The greatest and worse inventions of all time?

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by Inquiring-Mind, Jan 1, 2007.

  1. Inquiring-Mind

    Inquiring-Mind Senior Member

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    The great:
    The wheel
    The computer
    The Internet


    Worse:

    Plastic
     
  2. EllisDTripp

    EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

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    It would have been difficult if not impossible to develop modern electronics for computers/internet WITHOUT plastics.


    Greatest:

    Microscope/Telescope
    Precision machine tools
    Electrical generation/distribution
    Radio/TV transmission
    Semiconductors


    Worst:

    Nuclear weapons
     
  3. nashy61

    nashy61 Member

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    greatest:
    wheel
    computers

    worst:
    nuclear bomb
     
  4. sentient

    sentient Senior Member

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    greatest
    computers, bread, agriculture, the wheel, animal farming, sattelites, space rocketry, scientific methodology, philosophy, telephone, writing, books, novels, the theatre, glass, electric light, medicine and pharmaceuticals, chemstry, The English Language, money

    worst
    RELIGION, capitalism, viscious fighting dogs, concentration camps, weapons of war, dog fights, chicken fights, slavery, fascism, ID cards, boxing, botox, rubics cubes
     
  5. nashy61

    nashy61 Member

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    Wait, why rubics cubes?
     
  6. Duck

    Duck quack. Lifetime Supporter

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    I disagree about the religion thing, even though I'm athiest =P
     
  7. gib_0101

    gib_0101 Member

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    The greatest: mushroom scrubbers


    The worst: really high-tech televisions with 10 different remote controls, each with about 100 cryptic buttons that require you to call a technical support person to figure out how to use.
     
  8. gardener

    gardener Realistic Humanist

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    Greatest: fire

    Worst: money
     
  9. MikeE

    MikeE Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    Greatest : moveable type printing press

    Worst: Well, the qualities that make an invention "the worst" include qualities that make it hard to identify. A truely bad invention doesn't work and we don't know about it. Like N rays and mesmeric fluid, but those were more discoveries than inventions. Beta Max was a bust as a commercial product, but was adopted professionaly. I'd have to say the V-1. It was unreliable and there was no follow on. (The V-2 was a different program, a completely different design, it was not developed as an improvement to the V-1.)

    Edit:re-reading my post, I have to give an honorable mention in the worst category to the 8-track.
     
  10. commie-dev

    commie-dev Member

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    best: simple things like shelter and toilet paper

    worst: not simple things like nukes and windex
     
  11. Green

    Green Iconoclastic

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    Best: Computers

    Worst: Overly processed food which gives you acid reflex disease.
     
  12. nashy61

    nashy61 Member

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    Overly processed food which gives you acid reflex disease. :)
     
  13. MikeE

    MikeE Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    Toilet paper: cut a tree, grind it into tiny pieces, soak those pieces until it forms a sludge, dry the sludge, cut the sludge into strips, match the strips together, roll into a tube, put into a truck, put in a store, take off the shelf, exchange money for rolled up paper.

    Toilet paper is not simple, it requires trucks and money to name two of the more complicated requisites.
     
  14. The_Gay_Goat_Brigade

    The_Gay_Goat_Brigade Member

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    The transistor is more specific I believe, since they are found the the majority of electronics today.

    Worst invertions are the ones that were intended to do good.
     
  15. Gyva02

    Gyva02 WACKY

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    Also Biological weapons, nasty nasty shit, no reason manufacturing that crap

    bacteria and viruses will be the end of us all.... if the nukes dont do it that is...
     
  16. RELAYER

    RELAYER mādhyamaka

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    Best : Morphine Sulfate Pills

    Worst : Morphine Sulfate Pills
     
  17. Eeso

    Eeso Member

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    there is no "worst" scientific discovery nor invention.

    The devil is in the application.
     
  18. Scrapadaptatious

    Scrapadaptatious Member

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    greatest and worst: MATH. it's necessary. but god damn i wanna shoot the fucker who invented it sometimes. i havn't learned anything important in high school about math in the past 3 years. maybe that's just the district's fault though.
     
  19. smoove

    smoove Member

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    bad things

    desposable items eg:-

    plastic bags

    plastic items in general

    land fills

    fishing trawlers
     
  20. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    greatest = internet, companion planting for integrated pest management, composting, REALLY narrow gauge railways. solar cells. windmills.

    worst = automobile, use of combustion to generate energy, economic and idiological fanatacism.

    good = refrigerators, narrow gauge railways (80cm or less, stored energy m.u., other people scale guideway based mechanical transportation, recharged off of :), wind/solar/hydro, batteries, streets converted to indoor malls w/ bus/trolly service INSTEAD of mega parking lots. methane from biomass for home cooking and heating, understanding that it all ties togather, use of belief to encourage avoidance of causing suffering, invisible friends.
    earth birmed construction.

    not good = coal and nuke generating plants, mega dams, wood fraim tickey tacky and strip malls, habitat loss as a resault, denial of the need to self-dicipline priorities, use of belief to encourage denial of connection between priorities and probabilities, the idea that invisible friends are evil unless they are infallable.

    =^^=
    .../\...
     

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