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#6
08-26-2010, 10:39 AM
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5. Printing Press
 Before good old Gutenberg did his thing and built his revolutionary printing press in 1439, books were all hand-written. This meant that not only were they very difficult and time-consuming to create and copy, but that they were very expensive. They were limited to personal notes and to very important texts, generally on religion or science. Like the later invention of the Internet, the printing press allowed information to be spread across the world in a far more efficient and inexpensive process. This allowed for the spread of intellectual achievement and the written arts, followed shortly thereafter by trashy romance novels in supermarket checkout lines. 
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#7
08-26-2010, 10:39 AM
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4. Plumbing
 The ancient Romans may be credited with the development of plumbing, but it didn’t really become popular until the 20th century. These days, most people don’t remember a time in their lives when their toilet consisted of an outhouse or, in the city, a bucket. Showers and sinks are a convenience, but a system that allows for us to live in a house that doesn’t smell like **** is the true beginning of civilization. This improvement was naturally trailed by the development of toilet paper, followed closely by the toilet plunger.
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#8
08-26-2010, 10:39 AM
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3. Tools
 Imagine you are stuck in the wilderness with nothing, and you have to survive. What do you do to stay alive? You come from a “highly advanced” civilization, and yet most people have no idea how to take advantage of technology starting from scratch. That’s because we have tools, which are the first technology. A tool is anything you use to build, change, repair, or destroy something, and it’s the first thing you need to create any other technology. A stone knife will help you skin an animal for clothes, or carve wooden weapons. Without tools, we’re just slow, clumsy animals.
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#9
08-26-2010, 10:39 AM
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2. Cooking
 It might be tempting to include fire as an important human invention, but humans didn’t invent fire. Fire happens on its own all the time. What we did was find out what it was good for. Among the most important uses of fire is to sterilize food, allowing us to eat more safely by using the heat to **** parasites. People have been doing this for over a million years, making it an integral part of our evolution. It also is the beginning of the process of turning mere survival into civilization, as the process of cooking allows us to prepare food as an art rather than just a meal.
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#10
08-26-2010, 10:39 AM
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1. Language
 This is the number one innovation of humanity for a very good reason: it is in many ways the definition of humanity. Our ability to communicate, whether via voice or writing, lets us join our minds together so as to go from bands of individuals to become a true culture. All animals communicate somehow, and some are quite sophisticated, but humanity is the king of communication. No one knows how old true language is, but it is old enough that our brains have developed around it and become specialized in its use. No other technology would be able to develop reliably without language to teach it to the next generation.
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