We always point to the invention of the lightbulb as the penultimate moment of creation, greater maybe than the creation of man itself; but instead of a bearded dude elegantly touching fingertips with a ripped naked bloke, this creation involved another (less bearded) dude sitting in his basement, touching himself, and smashing wires together.
By all accounts, Thomas Edison was a total a-hole (AITA for screwing over my rival Nikola Tesla?) —but despite the misbehavior of its inventor, nothing has stopped the lightbulb itself from becoming the icon of innovation —we literally use it to signify when someone has an idea.
But that leads one to think… Surely we must have invented something in the span of human existence that outranks the lightbulb in importance. What about the wheel? What about penicillin? I won't rest until we change the culture enough so that everyone recognizes the meaning when a little bottle of antibiotics suddenly appears over a character's dome —whilst they shout an exclamation once uttered by a man floundering in an overfilled bathtub.
As amazing as the lightbulb might have been, there were some inventions that were not so great. These are those creations.
For more, check this collection next.
No comments:
Post a Comment