[Zona]

The Internet is probably the number one for now. Think about it, you have the sum total of all human knowledge at your fingertips. Up next will either be some vast improvement on 3d Printers, or Hard AI.

[dave is ok]

Making this exact thread half a dozen times on NeoGAF was our greatest achievement.

[Khalifa Jayy]

Making this exact thread half a dozen times on NeoGAF was our greatest achievement.

Did you post the same thing in each one?

[sixteen-bit]

Art

[speculawyer]

Germ theory of disease & sanitation.

[ronito]

The plow.

[echoshifting]

All of human achievement is, for the most part, cumulative. You couldn't build a car without understanding metalworking, chemistry, fuel refining, etc. So to point to a single modern thing like the computer of film as the greatest achievement sort of ignores the underlying greatest achievements that created the possibility for it to exist. In my view, the only real way to sum up the greatest achievement or advancement mankind has made is to point to the one thing that made it possible. I would say that thing is culture or civilization in general, with language being the cornerstone to all of it. Without a cohesive civilization and a language to make it function we'd have nothing. The depth and complexity of the civilization we've created is truly astounding, as are the results.

I agree with your first point but I would take it in a much different direction. Wouldn't the results of accumulated human achievement be our crowning advancement? Yeah, we couldn't have the internet without computers, or computers without electricity, but by acknowledging the most recent advances, we are tipping our hat to those achievements as well. Otherwise, we are permanently stuck with this abstract wrangling over what constitutes the "beginning" of a particular line of advancement.

This is why I chose the internet. There is before the internet, and after the internet. It changed absolutely everything about daily life in every corner of the world it spread to. Social justice is possible in areas where it wasn't mere years ago, because people are able to coordinate, come together, and blast pictures of injustice all over the globe in the blink of an eye. We have all of the knowledge of humankind available at our fingertips, for the first time in human history nobody is excluded by default from particular sorts of information. All you need is internet access. It may seem mundane today, but when you think about the way knowledge was acquired just a couple decades ago, think about the way we communicated with each other, think about what we knew of current events in distant countries...it's staggering.

I picked the moon landing as an honorable mention for similar reasons: that achievement is the pinnacle of so many different fields coming together to actually permit us to leave Earth. No, you could not do that without electricity, or the wheel, or civilization, or written language, or whatever. But those responsible for those innovations would only be able to gasp in wonder at the avenues we have explored thanks to their efforts.

[Jokergrin]

[I H8 Memes]

Moon landing.

And the great thing about it is that we can surpass it by landing on another planet in our solar system anytime we want. Surpass that by landing on another one further out. We just have to want to.

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

I agree with your first point but I would take it in a much different direction. Wouldn't the results of accumulated human achievement be our crowning advancement? Yeah, we couldn't have the internet without computers, or computers without electricity, but by acknowledging the most recent advances, we are tipping our hat to those achievements as well. Otherwise, we are permanently stuck with this abstract wrangling over what constitutes the "beginning" of a particular line of advancement. This is why I chose the internet. There is before the internet, and after the internet. It changed absolutely everything about daily life in every corner of the world it spread to. Social justice is possible in areas where it wasn't mere years ago, because people are able to coordinate, come together, and blast pictures of injustice all over the globe in the blink of an eye. We have all of the knowledge of humankind available at our fingertips, for the first time in human history nobody is excluded by default from particular sorts of information. All you need is internet access. It may seem mundane today, but when you think about the way knowledge was acquired just a couple decades ago, think about the way we communicated with each other, think about what we knew of current events in distant countries...it's staggering. I picked the moon landing as an honorable mention for similar reasons: that achievement is the pinnacle of so many different fields coming together to actually permit us to leave Earth. No, you could not do that without electricity, or the wheel, or civilization, or written language, or whatever. But those responsible for those innovations would only be able to gasp in wonder at the avenues we have explored thanks to their efforts.

Yeah, I agree with you. I guess there are two perspectives as to how you can look at it. The most current greatest achievement is the culmination and includes everything prior to it. I was more thinking of the one single thing that facilitated all other things.

[Khalifa Jayy]

Moon landing. And the great thing about it is that we can surpass it by landing on another planet in our solar system anytime we want. Surpass that by landing on another one further out. We just have to want to.

Can we, though? At this point is it really possible? Or are we a few advancements from it? How long, if I took off in the greatest rocket/shuttle/whatever available would it take for me to get to another planet? Would I have the proper equipment to be able to stay on that planet for more than 5 minutes without dying?

[ShineALight]

Shout-out to the United States Highway network and all those other roads too.

[Earthstrike]

All of human achievement is, for the most part, cumulative. You couldn't build a car without understanding metalworking, chemistry, fuel refining, etc. So to point to a single modern thing like the computer of film as the greatest achievement sort of ignores the underlying greatest achievements that created the possibility for it to exist. In my view, the only real way to sum up the greatest achievement or advancement mankind has made is to point to the one thing that made it possible. I would say that thing is culture or civilization in general, with language being the cornerstone to all of it. Without a cohesive civilization and a language to make it function we'd have nothing. The depth and complexity of the civilization we've created is truly astounding, as are the results.

