The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel

[steyr_m]

Not sure if I agree with this. All those intellectual minds come up with this:

Number 20 -- the pill [thank goodness people can screw with few consequences. It beat the sextant, the telegraph, and Archimedes’ screw]
Number 22 -- The green revolution [people rediscovering what we've been doing for millenia]

What about hydraulics? That allowed mass mineral extraction, facilitated cheap production of many of the things on the list. Otherwise quite good...

--

Some questions you ask because you want the right answer. Others are valuable because no answer is right; the payoff comes from the range of attempts. Seven years ago, The Atlantic surveyed a group of eminent historians to create a ranked list of the 100 people who had done the most to shape the character of modern America. The panelists agreed easily on the top few names—Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, in that order—but then began diverging in intriguing ways that reflected not simply their own values but also the varied avenues toward influence in our country. Lewis and Clark, or Henry Ford? Thomas Edison, or Martin Luther King? The result was of course not scientific. But the exercise of asking, comparing, and choosing helped us understand more about what these historical figures had done and about the areas in which American society had proved most and least open to the changes wrought by talented, determined men and women.

Now we turn to technology. The Atlantic recently assembled a panel of 12 scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, historians of technology, and others to assess the innovations that have done the most to shape the nature of modern life. The main rule for this exercise was that the innovations should have come after widespread use of the wheel began, perhaps 6,000 years ago. That ruled out fire, which our forebears began to employ several hundred thousand years earlier. We asked each panelist to make 25 selections and to rank them, despite the impossibility of fairly comparing, say, the atomic bomb and the plow. (As it happens, both of these made it to our final list: the discovery and application of nuclear fission, which led to both the atomic bomb and nuclear-power plants, was No. 21 of the top 50, ahead of the moldboard plow, which greatly expanded the range of land that farmers could till, at No. 30.) We also invited panelists to add explanations of their choices, and I followed up with several of them and with other experts in interviews.
Imagination, optimism, and the nature of progress

One panelist ranked his choices not by importance but by date of invention, oldest (cement) to newest (GPS satellites). Some emphasized the importance not of specific breakthroughs but of broad categories of achievement. For instance, Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern, nominated in his top 10 “modularity.” By that he meant the refinements in industrial processes that allowed high-volume output of functionally identical parts. This enabled mass production and the Henry Ford–style assembly line (49 on The Atlantic’s list), and the profound shift from handmade to volume-produced versions of everything. Modularity didn’t make it onto our final list; the adoption of standardized shipping containers, which extended the same logic in a different realm, just missed the cut.

In short, these scientists and creative types decided to answer the question they wanted us to ask, rather than the exact one we posed. We have new sympathy for people attempting to manage universities and R&D labs. But in the end we had enough comparable and overlapping suggestions, from enough people, with enough spelled-out explanations, and enough force of experience and insight behind them, to be comfortable presenting The Atlantic’s survey of humanity’s 50 most important technical breakthroughs since the wheel. We converted all the responses into values we could enter on a spreadsheet; we weighted, as reasonably as we could, the intensity and breadth of support; we watched the combined rankings go up and down as each new response arrived; and we came up with the final ranking you see here.

more:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/innovations-list/309536/

[Rubberchicken]

I didn't see sliced bread on the list and that's the yardstick to measure an ideas worth.
e.g. That's the best thing since sliced bread. The town that lays claim to the home of sliced bread is Chillicothe, MO.

[osoab]

Not sure if I agree with this. All those intellectual minds come up with this:

Number 20 -- the pill [thank goodness people can screw with few consequences. It beat the sextant, the telegraph, and Archimedes’ screw]
Number 22 -- The green revolution [people rediscovering what we've been doing for millenia]

What about hydraulics? That allowed mass mineral extraction, facilitated cheap production of many of the things on the list. Otherwise quite good...

--


What about #11? Nitrogen fixation was "central to the green revolution"? Wow, what greenie/Agenda 21 turd wrote this piece?

Paper is way to low. Should be above the printing press.

Vaccination(#8) is above sanitation (#12). Ha!

[osoab]

Crap, I hadn't read #42 prior to posting.



42. Paper money, 11th century

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/dollarsdollars%20110.jpg

The abstraction at the core of the modern economy



;D

[Hypertiger]

Rubbing two sticks together to cause them to attempt to take more power than the give from each other until they reach the point of ignition.

Rubbing a magnet and copper together fast enough will also produce an ignition as well.

The discovery of what is called technology.

Black and light magic.

Negative and positive.

[Ponce]

The plow was the one that helped expand the world by being able to form towns..... and give people more time to do other things.

