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Please. The internet and cell phones have changed the world as much as any technology since the light bulb.

by balloot 14y ago

EliRivers 14y ago
Your world. Which is much smaller than THE world. That said, here are some things invented after the lightbulb that have had more effect than cell phones and the internet. Aeroplanes. Transistors. Integrated circuits.
- jfb 14y ago
  And dwarfing them all, the sulfa drugs.
rayiner 14y ago
I'm not sure that this is true. The light bulb changed the fabric of society down to the hours people kept. The internet has mostly made it more convenient to do things you already did. Instead of calling your brother on his birthday, you leave him a facebook message. Instead of sending a fax or telex, you send an e-mail. But people largely still work the same way in the same patterns.
- EliRivers 14y ago
  OP said SINCE the lightbulb - it is acknowledged that the lightbulb had more effect :) As you say, it fundamentally changed almost everything. It made it possible to safely, reliably put light where before there was no light. The light of burning things is, by comparison to electric light, horrifically dangerous, expensive, unreliabe and inconsistent. Electric light not only enabled people to do things in the hours of darkness, but to create new places to work in, or just to store things, or to create new objects and mechanisms using the new ability to put light anywhere we wanted whenever we wanted (could you imagine trying to inspect the interior of some complex internal component of some huge fantastic construction using a gaslight, or a lump of burning wood?). The tiny bulb in a torch (US - flashlight) is so ubiquitous, but so incredibly useful. So many industries suddenly became so much better, so much safer. Mining, transportation. Lightbulbs touched everything, and created not just new ways of doing things, but made the impossible possible. So far, the internet and cell phones have not been nearly so revolutionary, but the OP did say "since" :)
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  This is as true as saying that the automobile let you do what a horse could do, only easier and faster. On the surface, it's seemingly true, but in reality the details make all the difference. Affordability, for example. Horses were expensive, not everyone owned them, whereas cars could be subject to manufacturing efficiencies and eventually became cheap enough to allow mass ownership. Also, the convenience and inexpensiveness of taking a long trip by car utterly transformed the world. Similarly, the world is growing far more connected through the internet than it ever was via phone, fax, telex, etc. Speaking personally, prior to the internet I didn't have a lot of interaction with people living outside of my hometown, but today it's not unusual for me to communicate with friends living all over North America and Australia and to talk with acquaintances and strangers all over the world. Also, people are not working in the same patterns. A significant number of people who do knowledge work have gone to work for themselves, which would not have been so easy pre-internet. Similarly, through inventions like ebay, etsy, crowd funding, self-publishing of music and books, and so forth a lot of people are finding it easier to switch to creative careers. How many lives have been changed by people changing their careers through sites like kickstarter and indiegogo? What percentage does that represent of all people who have made similar changes to their lives enabled by the internet and modern technology?

Please. The internet and cell phones have changed the world as much as any technology since the light bulb.

by balloot 14y ago

Please. The internet and cell phones have changed the world as much as any technology since the light bulb.

Your world. Which is much smaller than THE world. That said, here are some things invented after the lightbulb that have had more effect than cell phones and the internet. Aeroplanes. Transistors. Integrated circuits.

jfb 14y ago
And dwarfing them all, the sulfa drugs.

rayiner 14y ago

I'm not sure that this is true. The light bulb changed the fabric of society down to the hours people kept. The internet has mostly made it more convenient to do things you already did. Instead of calling your brother on his birthday, you leave him a facebook message. Instead of sending a fax or telex, you send an e-mail. But people largely still work the same way in the same patterns.

EliRivers 14y ago
OP said SINCE the lightbulb - it is acknowledged that the lightbulb had more effect :) As you say, it fundamentally changed almost everything. It made it possible to safely, reliably put light where before there was no light. The light of burning things is, by comparison to electric light, horrifically dangerous, expensive, unreliabe and inconsistent. Electric light not only enabled people to do things in the hours of darkness, but to create new places to work in, or just to store things, or to create new objects and mechanisms using the new ability to put light anywhere we wanted whenever we wanted (could you imagine trying to inspect the interior of some complex internal component of some huge fantastic construction using a gaslight, or a lump of burning wood?). The tiny bulb in a torch (US - flashlight) is so ubiquitous, but so incredibly useful. So many industries suddenly became so much better, so much safer. Mining, transportation. Lightbulbs touched everything, and created not just new ways of doing things, but made the impossible possible. So far, the internet and cell phones have not been nearly so revolutionary, but the OP did say "since" :)
InclinedPlane 14y ago
This is as true as saying that the automobile let you do what a horse could do, only easier and faster. On the surface, it's seemingly true, but in reality the details make all the difference. Affordability, for example. Horses were expensive, not everyone owned them, whereas cars could be subject to manufacturing efficiencies and eventually became cheap enough to allow mass ownership. Also, the convenience and inexpensiveness of taking a long trip by car utterly transformed the world. Similarly, the world is growing far more connected through the internet than it ever was via phone, fax, telex, etc. Speaking personally, prior to the internet I didn't have a lot of interaction with people living outside of my hometown, but today it's not unusual for me to communicate with friends living all over North America and Australia and to talk with acquaintances and strangers all over the world. Also, people are not working in the same patterns. A significant number of people who do knowledge work have gone to work for themselves, which would not have been so easy pre-internet. Similarly, through inventions like ebay, etsy, crowd funding, self-publishing of music and books, and so forth a lot of people are finding it easier to switch to creative careers. How many lives have been changed by people changing their careers through sites like kickstarter and indiegogo? What percentage does that represent of all people who have made similar changes to their lives enabled by the internet and modern technology?