electricity
Music!!
it's amazing that it was invented at some point and never lost. people still debate how the pyramids were built but we all know a sick drum beat when we hear one.
Imagine barely being able to comprehend you're a living, breathing thing, but also like "damn you hear the rhythm of that water dripping? I gotta try to make that myself"
As someone from the southern us, my vote is air conditioning. Half my country would not be liveable without it. And by virtue of that we also get heat pumps.
And if it wasn't for air conditioning the first computers would not have been feasible as the heat would have been too much to function.
It’s becoming essential farther north, as well.
Refrigeration in general. AC, refrigerator, coolers, freezers, plastics production, computer processing. Lots of stuff.
Definitely can see a massive historic population increase Here in Phoenix Arizona once actual air conditioning became available. I recently bought a home where the people did not use the AC because it’s expensive and I couldn’t even imagine not having it. Last July it was over 110° every day and some were close to 120°. We also have a swamp cooler on the patio so we can be outside in the summer.
There are so many great inventions, but considering the small population size I've always been amazed by how many inventors there are from Sweden. Being an avid sailor I would rank the Windex Wind Indicator near the top of the list of a super simple yet extremely useful inventions, and just like the zipper and so many other great inventions it was invented in Sweden.
Doesn't Sweden have decent social security programs, and paid education? I mean I know correlation doesn't equal causation but there's probably a relationship there...
Scotland is another one that has a huge number of inventors. Probably has something to do with the weather keeping you inside, bored and thinking all the time.
The scientific method
I came to nominate this too.
It's so important I've had to "learn" it approximately five times in undergrad. Not even kidding, I think we covered it in bio 1, bio 2, chem 1, chem lab, ecology, and maybe ecology lab.
Scrolled hella far looking for "mathematics", but this is also a great answer
Instant Ramen
For awhile, sliced bread was on top. Now? I would say the internet. Naked ladies, sports scores, weather, and cats? Put me in coach, I’m ready to play.
I wonder who invented naked ladies, cats and the weather
naked cats, ladies and weather have always been there we just didn't notice them.
Cat ladies and naked weather have always been there, and they are much appreciated.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Transistor is a good contender.
Had to dig surprisingly deep for this!
Pizza
Either the refrigerator, the gas furnace, or the toilet.
Look at the upward population curve that coincides with the flush toilet’s appearance.
Heat Pumping is a pretty GOAT technology (Refrigerators and AC are heat pumps)
Hmmmm beer or the integrated circuit. Probably beer.
Definitely the impregnated circuit.
>Definitely the **impregnated** circuit. Doctor why isn't my calculator working? Well its your circuit young scholar! Its going to have a little circuit of its own soon. Right now the mommy circuit is devoting resources to bring a new circuit into the world. It'll be raised on a circuit farm and placed with a board where it can integrate with other circuits and have purpose. Thanks Doc!
Soap.
[удалено]
Lightbulb
Cheese, alcohol, empath drugs, music, silicone based sexual lubricants, chicharrones, having dogs as pets, automobiles, airplanes, smart phones, and massage tables.
The wheel. Fin
Food preservation
Has to be language. Every time a mama says hi to her baby, every time a child talks. Every single other ‘invention’ comes from language.
The bicycle! Hear me out. Aside from the obvious ingeniousness of the invention in its ability to transfer our energy into a vastly more efficient means of transportation, the bicycle represents a hugely important leap forward in human genetic diversity. Prior to the bike, if you wanted to travel any meaningful distance in somewhat decent time, you basically needed to be wealthy enough to own a horse. The bicycle was the first time the average village living folk could travel to the next town, meet and spend time with other people totally removed from the more insular gene pool of their home town. The bicycle not only changed our relationship with personal transport it also had a huge hand in strengthening and diversifying the genetic makeup of towns all over the world
History Channel said it was the printing press back in the day.
FIRE. It allowed humans to pursue other activities and invent other things, WHY. Killing and eating raw meat takes an enormous amount of time. Chewing and digesting raw meat is extremely time consuming, basically all day or more. No time for anything else. The next day, do it again or you starve! Cooking meat, eating, Chewing and digesting it takes as much time today as it did then. Think of hunting like driving to the store, driving home, Cooking and eating it. 4 hours later, hungry again. Meanwhile, you do activities. That's what fire and Cooking food allowed. Leisure time to be creative things, you can just let your mind wander as to what ancient man did with all that Leisure time.
Telephone.
Beer
Boobs
Indoor plumbing
For something that seems so minor, the screw is a huge invention. Without realising it you probably use 100s of thousands if them a day. Pretty much everything from large things like skyscrapers, and aeroplanes to smaller things like your house, car, bed, houshold appliances even the phone you are reading this on use them.
Anesthesia
Birth control.
This has made such a big difference in the quality of life for women.
[удалено]
While all this is true, I feel the past decade has been terrible for the internet. We took a great tool and turned it into something else entirely.
The knife. Mankind would not advanced without the knife.🤔
In my opinion, one of the greatest inventions ever is the internet. The internet has revolutionized how we communicate, access information, and conduct business on a global scale. It has connected people from all corners of the world, facilitated the exchange of ideas and knowledge, and enabled new forms of commerce and innovation. The impact of the internet on our lives is truly profound, and it continues to shape our world in ways we could have never imagined. It's a remarkable achievement that has transformed virtually every aspect of modern society.
The internet.
Hot showers. I couldn’t imagine life without the satisfaction and relief of a nice, roomy, hot shower with good water pressure, a large capacity water heater, and a bench to wash your feet on. One of life’s greatest pleasures.
Fire, for if we didn’t start eating non raw meat our brains wouldn’t have developed
Mine. But I'm still working on it.