V

[Hypertiger]

To feed masses of slaves for the master to absolutely or ignorantly capitalize upon.

To supply vast amounts of free energy to sustain all of Satan's shoe polishers.

And back scratchers and back whippers the middle class or servants

[Hypertiger]

Of course if you are a drone...you will just think positive and ignore negative.

Which makes it real easy to fool...or mind control you all.

There is a discovery that has already been made that the knowledgeable absolutely capitalize upon to keep ignorance from discovering knowledge of.

The liars rule the ignorant.

Ignorance of truth is the root of evil.

[palani]

What about the thermos bottle?

You put something hot in and it stays hot. You put something cold in and it stays cold.

How does it know?

[EE_]

#51 Bitcoin

Greatest breakthrough surpressed technology
1. cold fusion
2. super-conductor

[brosil]

Prior to the widespread use of window screen in the 1880s-90s, child mortality was roughly 33% at age 3 and under. After it dropped to roughly 10%. Everyone ignores window screen.

[gunDriller]

shouldn't the Limerick, Haiku, Christmas carols, and good swear words be SOMEWHERE on the list of inventions ?

[milehi]

What about fishnet stockings?

[Hypertiger]

The greatest supressed technology are your minds.

They take more than they give to sustain existence....Until they run out of power...and go dead.

Who is supressing the ability for you all to start out at rubbing two sticks together and creating a civilization.

You learn that trick in school.

Or they taught you all to lay back and milk the system until new and nifty ways to the milk the system are discovered.

The baby bottle is almost run dry...and then all your babies will really cry.

because the power of positive thinking is powered by all the negative you all...ignore or are not even aware of...the dark matter of ignorance.

On the internet you can somewhat hide from me.

In person...I can read your mind in nanoseconds...and know if you require yes or no when you demand yes.

And most of you have some mental problem where you think for some odd reason you are owed or deserve yes...when you deserve no.

and you use whatever power you foolishly think you have.

you know...the power you have right now that you use to get what you want from others.

the power you have played with your whole life and leaned to use on all those around you an that you come into contact with...to manipulate them into supplying your demands.

for yield.

victory.

and you all do not like defeat...that is negative...it hurts your feelings when you are not supplied with the love you think you deserve.

You like my new technology?

Where I walk amoung you all...and you all are oblivious.

That what you all pathetically struggle to accomplish is a joke for me.

Oprah requires billions raped from all of your morons to power her serenity religion...the just think positive ignore all the negative consequences caused by just thinking positive.

I need zero love from all of you all to be a positive person.

Because with you all...your love costs more than I'm willing to or am required to leave on the nightstand to party.

You all seriously think right now you are fooling me.

That you all are role models for children to look up to?

What can a child learn from all of you?

Let he wo has no sin cast the first stone...I'll eventually be casting stones out of a Vulcan cannon onto all your heads.

Oh you all want to play poor unfortunate mixed up dumb victims...and play dumb.

You think that in here...this is it?

I exist outside here...and outside here I'm way more powerful...and I consider the Internet a book of matches handed to children to play with.

but now I see how fucked you all are...and if something cosmic does not happen to take me and all the other like me out.

I will just get more and more angry.

You think I'll end up like piles of shit for brains Americans getting scraped off the floor of air ports with a straight razor.

I'm a billion times smarter than that malfunctioning product of an good old American upbringing.

The purpose of the police and military is to protect...you all...the ignorant knuckle dragging cause.

from the consequences of your ignorance.

When the consequences of you actions come home to roost...like magnets...invisible threads connected to the ignorant cause playing dumb and hoping that will work.

Ya on other dummies around you.

Hurry up and kill/ban me.

you will only get what you want from me when what you want and need from me are the same.

perhaps if you rammed as shot gun up my ass and demanded me to believe gold is money or you were going to pull the trigger...I would consider that request.

because if you do not pull the trigger and all me to go free...the isiant I am...you will die.

Tell me morons...is that capitalism...socialism...communism...the gold standard...the shot gun standard your standard...

I annihilate lies and shatter delusions in real life.

In here I play with kid gloves and canday coat as much as possible.

Kill me...show me how powerful your resistance to a shit stained kleenx is.

because that si abiut as much power as I'm using to slap all you lilly white buy the good book game players around.

In the USA if I caught a wiff of one of you trying to touch me with a hair from the tip of your finger I would snap it off.

All your little gold and silver gurus...are weakling pathetic pandering to useful idiot jokes that require a massive slave force to prop them up.

I think the technology of the lie is the top technology you all have bought and fallen for.

run and pray.

Call the Internet police and do a backtrace...lol.

