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"...someone else in the world would have done it within 10 years." That is arguably true of every invention ever invented.

• TeMPOraL 2y ago
  It is, and being aware of that is crucial in having the right perspective on inventors (and same is true about scientific discoveries). That is, they're not some superhuman geniuses so far ahead the rest of humanity, that through sheer power of their minds, they can wrestle breakthroughs from the hands of gods. No, they're just specialists who were at the right time and place, and had the right experience, to be the first to pluck an invention that was already ripe for the taking. This isn't to diminish the value of inventors. Even as all discoveries are tiny increments on top of prior work, so tiny they quickly become apparent to many people in a given field, it still takes exceptional skills, knowledge and smarts to be the first (or one of the firsts) to make that increment. That is worthy of respect. But at the same time, inventors are not critical to inventions - if not for the inventor we know, someone else would've done the same within months or years.
  • rexer 2y ago
    > being aware of that is crucial in having the right perspective on inventors. Can you go a step further on why the right perspective here is important? Feels like you’re telling a kid Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Why kill the magic?
    • TeMPOraL 2y ago
      > Feels like you’re telling a kid Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Why kill the magic? Because lying to your kids will only cost you their trust, however letting adults believe in magic leads to them making bad decisions with tragic consequences to themselves, their families, communities and countries.
      • tellarin 2y ago
        Not to mention that clarifying this can lead to increased motivation to learn and discover stuff, as kids won’t think that if they are not geniuses they shouldn’t even try to create something new.
  • WalterBright 2y ago
    > an invention that was already ripe for the taking. Powered, controlled flight was clearly not ripe for the taking at the time the Wrights embarked on solving it. See the list of their accomplisments I posted. They had to get all of them right to solve the problem. Which is another reason why I'm not buying what the pretender defenders contend.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • WalterBright 2y ago
      To expand on that a bit, the Wrights clearly needed to solve multiple basic problems in order to produce a working airplane. To do this, they first identified the problems, then conducted a directed research and development program to solve them, one by one. Having solved them, they combined the results into a working airplane. Nobody else was doing that at the time. Without the Wrights, individual inventors might each solve one of the problems independently, and then a later individual puts it together. The Wright approach was itself fundamentally innovative.
  • jongjong 2y ago
    Agreed. It is a flaw of the media and human psychology that we shine the spotlight disproportionately. The media is almost always a caricature of reality. Scientific journals provide a more realistic view of innovation as an incremental process without as much hype.
• Incipient 2y ago
  While I do agree this is the case for flight, I think saying EVERY major invention is not correct, or possibly not correct. It's impossible to know how many people died shy of a breakthrough they were working on, that never was realised. Who knows, maybe some materials genius choked on a pineapple two months before the breakthrough that could have given us transparent aluminium!
  • kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    Sapphire is transparent aluminum. Already used in semiconductors and consumer goods.
    • milesrout 2y ago
      Sapphire is aluminium oxide. Not aluminium.