7 ms·

I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla,

I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship sources kind of wrecked Edison for younger me, obviously.

suyash 7y ago
Edison > Tesla!
WalterBright 7y ago
American heroes regularly cycle between hero and goat decade by decade. Edison is currently the goat and Tesla has been elevated to heroic status rather recently. I expect things to reverse in another 10 years or so. As for the elephant thing, I find it highly abhorrent that anyone could do such a thing. But keep in mind that the only reason Edison could have done it at the time is if common attitudes at the time allowed it. It is a lot unfair to judge people by standards that become ascendant 100 years later.
- kylecazar 7y ago
  To further support your view of the elephant debacle, I offer the treatment of Murderous Mary: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant)
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  It's unfair to judge them exceptionally when comparing among the range people and views of that earlier age, or to hide behind supposed earlier universal standards which often turn out to have been anything but. In the pantheon of world history it is perfectly reasonable to judge, question and doubt. Plenty of people of those ages found such things abhorrent and banded together to end child labour, animal mistreatment and slavery among countless other horrible behaviours. After all that is how we got our hopefully better and more enlightened standards today. The ASPCA was formed in the mid 19th century after the RSPCA was formed in the early 19th. It also allows us to go further back to more brutal, death ridden times and understand there probably was little place So it's perfectly OK to pour scorn and revulsion on Edison, and judge him and his peers for electrocuting elephants and family pets, whilst acknowledging Franklin appears to have learnt from and been deeply affected by his (eventually successful) attempt at turkey electrocution.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    It appears that Edison's involvement is a bit of an exaggeration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Interesting, so they were much more incidental to events than has entered popular awareness. Also the somewhat inevitable nature of events given publicity hungry keepers who'd mistreated the animal - unsurprisingly it reacted to being badly treated by drunk handlers. Also an early result (of sorts) for the ASPCA preventing a public hanging of the elephant - for spectacle, and thanks to paid admission, profit! As usual it pays to dig a little deeper, thanks. :)
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      > On January 4, 1903, in front of a small crowd of invited reporters and guests Topsy was fed poison, electrocuted, and strangled, the electrocution ultimately killing her. Amongst the press that day was a crew from the Edison Manufacturing movie company who filmed the event. Their film of the electrocution part was released to be viewed in coin-operated kinetoscopes under the title Electrocuting an Elephant. It is probably the first filmed death of an animal in history. The relevant part for people who don't want to search for it.
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        Also that the electrocution took place 10 years after the end of the "current war". Blaming Edison for it is like blaming CNN for the events in the news footage they run.
paulgerhardt 7y ago
I confess I too was once a diehard Tesla fanboy. It was only after reading T.P. Hughes “The Electrification of America: The System Builders“[1] that I came to appreciate the accomplishments of Edison and the unfairness of the pervasive one-sided boosterism for team Tesla. Both men were genius. It’s my own opinion that there is more to learn from the life of Edison and the work of Tesla than the other way round. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3103115 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3103115
- rjzzleep 7y ago
  I'm a bit puzzled why people don't mention the obvious. I'm not a Tesla fanboy nor do I like Edison, but this shouldn't really be about whether Edison did or did not invent the lightbulb. There were so many people involved in the invention and multiple steps of bulbs. But in this particular case Edison was a patent troll. He took someone elses invention that had been built in that form and patented it to prevent others from using it.
  - paulgerhardt 7y ago
    Yes, that is the common narrative. What the Hughes article makes crystal clear is that Edison didn’t iterate on 3000 different versions of the lightbulb because he was bored. He did so because most configurations were low voltage, high current - this required thicker copper which was the limiting cost to electrification - by finding a viable configuration that was high voltage, low current (and patenting that configuration) he could mass produce light bulbs and the necessary grid behind them at a cost lower than natural gas. An analogy is perhaps Elon Musk didn’t invent the electric car, but he released it in a form (along with a supercharger network) that made mass adoption viable over the competing gasoline based network. Following a period of over-infatuation with Musk, it may be likely that 140 years from now we condemn him as not really inventing the electric car, saying his patents over battery production technology were trollish, and hail Mark Eberhard as the true unsung genius. For obvious reasons that interpretation is problematic and kind of misses the point of what these people actually did.
    - 7y ago
greggman2 7y ago
You can add (4) took credit for all the inventions his employees invented vs say Westinghouse who let his employees put their names on the patents for their inventions. In other words, he wasn't as prolific an inventor as claimed since he took credit for others work.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
daseiner1 7y ago
the elephant thing had nothing to do with him

suyash 7y ago

Edison > Tesla!

