Asklemmy

43968 readers

1150 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

153

To date, what do you think is the greatest invention or discovery and why? (kbin.social)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by guyrocket@kbin.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

126 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Mine is the computer. I continue to be amazed at what we can do with them.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] DirigibleProtein@aussie.zone 52 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Writing. Being able to record facts, thoughts, and stories that can be (mostly) read thousands of miles away and thousands of years later changed civilisation.

[–] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 6 points 7 months ago

Consider: Writing is also the closest thing to magic that we have in the real world. You make a particular pattern of markings on a piece of paper using an arcane body of knowledge, and then a wizard in a black robe with a special hammer makes an illegible squiggle on the paper in just the right spot, and it makes new things happen.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It is crazy that. For time immemorial we used to transmit information from our mouths or using hand signals, and receive that information through eyes and ears, all in realtime.

(side thought: how awesome would it be if we had a single organ for both? e.g. communication solely through blinking)

Then suddenly we have this system where someone can code meaning onto a sheet, and we can receive entire contexts from a glance alone, purely at our leisure. Nuts.