21 Technological Advances We Really, *Really* Take for Granted

‘The broom. That invention swept the nation’
21 Technological Advances We Really, *Really* Take for Granted

It’s easy to slide into the mindset that the miracle of modern living is just the natural order of things. As far as your brain is concerned, we’ve always been able to reach anyone or look up anything via the tiny computers in our pockets before heating our extracted bean juice in the electronic cooking box and hopping in our dinosaur-powered vehicles to go to our email jobs.

But Wi-Fi didn’t grow on a tree. Even if we do recognize those technological revolutions that visibly and recently changed everything, like cars and phones, we still forget about the tiny innovations we never notice but our lives would be infinitely harder without. That’s why user forgeris asked r/AskReddit, “What’s an invention that quietly changed the world but doesn’t get enough credit?”

ictguy24 . 17d ago The Broom. That invention swept the nation.
gorillaboy75 . 17d ago Flushing toilets.
Running-With-Cakes o 17d ago Refrigeration
toorudez . . 17d ago The good old shovel.
PancAshAsh . . 17d ago I'm amazed nobody has said this yet, but ball bearings.
SuperMolasses1554 . 17d ago Shipping containers. Boring box, global economy cheat code.
Sagelegend . 17d ago Stirrups-changed the game in terms of horse mounted warfare.
tamsinjenkins58 . 17d ago Velcro - silent hero of shoes, jackets, and countless inventions.
GwyneddDragon . 17d ago Window screens prevented countless deaths from malaria and yellow fever.
ShoddyClimate6265 . 17d ago Birth control. Its implications are often unappreciated.
fords42 . . 17d ago Synthetic insulin. Type 1 diabetes is no longer a death sentence.
iamatwork24 в 17d ago Given the last few years, vaccines sure don't get the respect they deserve. Amoxicillin was quite the game changer. Pasteurized dairy was a pretty big deal.
No_Consideration_339 . 17d ago Lenses. Just squish a ball of glass and, woah! Whole new worlds from the very small to the very large are visible.
Cndcrow 0 17d ago Glassware. Think about how valuable a chemically inert, see through, and heat resistant set of glassware is when it comes to chemistry.
hyteck9 . 17d ago Blue LED's. If you dont know the story, its fascinating. Look it up. They even did a documentary on it.
sevseventeen- . 17d ago The written word. Without it, you have very little capacity for advancement and your history and culture is very susceptible to loss.
georage . 17d ago The axle. The wheel gets all the credit but the axle makes the wheel useful (pottery wheel, millstone, transporting stuff). They were invented at the same time, it is said.
133DK 17d ago Surprised no one's said artificial fertiliser yet Without it we'd have a hell of a hard time sustaining 4 billion people on this planet let alone the 8 we are now That and penicillin, something we take so much for granted we're creating super bugs due to our overuse of it
TheNewGirl1987 17d ago The tractor tire. When motorized tractors were first created, they had hard, cog-like wheels to allow for traction in the soft soil. As a result, they were slow and uncomfortable to drive, allowing a farmer to plough an acre in 2-3 hours, which wasn't much faster than a horse or ох- drawn plough. In the 1930s, the low-pressure pneumatic tire was developed, which allowed farmers to comfortably operate their tractors at much higher speeds. Modern tractors can plough 40-80 acres a day, making food production dramatically easier and more efficient.
Soofla . 17d ago Three-point seatbelt. Saved over a million lives. People use one everyday without even thinking. So important the inventor created it and then said Here you go world, all yours......
JMEEKER86 e 17d ago Washing machines Economists have argued that its impact is similar to that of the Internet. Washing clothes by hand takes a long, loooong time. Washing machines made it much easier for more women to enter the workforce.

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