What was the last truly innovative thing you witnessed?
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Born in 1890, my great-grandfather had great-uncles who fought in the Civil War. He saw the invention of the automobile, the airplane, two world wars, and saw the Apollo 11 moon landing a month before he died.
I was born in the 80s, I have been trying to take stock of how much life has changed since then. Cable television? Satellite television? Cell phones to smartphones? The internet? Life hasn't seemed to have made much progress. When we get down to it life isn't radically different now than it was in 80s. Just hoping there is more that I'm simply not noticing
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A [email protected] shared this topic
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Medicines and medical care have improved significantly
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mRNA vaccines do it for me at the moment.
https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Understanding-COVID-19-mRNA-Vaccines
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Same could be said about everything we have though couldn't it?
Cars, aircraft, boats... All improved significantly...
But is any of it truly innovative?
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I recall having vaccines in the 80s, probably what saved me from polio
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If my son was born when I was born, he wouldn't be alive and my wife may not have survived the birth. If he was born 5-10 years ago, he'd have brain damage. Today, because we know what to look for and how to treat and prevent many pregnancy problems and early childhood problems he's alive, healthy and thriving. There are a million innovations that are super niche, so we don't know about them.
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OP said mRNA vaccines.
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If you think life is basically the same as the 80s, I'm going to have to say you are wrong.
No world wars, but there's been PLENTY of war.
The internet and smart phones have radically changed how we access information and interact with each other.
Space telescopes have shown us so far back in cosmic time that we don't understand how everything was formed there at that time.
We have robotic drones on literally another planet.
I've seen still photographs taken from the surface of an asteroid.
Nuclear fusion has started actually achieving net surpluses of energy.
Video games have gone from mono colored blobs on a CRT to video almost as detailed as reality.
Robots can perform surgeries. Doctors can perform surgery remotely with robotic arms.
Aerogels, carbon fibers, quantum locked levitation, seemingly idiotic but possibly intelligent AI, the discovery of the higgs boson.
We have definitely been held back by vested power interests in the world, but plenty has changed.
If you think the world hasn't done so, I recommend looking around a bit more.
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I agree, they most certainly did say mRNA
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Yes, we've certainly progressed in nearly every field
But are they truly innovative or are they a natural evolution of something that already existed?
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Yes. Taking an existing thing and improving upon it is the literal definition of innovation.
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Accurate and repeatable motion systems.
Born too late to say that semiconductors age the thing for me, but the use has made closed loop control systems viable. Along with stepper, servo, and now new to be piezoelectric motors and linear stages.
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Not the definition I am referring to
- introducing new ideas; original and creative in thinking.
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All the more reason to despise RFKjr.
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Honestly if you're not putting the internet and the general proliferation of personal computers and then smartphones in the "truly innovative" category, then I'm not sure anything will make the cut—I'd make the argument that both are more innovative than flight which is something we can observe in nature.
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I disagree. Improving an existing concept and changing it to make it more practical or easier to produce for example is innovation.
The examples you give in the introduction are examples of that: The parts that make an automobile existed when it was invented and you could argue again that it wasn't a completely novel idea but an improvement of the steam engine and horse-drawn vehicles.
The airplane massively relied on improvements in engine and material design.
Your assessment that innovations used to be completely original in their design and are not any more is a fallacy.
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Every so often I hold a microsd card and I think about how much storage is on that pinky-nailed sized $20 device. Compared to ancient hard drives it is one of the few things that makes me remember "oh shit I live in the future".
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Yeah. I think it is.
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I also disagree
Your reply in of itself is a fallacy
An airplane relying upon improvements engine and material design does not negate the very real revelation of human flight to the world
Nor does your oversimplified and ultimately incorrect explanation steam engines and evolution of horse drawn vehicles
Especially considering the first automobiles were steam powered
It completely misses the point
The horseless carriage itself was the innovation
I apologize for not explaining the question more thoroughly
I am talking about innovation in a fully realized concept
I always thought that flying cars would be the next major leap in innovation, but it's still in its fledgling stages
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Katamari Damacy
