6 ms·

> naming the first "battery" (out of the concept of lined-up artillery) That's an amazing fun fact.

throwway120385 2mo ago
Another fun fact is that it was impossible to deduce from any of Ben Franklin's experiments what material was transferred and what material remained in place to give rise to "charge" as we think of it. So he picked a convention that we've continued to use even after we learned that his negative charges were the material that gets transferred by friction.
- SAI_Peregrinus 2mo ago
  On the plus side, in electroplating the positive ions are what actually moves. So in the experiments where you can visually see something move from one terminal to the other the conventional current direction is obviously correct.
ck2 2mo ago
[flagged]
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  People are better judged by the mores of their time, not our time. Besides, without Franklin, there would be no United States, the free-est country in history.
  - ck2 2mo ago
    Yeah no, Norway and a few others are the free-est country in history, just because someone declares US is "free" doesn't make it true, we disappear citizens all the time, police can seize your property without cause, government can seize your land for datacenters and women lose more and more rights every year Again, Franklin knew slavery was wrong, literally campaigned to end it for that reason, yet did it himself for decades in the meanwhile, not a difficult horror to grasp in any time
    - WalterBright 2mo ago
      I consider freedom to include the free market. Norway has a mixed economy, due to its extensive regulation. While it operates as a free-market country, the Norwegian government holds large ownership stakes in strategic industries, including petroleum, hydroelectric power, telecommunications, and banking. Experts often characterize the Norwegian economy as a blend of private enterprise, state ownership, and social welfare that provides high standards of living. (Cribbed from google)
  - wat10000 2mo ago
    Plenty of people at the time thought slavery was evil. Franklin was even one of them, calling it "cancer." He said this while still owning slaves, which is rather peculiar, but people are complicated.
    - bensmoif 2mo ago
      In this century we have a word for that kind of talk by slaveholders who professed some longing for abolition (Franklin. Jefferson, Washington, John Jay) but did not really wanna be inconvenienced: trolling.
      - fhdkweig 2mo ago
        Trolls do things for the LOLs. They are motivated by humor. Someone who wants rules for others but breaks those rules personally is better referred to as a hypocrite. And while he did have a sense of humor (I hear that daylight savings time was just a joke), I don't think that is why he had slaves. He kept them because they were useful to him, and the moment he died they were no longer useful. The slaves owned by others were never useful to him, so they should be freed immediately.
        bensmoif 2mo ago
        My brother: trolls troll out of cynical cruelty, there are many children's books that can illustrate this clearly. Franklin's ability to speak plainly about the evils of slavery, in between his own acts of unspeakable cruelty, and robbing families of their dignity and humanity, requires a level of disconnect and pride that is worth significant mention whenever we do justice to his great legacy. This talk of human utility sounds like a lot of chump shit.
  - krapp 2mo ago
    Slavery was immoral during Franklin's time too, Walter. Many, many people of the time understood this. Even Franklin himself, hypocrite though he was, came around to it.
    - WalterBright 2mo ago
