What is Mankind's Greatest Invention?

[apeman]

Mankind's greatest invention is writing.

Oral traditions are great, but in terms of actually creating a way to store our knowledge for future generations, writing changed the whole game

+1.

[DrYouth]

Lets take inventory...

Will we allow Fire and it's maintenance as an Invention?

Cause that seems to rank up there... may have allowed our brains to expand (due to nutritional effects of cooked food) to allow social and language advancements.

Language and more specifically Metaphorical/Fictional Narrative Language
(we know animals have essentially word equivalents but no evidence for story telling - by which I mean non-concrete fact story telling - bees can say I went here and there and saw this and that)
Yuval Harari makes a great case for this as Man's defining trait allowing everything from religion to corporate legal entities.... allowing amazing feats of cooperation beyond all other animal species

Writing - takes that language to the next level and allows accumulation of knowledge and in depth social perspective taking (the bible).

Printing Press takes this to the next level again (mass literary, the mass distributed bible and novel, the empowerment of the common man)

Agriculture and Animal Husbandry - both seem critical - without the seed and our animal subjects where would be?

Weaponry? I dunno... after the club, axe and bow... it's all a matter of incremental changes in lethality...

The wheel? Yawn....

[nickle7]

Arithmetic, if you can call that an invention. Practically every other invention is made possible by mathematics in some capacity. I suppose the argument could be made though that it's not an invention, more a discovery or something.

Otherwise, I'd say irrigation. Allowed for more food, therefore more people. Also enabled people to settle in one place, which enabled a higher degree of creativity and invention of other things.

[Haumana]

Daylight savings time.

[SilverEagle]

The scientific method.

Or, if we're talking about something you can hold; steel.

Steel is the greatest thing ever.

I agree with the Dr Yute, language or speech is what sets us apart.

Nope! Double sided dildos! Just add two hot women!

Don't tell my wife.

[Cid]

The toilet and by extension modern sanitation.

While there's a certain joy of taking a piss in the woods (if you're a man), taking a shit anywhere but a porcelain throne is like heading back to pre-modern times in the worst way. Living in japan the washiki style of toilet was never a welcome sight, but ranks higher than your average plastic outhouse because there aren't enough chemicals in Baytown to make one of those feel sanitized.

I don't think its a coincidence that America's ascendance on the world stage roughly corresponds to how quickly we installed modern shitters in our buildings.

[Speaker to Animals]

Excellent point about writing. This encompasses mathematics as well.

[Montegriffo]

The toilet and by extension modern sanitation.

While there's a certain joy of taking a piss in the woods (if you're a man), taking a shit anywhere but a porcelain throne is like heading back to pre-modern times in the worst way. Living in japan the washiki style of toilet was never a welcome sight, but ranks higher than your average plastic outhouse because there aren't enough chemicals in Baytown to make one of those feel sanitized.

I don't think its a coincidence that America's ascendance on the world stage roughly corresponds to how quickly we installed modern shitters in our buildings.

Next move has to be composting toilets. I have built myself one in my motorhome and it is such an improvement on my old porta potty liquid slop one.
Such a waste to flush all that good fertiliser down the drain only to become an expense further down the line.

[Cid]

I remember when Modi was running in India. One of his campaign promises was a toilet in every home, and the left in this country laughed at him for that. I was horrified. I was like, "That man will and should win." If you don't have a toilet, and someone promises you a toilet, he could be less nice/sane version of Hitler and I would vote for him. Not proud of that, its just reality, never laugh at someone that promises toilets for the toiletless.

[Montegriffo]

By the way Cid, you mentioned you found this site after the DCF closed, how? There has been some worry that the site won't grow.