You all are rude scum...until you get your own bile spewed back down into you panties....then you act all shocked and perplexed.

Artificial intelligence.

You all do not connect to the Internet looking for Truth.

You all come here seeking support for or to promote your cherished delusions.

That I'm ever going to worship the ground you all walk upon...any more.

My days of supporting your poor fragile crumbing belief systems...is coming to an end.

Better hope the technology to save you from the deflation you all are rocketing toward oblivious...is rolled out soon...I'm sure they are waiting for just the right time...for moon and stars to align.

to save you all...and its once around the park James...then home for tea.

[EE_]

What about fishnet stockings?

and stilettos, tube tops, halter tops, hot pants, daisy duke shorts, crotchless panties...and boob jobs! and beer, gotta have beer!

[Hypertiger]

Zionism is not to blame for your ignorant behavior...I sure hope the Zionism made me do it excuse is not your excuse.

You are just a silent partner of satan now...and if you claim ignorance...I rest my case.

Guilty.

You all share responsibility for claiming irresponsibility and playing dumb as dirt so good...that you have become paragons of moronism...and the consequences do not pick and choose between the ignorant and the knowledgeable.

You all think you can murder the world and think you get a free pass or that it will blow over.

Those are the good old days...you are still milking the burning embers...that are going out.

Retarded birds of a feather flock together.

The Internet and TV and radio and all media coming out of the puss for brains USA has to be cut off...its fucking the whole world up.

You idiots dropped the ball.

You had your chance.

You think all the staged events like Iraq and Afghanistan and your American idol presidential elections are real wars or real elections?

you are living in a fantasy world that is ending.

You all are not even close to ready for the reality you are heading into...marching to doom with glee your whole lives.

[Libertytree]

Wow! Damn! Here I thought Hypertigger would say he/she was the greatest breakthrough since the wheel. Mayhaps it's an inferred posit?

[Hypertiger]

You are now the greatest breakthrough since the wheel.

As for Ron Paul.

Why could he not slay greenspan?

He does not mind the banking scam...living of the rental of gold to idiots...until the demand for yield by the owners of gold becomes greater than all you chumps below can supply.

and then what...they all come out...and come clean and let you all in on the secret that you all are chumps.

to the point you have chumps that believe in the gold standard leading chumps into the golden empire of lies and delusions...where gold mines are black holes with liars on top.

is that are no false GOD to worship...liars standing over shit holes in the ground?

I can snap my fingers and command the goods and services of the world to come to me.

As long as there is a system in operation to make my wishs my commands.

What are your problems.

If you all can not snap your fingers and have people around you doing your bidding.

you obviously do not know much about commanding slaves to mine for gold to supply your demands.

how does your religion say power works?

What does Julius ceaser the dog teaser use to buy those pavlovs dogs?

Gold...Scooby snacks?

what invention...snapping fingers.

Like how did you all even live up to this point in time?

I must have done far to much all these years supporting the gong show of the USA to notice it trun into a gong show...did I not work hard anough to supply the demand of the USA for love.

and now this is my punishment?

contempt.

Because I did not spend my entire life socially engineered...scientists are trying to find a way to eliminate people like me before they are born.

Because I hurt peoples feelings by existing.

Money is a plaything that lower forms of life are forced to accept as Truth.

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

The chain of command.

I can loop it all around you necks and jerk you all around.

in my sleep...when I'm dead.

Dead people earn more money than you.

you al lare slaving like fools to pat the taxes due to rich dead people you are forced to worship or not...it doe not matter...you all are taxed into the ground.

and then you wish to tell me I'm a fool.

I'm well aware of how the system operates...I sustain because I can...It is the only option...but you all have nothing but contempt for slaves.

good thing the billions below are not much smarter than gnats.

or they would form bridges of people over the oceans to allow their rebellion against the opressors to find its mark...like locusts stripping the flesh off you bones.

That is the deflation that is kept at bay.

When the USA collapses down to the next level....your shields will drop...and I do not even want to be alive to see that day.

Because the entire USA and world will blow to kingdom come.

All what you currently think is the future...will be blown out like a candle.

Your leaders will go into pure psychopathic terror mode.

If you all below do not control your destiny going in.

what ever you think the future is going to be...will not make it the other side.

all the Americans that died to great you all here...are not here to do what you all have the privledge of doing.

Because all I can do is watch...Bretton woods set up everyone on earth to suck American cock...and unlike everyone else...I woke up in the matrix pod and and spitting it out.

How is the above any different than the nightmares you export out into the world for children to be exposed to.

I watched Ron Paul suck Greenspans cock for years or was that Ayn Rand when Greenspan wrote his gold is money can you sleep with me hunny note...and they both enjoyed entertaining you all.

