Inventions that Shaped History

What are the most important inventions and innovations? This is the kind of question my son might ask me just before bedtime, knowing it will get talking. For him it delays having to go to bed and at the same time makes him sleepy. But I realize that I have a lot of opinions about this subject, and probably most other people do to, so I thought I’d try to jot them down and see if they made any sense.

I saw a list somewhere that included the car, the iPhone, and the electric guitar, and no doubt these things are important, but I’m talking about the bigger picture. I’ll start my list with some old stuff:

Now these aren’t really inventions and are not uniquely human. They’re genetic instead of intentional. Why include language and not evolution, eukaryotic symbiosis, and other important “innovations”? Since being a person means not being just an animal, I’m starting with the changes that separated the humans from the chimps.

Group living includes raising your kids, helping your neighbor, living in town, fighting in a war, going to church, and working at NASA. It started small but has grown into the vast global village.

Spoken language and complex communication made it possible for our family and tribal groups to grow to include millions of people. Chimps live in small groups too, but they don’t they work at NASA because they can’t talk. At least not like us.

Culture is knowledge and custom that exists outside any one person and is passed around. Without it group living is limited and progress is probably not possible. Talking is spread mostly through talking, but also through teaching. You can show your kid how to snare a rabbit and spread that knowledge without much talk.

The next big innovations are technological and, with the exception of the wheel and maybe agriculture, known to all human societies.

Fire gave us mastery over dangerous animals. Agriculture gave us mastery over plants and made larger social structures like cities and trade routes possible. Architecture gave us mastery over weather and strengthened our sense of history and our attachment to culture. The wheel gave us transport and specialization, mastery over distance and weight. The club gave us war, which is an attempt to gain mastery over people and propagate culture. And religion helps us, if not master, at least start to understand luck, fortune, and all the mysteries of life, nature, and existance. Religion also stengthens culture and social cohesion.

The next list moves us out of the stone age.

Finally we move into the modern world.

Hmm, probably this list says more about me and my thought processes than about important ideas through the ages. My thoughts seem tech centric and run in categories like memory, communication, and networks. It’s like all technology is leading up to the internet and this blog. What about political, economic, religious, social, and artistic innovation?

Anyway that’s all for now. One of the great thing about being an amature is you don’t have to finish your essays.