      I understand that. I also know that half the country thought slavery was ok, and made it clear they would not join the union if it was abolished.
      - krapp 2mo ago
        So what? That doesn't affect the morality of slavery one bit. Subjective and relative moral questions do exist, but slavery isn't one of them. Likewise, Ben Franklin being a founding father doesn't somehow balance the scales in that regard. The existence of the United States doesn't retroactively make slavery ok.
        WalterBright 2mo ago
        What is moral and what isn't changes with the times. For example, blaspheming could get you murdered by the state in medieval times. The colonies had different views of morality, especially religious morality. It was immoral to work on the Sabbath. It was immoral to have sex before marriage. The Founders saw fit to abolish the nobility, and disassociated religion from government. We've forgotten what an enormous leap both of those were (each of the colonies had an establishment of religion). I've seen endless documentaries on the founding of the country, and there's no mention of either of these. Half of the colonies did abolish slavery. But, again, if it was demanded of the other half, the Union would never have happened. Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington all held slaves. I am certainly not advocating slavery. I'm merely pointing out that people should be judged on the morality of their times, not today's morality. If we judged past people by our modern standards, they would all be condemned.
        krapp 2mo ago
- Andrew_nenakhov 2mo ago
  > but it must be said, as genius as Franklin was, sadly .. Some people can't help themselves from bringing irrelevant facts to the conversation.
  - bensmoif 2mo ago
    I don't think it's irrelevant that a brilliant man like Benjamin Franklin may not have been able to achieve as much as he unmistakably did WITHOUT the heavy assistance of forced slave labor in his life, from cradle to grave. Pretending like these things can be separated is ignorance. Ignoring its brutality does a disservice to our history and that man's legacy
    - IncreasePosts 2mo ago
      How did anyone manage to do it after slavery was abolished? Did the nature of genius change at that point? Ben Franklin was one of the greatest minds worldwide of the 18th century. Odds are, even without slavery, he would have contributed just as much as he did with slavery. It's not like he made his money working slaves to the bone in a field and couldn't turn a profit without slavery. He was a publisher. A few slaves were involved but they were largely incidental to the business. As in, he could have easily paid John and Sam a wage instead of paying to feed and house Peter and George and the business would be entirely unaffected
      - bensmoif 2mo ago
        I'll accept your conceit but answer this: why didn't he liberate his slaves? If it's a wash, why keep humans in slavery at all? I think it's because, in his own calculus, he believed he needed to desecrate human beings, destroy their families, and humiliate their dignity to maintain his greatness.
        IncreasePosts 2mo ago
        He did liberate his slaves, eventually. And one of the last things he did before he died was to formally petition Congress to abandon slavery. I don't think you really have any basis for that analysis of franklins psychology. If anything, I think the safe assumption is just that for most of his life slavery was there and people don't always question every part of society.
- liveoneggs 2mo ago
  You can opt out of electricity, various shaped stoves, the USA, and his other stuff to live out your moral superiority. Also you may freely ignore his change of stance, the laws and norms of the time, etc