Not me...

I want my money back from the comedy show you are running or watching...idiots.

Is it not possible for someone to have a perspective different than you all...

I'm obviously Satan...smite me.

send me back to hell...so you all can get back to raping the planet to sustain ignorance is bliss heaven.

you think I do not have an ability to actually try to do more than I currently do.

I just spent the past few decades showing up and being told that you all have it under control down it the USA.

You do not control the shit coming out of your asses at this point.

Now I guess I just wait for a drone to Greece me...

I made a monumental error years ago becoming involved with a woman and producing offspring.

My wife is the most abused woman I have ever met...she is so nice...yet the only reason she is with me...is because every man she ever interacted with including her brother abused her one way or another...tow were americans...one her ex husband the rich families forced on the two...he turned out to be a sexual predator.

and the other...some multi millionaire Richie rich type that she tried to befriend and he grabbed her by the hair and used her head for a pocket pussy.

I've been in the USA...walked around it the USA with guns...ran around and played tricks on Americans...just flash my military ID at the border...and get the royal treatment.

but now the border is closed...and I doubt ill ever step foot in the USA again.

so if that is your plan...good...

next turn off the filth you spew and claim is freedom of speech or expression...freedom to be mental retards.

That is how I know Its over soon...because the world is turning on you all...and I'm sick of interacting with retards that think they know something about economics because it has not tried to kill them yet.

Its really turning into puke...and you all must be socially engineered to just keep lapping it up and spewing it...and then claiming that is life liberty and the pursuit of ignorance.

and expect me to jump on that band wagon train to gameoverville.

[mick silver]

one sick cat

[Libertytree]

Comparatively you're right :)

5613

[Serpo]

kitty quote..

I'm sick of interacting with retards that think they know something about economics because it has not tried to kill them yet.


think you are separate from us on your own intellectual island and have not thanked anyone here for one post yet.

meaning what you think is exactly that ..........thoughts but nothing close too reality for in reality we share ,create and are linked together.

in your thinking world you have created a us and you mentality where only you can be right and we (whoever that is) are eternally wrong.

you come here and insult us with profound tripe that is meant to be enlightening but instead goes around in circles going nowhere and meaning nothing of any importance.

yes its great to read how stupid we are and how moronic we are

there is one thing I know however and that is that the truth is not gibberish ,never has been and never will be

[Hypertiger]

You would claim anything is gibberish to put on a show.

Sorry I do not pay the syntax you demand.

You haven't a leg to stand on...that is not going to stop the consequences of your actions fucking the dog for anyone to see and then trying to stick up for nothing.

Thank for what?

See you think you are entitled to something from me because I exist.

I need to rent my existence from you.

I have spent my life supplying power to the USA.

It is you that think I'm a trained monkey that slaves for dollars.

its not my fault you are still floating around in a bubble waiting for it to pop or not.

I'm on pop watch now...

Yes there are good people in the USA...but they are just meatshields liars hide behind and use as window dressing.

Props in your fantasy world to interact with.

The problem is there is nothing you can do...and unless I can figure out a way to avoid the spash damage when the USA falls...I will be forced into a position of dealing the mental retardation spilling over the border and flowing out over the world.

At my location...people around me will demand I do something.

Currently I can still hide and pretend to be an ignorant product of decades of social engineering...like all of you.

what is used on all of you to brainwash you all.

Does not work on me.

Science is trying to figure out a way to eliminate people like me so that people like you are not exposed to what the master does not want you exposed to.

Try to school me all you want.

point out this gibberish you speak of and I'll be glad to take al look at it and see if I can guide you through it.

or you can kill me...It is how Americans have been winning arguments for centuries now.

[Hypertiger]

Press the rewind button when your bag of crap comrade in arms began having his Hypertiger soviet agent melt down.

Is that an example of an American with a brain in his head to use as a role model.

Or are you all all suffering from baby seal tunnel vision.

Or Midnight rambler that worships flying penises with wings and blowing loads on evil gooks and then flying off for a 3 point fucky suck 5 dollar landing in the officers club with the good gooks.

Oh that is right Dick shoot you in the face Cheney...says...Americans do not know how to be social...they are antisocialists.

they just fire and forget...for 6 decades...

the fast air right over the air heads.

[ximmy]

that you have become paragons of moronism....

How dare you call me a paragon of mormonism...

[Hypertiger]

Agent Smith is the Paragon of that religion.

