Antibiotics.
What Are The Most Important Developments in Human History?
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
we need to fix this (looking at my kids and their generation)
I struggle to call America free when so few have so much of the power between government, corporations and local law enforcement.
We'll just go out and make sure really bad events happen elsewhere.
Ring pull cans
- the saucepan / cooking pot. Without this invention we'd only have fried food and no hot beverages.
- the knife. A most versatile tool suitable for almost everything from splitting firewood to dividing food into nice chunks and from shaving to gutting a fish
- the needle. Without it we'd wrap ourselves in leaves and furs and we'd bleed to death from horrid wounds.
As an archaeologist and historian, I will weigh in: the ice machine.
But seriously, a very interesting conversation. There are many important developments which have made us unique as a species. I will cast a vote for art and the understanding of the unseen world via the language of math, as these are two ways that humans have learned to conceptualize abstract ideas and visualize the parts of the universe we can't immediately see.
Tool use is a big one. YES other animals use tools. BUT no other animal uses tools to the degree that humans do--tool use is a major, key component to our adaptive survival strategy. We have elevated tool use to a degree not seen in other species. So just being able to make tools isn't uniquely human, it's the fact that for us, tool use is a non-negotiable part of being human.
Likewise our use of language. Other animals have complex communication patterns to be sure, but our ability to communicate specific, precise, abstract and concrete ideas is really something special.
I think all of this points to a human ability to categorize the world around us, to recognize patterns, and to attribute meanings to symbols which convey information in very complex ways. Are we the only animals to do this? No. But I don't think you can deny that no other animals do it quite the way humans do. Dogs dog, cats cat, squids squish, and humans human.
But seriously, a very interesting conversation. There are many important developments which have made us unique as a species. I will cast a vote for art and the understanding of the unseen world via the language of math, as these are two ways that humans have learned to conceptualize abstract ideas and visualize the parts of the universe we can't immediately see.
Tool use is a big one. YES other animals use tools. BUT no other animal uses tools to the degree that humans do--tool use is a major, key component to our adaptive survival strategy. We have elevated tool use to a degree not seen in other species. So just being able to make tools isn't uniquely human, it's the fact that for us, tool use is a non-negotiable part of being human.
Likewise our use of language. Other animals have complex communication patterns to be sure, but our ability to communicate specific, precise, abstract and concrete ideas is really something special.
I think all of this points to a human ability to categorize the world around us, to recognize patterns, and to attribute meanings to symbols which convey information in very complex ways. Are we the only animals to do this? No. But I don't think you can deny that no other animals do it quite the way humans do. Dogs dog, cats cat, squids squish, and humans human.
I guess that depends what constitutes freedom. You don’t need power over government to say you have determination over your own life. And if you need money to self determine but money is available to those who train and work to get good jobs the need to work doesn’t negate the freedom.
The bigger argument against calling America free is the large sections of the population being railroaded into prison either without committing crimes or by unjust sentences to lesser crimes.
I was going to say penicillin, I think vaccinations could also be included.
Has anyone mentioned the microscope, and the telescope?
Home delivery food
I know you were being intentionally flippant, but, yes, the broader achievement of refrigeration has definitely helped make our modern world. My world would a much sadder place without an occasional bowl of butter pecan ice cream.
Football
Real football that is, not football where they carry the ball with their hands and batter shit out of each other
Real football that is, not football where they carry the ball with their hands and batter shit out of each other
Oh, you mean soccer.
That's sounds more like feet ball.
Football is where the field of play is measured in grids... by the foot... & yard. In America we don't name our pro sports for how you play it, but for where you play it. That's why we don't call baseball batball, or basketball handball.
No, I mean football
I don't know that it's accurate that the "football" part of the American name comes from the playing field, but in the full name of "gridiron football" (of which in America simply "football" is the shortened version), the "gridiron" part certainly is the description of the playing field.That's sounds more like feet ball.
To find how the name of "football" enters the sport, I think you have to go back to "rugby football" (from which gridiron football descends) as being the form of football supposedly originating at the Rugby School. Why exactly that game (now commonly referred to as simply "rugby") was first referred to as "football" may be lost to history.
My personal speculation is that either the original rugby football ball or its inspiration was a badly made or deflated soccer football ball that was used to play a different game (prototypical rugby football), but again that's just speculation on my part.
Yeah... I don't know how factual/speculative it is either, but it just seems sensible to figure that if rugby isn't played with the foot on the ball, like soccer, then the only other explanation for why we'd call it that, is because the ball is brought to a foot marker, much like in baseball it's sent to bases, & basketball it's sent to baskets. The term gridiron itself as well reflects the measured grid.
Even pinball sort of fits that construct, by sending the ball about the pins. In fact, calling soccer football, is maybe the only sport I can think of, with ball in the title, that indicates the object the ball is played with, instead of the medium it's played about. Even volleyball isn't called fistball. The volley itself is where the ball must stay, or be put
Edit: You know, this may seem off topic, but to bring it back on topic, I actually agree that sport is one of the most important developments in human history, just as much as art, it's an expression we find a real value in, practice contest amongst ourselves
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For me the most important things in history were:
Whales and dolphins have social structures and family units. Whales communicate via songs and sounds that can travel for miles across oceans so you can't say they don't have any higher intlligence, same for dolphins.
Even some simian species have these qualities so just because we humans cannot understand them how do we know they don't have their own language or thought process?
Those other non free places won't ever be free till there are mass uprisings. Change won't happen overnight.
- Invention of a number system for counting and time keeping
- Written language
- The wheel of course
- Computers and integrated circuits without which computers would be cumbersome eyesores and well beyond the reach of everyone
- The invention of flight
- Space travel
Whales and dolphins have social structures and family units. Whales communicate via songs and sounds that can travel for miles across oceans so you can't say they don't have any higher intlligence, same for dolphins.
Even some simian species have these qualities so just because we humans cannot understand them how do we know they don't have their own language or thought process?
we need to fix this (looking at my kids and their generation)
Those other non free places won't ever be free till there are mass uprisings. Change won't happen overnight.
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