throwway120385 2mo ago

Another fun fact is that it was impossible to deduce from any of Ben Franklin's experiments what material was transferred and what material remained in place to give rise to "charge" as we think of it. So he picked a convention that we've continued to use even after we learned that his negative charges were the material that gets transferred by friction.

SAI_Peregrinus 2mo ago
On the plus side, in electroplating the positive ions are what actually moves. So in the experiments where you can visually see something move from one terminal to the other the conventional current direction is obviously correct.

ck2 2mo ago

[flagged]

WalterBright 2mo ago
People are better judged by the mores of their time, not our time. Besides, without Franklin, there would be no United States, the free-est country in history.
- ck2 2mo ago
  Yeah no, Norway and a few others are the free-est country in history, just because someone declares US is "free" doesn't make it true, we disappear citizens all the time, police can seize your property without cause, government can seize your land for datacenters and women lose more and more rights every year Again, Franklin knew slavery was wrong, literally campaigned to end it for that reason, yet did it himself for decades in the meanwhile, not a difficult horror to grasp in any time
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    I consider freedom to include the free market. Norway has a mixed economy, due to its extensive regulation. While it operates as a free-market country, the Norwegian government holds large ownership stakes in strategic industries, including petroleum, hydroelectric power, telecommunications, and banking. Experts often characterize the Norwegian economy as a blend of private enterprise, state ownership, and social welfare that provides high standards of living. (Cribbed from google)
- wat10000 2mo ago
  Plenty of people at the time thought slavery was evil. Franklin was even one of them, calling it "cancer." He said this while still owning slaves, which is rather peculiar, but people are complicated.
  - bensmoif 2mo ago
    In this century we have a word for that kind of talk by slaveholders who professed some longing for abolition (Franklin. Jefferson, Washington, John Jay) but did not really wanna be inconvenienced: trolling.
    - fhdkweig 2mo ago
      Trolls do things for the LOLs. They are motivated by humor. Someone who wants rules for others but breaks those rules personally is better referred to as a hypocrite. And while he did have a sense of humor (I hear that daylight savings time was just a joke), I don't think that is why he had slaves. He kept them because they were useful to him, and the moment he died they were no longer useful. The slaves owned by others were never useful to him, so they should be freed immediately.
      - bensmoif 2mo ago
        My brother: trolls troll out of cynical cruelty, there are many children's books that can illustrate this clearly. Franklin's ability to speak plainly about the evils of slavery, in between his own acts of unspeakable cruelty, and robbing families of their dignity and humanity, requires a level of disconnect and pride that is worth significant mention whenever we do justice to his great legacy. This talk of human utility sounds like a lot of chump shit.
- krapp 2mo ago
  Slavery was immoral during Franklin's time too, Walter. Many, many people of the time understood this. Even Franklin himself, hypocrite though he was, came around to it.
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    I understand that. I also know that half the country thought slavery was ok, and made it clear they would not join the union if it was abolished.
    - krapp 2mo ago
      So what? That doesn't affect the morality of slavery one bit. Subjective and relative moral questions do exist, but slavery isn't one of them. Likewise, Ben Franklin being a founding father doesn't somehow balance the scales in that regard. The existence of the United States doesn't retroactively make slavery ok.
      - WalterBright 2mo ago
        What is moral and what isn't changes with the times. For example, blaspheming could get you murdered by the state in medieval times. The colonies had different views of morality, especially religious morality. It was immoral to work on the Sabbath. It was immoral to have sex before marriage. The Founders saw fit to abolish the nobility, and disassociated religion from government. We've forgotten what an enormous leap both of those were (each of the colonies had an establishment of religion). I've seen endless documentaries on the founding of the country, and there's no mention of either of these. Half of the colonies did abolish slavery. But, again, if it was demanded of the other half, the Union would never have happened. Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington all held slaves. I am certainly not advocating slavery. I'm merely pointing out that people should be judged on the morality of their times, not today's morality. If we judged past people by our modern standards, they would all be condemned.
        krapp 2mo ago
Andrew_nenakhov 2mo ago
> but it must be said, as genius as Franklin was, sadly .. Some people can't help themselves from bringing irrelevant facts to the conversation.
- bensmoif 2mo ago
  I don't think it's irrelevant that a brilliant man like Benjamin Franklin may not have been able to achieve as much as he unmistakably did WITHOUT the heavy assistance of forced slave labor in his life, from cradle to grave. Pretending like these things can be separated is ignorance. Ignoring its brutality does a disservice to our history and that man's legacy
  - IncreasePosts 2mo ago
    How did anyone manage to do it after slavery was abolished? Did the nature of genius change at that point? Ben Franklin was one of the greatest minds worldwide of the 18th century. Odds are, even without slavery, he would have contributed just as much as he did with slavery. It's not like he made his money working slaves to the bone in a field and couldn't turn a profit without slavery. He was a publisher. A few slaves were involved but they were largely incidental to the business. As in, he could have easily paid John and Sam a wage instead of paying to feed and house Peter and George and the business would be entirely unaffected
    - bensmoif 2mo ago
      I'll accept your conceit but answer this: why didn't he liberate his slaves? If it's a wash, why keep humans in slavery at all? I think it's because, in his own calculus, he believed he needed to desecrate human beings, destroy their families, and humiliate their dignity to maintain his greatness.
      - IncreasePosts 2mo ago
        He did liberate his slaves, eventually. And one of the last things he did before he died was to formally petition Congress to abandon slavery. I don't think you really have any basis for that analysis of franklins psychology. If anything, I think the safe assumption is just that for most of his life slavery was there and people don't always question every part of society.
liveoneggs 2mo ago
You can opt out of electricity, various shaped stoves, the USA, and his other stuff to live out your moral superiority. Also you may freely ignore his change of stance, the laws and norms of the time, etc