I would agree with this for the most part. However, knowing this, people will still want to have the question answered in some kind of meaningful way, so perhaps we should answer the question "What advancements/achievements?" did mankind have that most greatly accelerated our progress?

To that question, I would point to writing, electricity, the transistor, and the combustion engine.

[Goya]

[teruterubozu]

Shout-out to the United States Highway network and all those other roads too.

Which are crumbling as we speak.

[dejay]

Specialisation of jobs/roles.

[BertramCooper]

Dolan

[Indrid Cold1]

The scientific method

[UrokeJoe]

Can we, though? At this point is it really possible? Or are we a few advancements from it? How long, if I took off in the greatest rocket/shuttle/whatever available would it take for me to get to another planet? Would I have the proper equipment to be able to stay on that planet for more than 5 minutes without dying?

I sometimes wonder if earth has everything we need to go to the next level? What if we just don't have that one element that we need?

[Pollux]

Which are crumbling as we speak.

Hush you, go out and protest against gay marriage, contraception, and those Occupy hippies...ya know, the REAL problems in society. /sarcasm

But seriously...man's greatest achievement, in my opinion, would either be the internet or space flight.

[Switters]

The poetry of John Keats.

The real answer is Language which brought about the complex mathematics.

[I H8 Memes]

Can we, though? At this point is it really possible? Or are we a few advancements from it? How long, if I took off in the greatest rocket/shuttle/whatever available would it take for me to get to another planet? Would I have the proper equipment to be able to stay on that planet for more than 5 minutes without dying?

Are you trolling me or are you serious? It would take a couple of months with current technology. And the same equipment that kept people alive on the moon would keep people alive on Mars.


Edit: Man I just did the math in my head and I cant believe we landed on the moon 43 years ago and we still haven't gone to Mars. And it only took 10 years to get to plan, build, and eventually fly to the moon. Kind of pathetic we haven't gotten there yet when you consider how advanced technology is compared to what they had to work with.

[Papercuts]

Beating all of the challenges in Vanquish.

[scy]

Breast implants.

[Black_Stride]

"Ode to Joy" from Beethovens 9th Symphony
^Tell me someone gets it...ill feel old and awkward if no one else gets it.

[Orayn]

Serious Answer: The scientific method.

Fun Answer: YouTube Poop Music Videos

[UrokeJoe]

Are you trolling me or are you serious? It would take a couple of months with current technology. And the same equipment that kept people alive on the moon would keep people alive on Mars. Edit: Man I just did the math in my head and I cant believe we landed on the moon 43 years ago and we still haven't gone to Mars. And it only took 10 years to get to plan, build, and eventually fly to the moon. Kind of pathetic we haven't gotten there yet when you consider how advanced technology is compared to what they had to work with.

Yes, yes it is. Guess the middle east is more interesting.

[Dreams-Visions]

Genetic enhancements to crops has to be up there.

[Kinyou]

Can we, though? At this point is it really possible? Or are we a few advancements from it? How long, if I took off in the greatest rocket/shuttle/whatever available would it take for me to get to another planet? Would I have the proper equipment to be able to stay on that planet for more than 5 minutes without dying?

There's an astronomer who has the idea of giving someone a one way ticket to mars. He then would be supplied with food and oxygen through the occasional unmanned rockets.

The Nasa doesn't really like the concept though. When they get someone onto a planet they also want to get him back.

[Drazgul]

Serious Answer: The scientific method.

Indeed, the foundation for science! and all that good stuff.

[GamerSoul]

To question shit

[zoku88]

The movable type printing press?

[Kinyou]

Actually thought of a good one: The Haber process

The Haber process is important today because the fertilizer generated from ammonia is responsible for sustaining one-third of the Earth's population.[5] It is estimated that half of the protein within human beings is made of nitrogen that was originally fixed by this process, the remainder was produced by nitrogen fixing bacteria and archaea.[6]

Ironically was it also Fritz Haber who played a major role in inventing the first chemical weapons and he even developed the gas that then later was used to kill the Jews during the Holocaust (especially tragic since he's Jewish himself)

[WARCOCK]

The welfare state. Birthed in Europe after the second world war.

[Christine]

It's either the internet or the modern evolutionary synthesis.

[Bitmap Frogs]

Language.

[teruterubozu]

Moving from "man" to "humankind"

[SMT]

The Internet.

A resource full of knowledge from all hemispheres of the globe, so invaluable Imo.

[Bernbaum]

The Internet. A resource full of knowledge from all hemispheres of the globe, so invaluable Imo.

All that information at our fingertips and yet for me it may as well just be GAF and porn.

[crazy monkey]

learning to reproduce.

[Perspicacity]

Innernet

[dab0ne]

Prenuptial agreement

[EnderWiggles]

Yogapants

[DanteFox]

Women.

[Raptomex]

Super Mario World

[Plywood]

Ism's, take your pick.

[zoukka]

Fire.

[Deified Data]

Innernet

Unironically, the internet gets my vote. In 1000 years we'll remember the establishment of a worldwide information network with a lot more awe than inventing a lightbulb or landing on a glorified piece of space debris.

That, and deoderant. Not smelling like ass is great, though some people can't manage that much.

[lunchtoast]

Water based lube.

[zoukka]

That, and deoderant. Not smelling like ass is great, though some people can't manage that much.

Soap?