Author Topic: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..  (Read 3092 times)

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Offline Colonol Dekker

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Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
When i was a barman during time away from my old profession, We had a question of the day board, and the first correct answer got a free pint.
I put this one up knowing it was one of those questions where everone would argue and i was right. The wheel came up, electric etc..

My own opinion is the concept of language social interaction.

Language can be non verbal as you know, and if back in caveman time, the males had just popped the wad up a bird and left her to it what are the chances we'd be here. Because of language the discoveries that were useful could be passed on, like the sharp edge (spear tips, carving tools) which could then be used to develop others over time, IE wheel (Eventually).

This is my answer (remember there is no correct one)
Whats your take on the question guys? ;)
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-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
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-Uncharted Territory
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-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

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Offline aldo_14

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
There's an arguement, incidentally, that men can only 'pop the wad' because of the development of language as a sexual selection tool.

 

Offline Turnsky

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
before or after sliced bread?  :p
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Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Valid, but sex obviously happened before language otherwise we wouldn't have reached that point. (please avoid the chicken/egg debate  :D)
Whats your take on the question? Give me a genuine honest to :zod: answer what could humanity not live without, i know jubblies is an answer ( a valid one) but please no jubblies..........yet.


Before sliced bread :D
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Thing is language is an evolutionary trait rather than a discovery/invention. I don't think you can really say it should win any more than breathing air or the change single-cell to multicellular life should win.
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Offline Turambar

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
i'd have to say mitochondria

we wouldnt get very far without those little guys
10:55:48   TurambarBlade: i've been selecting my generals based on how much i like their hats
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10:56:01   HerraTohtori: :D

  

Offline Kosh

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Fire is probably the most important.
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

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Offline Janos

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Sticks and stones.
lol wtf

 
Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Agriculture. 

 

Offline aldo_14

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
The toaster.














What?

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Art. From the days of cave painting, humans have tried to define the world around them using Art, I think it's probably the cornerstone that communication is built on.

 

Offline Turambar

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
The toaster.


you know that the toasters are going to come back and try to kill us all
10:55:48   TurambarBlade: i've been selecting my generals based on how much i like their hats
10:55:55   HerraTohtori: me too!
10:56:01   HerraTohtori: :D

 

Offline aldo_14

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
The toaster.


you know that the toasters are going to come back and try to kill us all

Hey, if apocalyptic doom is the price of nice bit of crumpet, I say bring it on.

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Bacon is the greatest invention of all. God bless those pigs.

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
The toaster.



you know that the toasters are going to come back and try to kill us all

Hey, if apocalyptic doom is the price of nice bit of crumpet, I say bring it on.

Marriage isn't that bad...... ;)

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Marriage isn't that bad...... ;)

Can Sharon drink a glass of water while you say that? :p


I'd say the most benificial concept for mankind are the ideas of Freedom and Tolerance.

Hmmm. Just realised it but that's not connected to the joke above :)
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Offline Rictor

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Tools, of course. They were the beggining of technology, which allowed us to change our circumstances and adapt much faster than natural eveolution would allow. Technology is basically an artificial, man-made form of evolution. Tools enable us to make better tools, which enable us to make better tools, and before you know it we've got electricity, the Internet and F-16s.

 

Offline Fragrag

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
The toaster.


you know that the toasters are going to come back and try to kill us all

Hey, if apocalyptic doom is the price of nice bit of crumpet, I say bring it on.

YOUR TOAST IS BURNT, AND NO AMOUNT OF SCRAPING WILL REMOVE THE BLACK PARTS
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Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
Are we looking for something that is only used by human species? Because, for example, tools are used by a variety of animals to varying extent. So... a leverage is most likely not an actual man-made invention, though it could be, but more likely the use of tools (of which most are based on leverage OR a inclined surface, though the most simple is of course a rock with which to beat things open) was passed on to human species from their ancestors.

Communication would also be quite an impressive feat, but alas, that also isn't limited to humans and was most likely herited from pre-human primates - with Homo Sapiens Sapiens it just evolved onto current level, through natural selection of course. Better means of communication, better means of survival. I wouldn't, however, give the mankind the whole credit of "inventing" speech as we know it...

Well, of course we come then to the idea of making notes, which is actually a sample of binding complex concepts onto abstract images. Which is of course the same thing as what happens with representing art. The cave paintings are probably the first examples (preserved to these days) of making notes of How To Make the Hunt Go Well and such things. These probably described the important events in the tribe's history as well, serving as the first "chronicles" - though they probably also had some spiritual meaning and more likely than not only served as back-up for oral folklore transferred from grandfathers to fathers and so on. Most likely after the concept of presenting abstract things in images was widely used by drawing maps on birch bark or similar substances, and VERY likely large-scale hunts were planned using a "terrain box", a small area of ground made to resemble the surroundings and so on.

So, inevitably these images were soon caricaturized and they evolved into marks for words rather than being accurate images of things themselves - a system still widely used in many East-Asian languages. After this, it wasn't of course a long way onto finding a way to write things down accurately to transfer and store information effectively and securely.

Coupled with the discovery of agriculture these things made cultural evolution faster than any other species had ever* demonstrated on Earth, for good or for worse.

So I'd have to go with art and/or the skill of writing, which almost certainly derived from art. Art probably came first as an idea of describing things with something else than pointing at it or saying the word for it. And, from an artistic presentation it's a small way to a cartoon, from which it's a small way to including the thing onto single picture (word mark for subject) and the thing it's doing onto another picture (word mark for predicate) and voilá, we got the first system of written language, though it's surely very simple. But why do you thing cave paintings are stylized? I don't think for a moment that they couldn't have made the animals realistic if they had wanted. No, they made them caricaturized because they had a reason to do it that way, and most likely it was that it was easier and had the exact same information as a photorealistic 1:1 fresco on the wall of a cave.  :D
« Last Edit: June 08, 2006, 04:03:14 pm by Herra Tohtori »
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Offline aldo_14

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Re: Most Beneficial concept / invention / Discovery to human kind..
YOUR TOAST IS BURNT, AND NO AMOUNT OF SCRAPING WILL REMOVE THE BLACK PARTS

Bollocks.

Stick another one in, eh?