[gunDriller]

and stilettos, tube tops, halter tops, hot pants, daisy duke shorts, crotchless panties...and boob jobs! and beer, gotta have beer!

fvck boob jobs. it gives women the strange idea that they are more attractive with bigger breasts.


though admittedly, large bouncing breasts are attention getting.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGOcjpEUqm8

http://therynoshorn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/big-bouncing-boobs-gif-kate-upton.gif

http://www.gifsai.lt/gif/she-likes-to-watch-them-bounce-bouncebreak-com-big-boobs-bounce-bra-gif-hot-knockers-large-sfw-tits-043c5a20-sz500x568-animate.gif

[Serpo]

You would claim anything is gibberish to put on a show.

Sorry I do not pay the syntax you demand.

You haven't a leg to stand on...that is not going to stop the consequences of your actions fucking the dog for anyone to see and then trying to stick up for nothing.

Thank for what?

See you think you are entitled to something from me because I exist.

I need to rent my existence from you.

I have spent my life supplying power to the USA.

It is you that think I'm a trained monkey that slaves for dollars.

its not my fault you are still floating around in a bubble waiting for it to pop or not.

I'm on pop watch now...

Yes there are good people in the USA...but they are just meatshields liars hide behind and use as window dressing.

Props in your fantasy world to interact with.

The problem is there is nothing you can do...and unless I can figure out a way to avoid the spash damage when the USA falls...I will be forced into a position of dealing the mental retardation spilling over the border and flowing out over the world.

At my location...people around me will demand I do something.

Currently I can still hide and pretend to be an ignorant product of decades of social engineering...like all of you.

what is used on all of you to brainwash you all.

Does not work on me.

Science is trying to figure out a way to eliminate people like me so that people like you are not exposed to what the master does not want you exposed to.

Try to school me all you want.

point out this gibberish you speak of and I'll be glad to take al look at it and see if I can guide you through it.

or you can kill me...It is how Americans have been winning arguments for centuries now.

Im not in America , Im not trying to school anyone as schooling is a failure.

Im not putting on a show ,it is you being the show man.

I abuse no one normally yet you abuse everyone as a matter of course.

To think this hasnt been tried on this forum over and over by paid agents ect working for the freak show.

To thank no body for anything here shows us exactly what you are ......a superior being...............like everyone else asleep at the wheel no matter how much you may deny it...........you are one of them

[Hypertiger]

Im deflation....lies and delusions require inflation to sustain existence.

The more the lie you all desperately worship as truth...the weaker my sympathy for the devil becomes.

Lady Macbeth could see the blood on her hands and it drove her insane....good thing you all can't.

Must be nice to be as ignorant to responsibility as you are.

One day they will be able to give me the drugs you are taking and then I can be ignorant like you.

[Hypertiger]

Now you demand and think you are entitled to thanks.

Is that why you operate?

Thanks....monkey chow?

Persuasion force annihilation.

That is the progression.

Supply the demand or we will kill you.

Duh...Hurry up and kill me off.

Its how Americans get what they want.

[ximmy]

Now you demand and think you are entitled to thanks.

Is that why you operate?

Thanks....monkey chow?

Persuasion force annihilation.

That is the progression.

Supply the demand or we will kill you.

Duh...Hurry up and kill me off.

Its how Americans get what they want.


HyperKitty... Why won't you thank my posts? :(

[Serpo]

HyperKitty... Why won't you thank my posts? :(





Its not something a superior being would lower themselves to do.

[Serpo]

Now you demand and think you are entitled to thanks.

Is that why you operate?

Thanks....monkey chow?

Persuasion force annihilation.

That is the progression.

Supply the demand or we will kill you.

Duh...Hurry up and kill me off.

Its how Americans get what they want.

I dont demand or think anything

Its just that this is a forum and with give and take ,I guess its hard to be humble if your arrogance extends to all corners of the universe.

[Hypertiger]

Because I'm mentally retarded garbage obviously...That is why I don't do what you all think I should be doing.

[Libertytree]

Because I'm mentally retarded garbage obviously...That is why I don't do what you all think I should be doing.

Where has anyone told you what you should be doing?

[osoab]

I think Hypertiger hasn't thought we are doing are best to suck from the system to help hasten it's demise. The rest is just fluff.

[mamboni]

I think Hypertiger hasn't thought we are doing are best to suck from the system to help hasten it's demise. The rest is just fluff.

I think he's sucking more than anyone else. In fact, I found his picture (warning: rated XXX - adults only):

http://us-p.vclart.net/vcl/Artists/H0rs3/hypertiger.jpg

Animated version:

http://horse.elynx.fr/hypertiger.swf

[mamboni]

They left out lip disks.

5621http://www.godlikeproductions.com/sm/custom/l/x/93941a8cb7.jpg