WalterBright 7y ago

American heroes regularly cycle between hero and goat decade by decade. Edison is currently the goat and Tesla has been elevated to heroic status rather recently. I expect things to reverse in another 10 years or so. As for the elephant thing, I find it highly abhorrent that anyone could do such a thing. But keep in mind that the only reason Edison could have done it at the time is if common attitudes at the time allowed it. It is a lot unfair to judge people by standards that become ascendant 100 years later.

kylecazar 7y ago
To further support your view of the elephant debacle, I offer the treatment of Murderous Mary: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant)
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It's unfair to judge them exceptionally when comparing among the range people and views of that earlier age, or to hide behind supposed earlier universal standards which often turn out to have been anything but. In the pantheon of world history it is perfectly reasonable to judge, question and doubt. Plenty of people of those ages found such things abhorrent and banded together to end child labour, animal mistreatment and slavery among countless other horrible behaviours. After all that is how we got our hopefully better and more enlightened standards today. The ASPCA was formed in the mid 19th century after the RSPCA was formed in the early 19th. It also allows us to go further back to more brutal, death ridden times and understand there probably was little place So it's perfectly OK to pour scorn and revulsion on Edison, and judge him and his peers for electrocuting elephants and family pets, whilst acknowledging Franklin appears to have learnt from and been deeply affected by his (eventually successful) attempt at turkey electrocution.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  It appears that Edison's involvement is a bit of an exaggeration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Interesting, so they were much more incidental to events than has entered popular awareness. Also the somewhat inevitable nature of events given publicity hungry keepers who'd mistreated the animal - unsurprisingly it reacted to being badly treated by drunk handlers. Also an early result (of sorts) for the ASPCA preventing a public hanging of the elephant - for spectacle, and thanks to paid admission, profit! As usual it pays to dig a little deeper, thanks. :)
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    > On January 4, 1903, in front of a small crowd of invited reporters and guests Topsy was fed poison, electrocuted, and strangled, the electrocution ultimately killing her. Amongst the press that day was a crew from the Edison Manufacturing movie company who filmed the event. Their film of the electrocution part was released to be viewed in coin-operated kinetoscopes under the title Electrocuting an Elephant. It is probably the first filmed death of an animal in history. The relevant part for people who don't want to search for it.
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      Also that the electrocution took place 10 years after the end of the "current war". Blaming Edison for it is like blaming CNN for the events in the news footage they run.

paulgerhardt 7y ago

I confess I too was once a diehard Tesla fanboy. It was only after reading T.P. Hughes “The Electrification of America: The System Builders“[1] that I came to appreciate the accomplishments of Edison and the unfairness of the pervasive one-sided boosterism for team Tesla. Both men were genius. It’s my own opinion that there is more to learn from the life of Edison and the work of Tesla than the other way round. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3103115 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3103115

rjzzleep 7y ago
I'm a bit puzzled why people don't mention the obvious. I'm not a Tesla fanboy nor do I like Edison, but this shouldn't really be about whether Edison did or did not invent the lightbulb. There were so many people involved in the invention and multiple steps of bulbs. But in this particular case Edison was a patent troll. He took someone elses invention that had been built in that form and patented it to prevent others from using it.
- paulgerhardt 7y ago
  Yes, that is the common narrative. What the Hughes article makes crystal clear is that Edison didn’t iterate on 3000 different versions of the lightbulb because he was bored. He did so because most configurations were low voltage, high current - this required thicker copper which was the limiting cost to electrification - by finding a viable configuration that was high voltage, low current (and patenting that configuration) he could mass produce light bulbs and the necessary grid behind them at a cost lower than natural gas. An analogy is perhaps Elon Musk didn’t invent the electric car, but he released it in a form (along with a supercharger network) that made mass adoption viable over the competing gasoline based network. Following a period of over-infatuation with Musk, it may be likely that 140 years from now we condemn him as not really inventing the electric car, saying his patents over battery production technology were trollish, and hail Mark Eberhard as the true unsung genius. For obvious reasons that interpretation is problematic and kind of misses the point of what these people actually did.
  - 7y ago

greggman2 7y ago

You can add (4) took credit for all the inventions his employees invented vs say Westinghouse who let his employees put their names on the patents for their inventions. In other words, he wasn't as prolific an inventor as claimed since he took credit for others work.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

daseiner1 7y ago

the elephant thing had nothing to do with him