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Oct 25, 2017
5,159
China
Television, specifically any screen. Your phone, PC, laptop, VR headset or movie theatre would not exist without that tech and any media or communication with that tech would not be possible.
 

TheYanger

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,133
You think, young'un? Wouldn't have that new fangled intermanet without home computers. Which we didn't have when I was young.
I mean, just because the internet relies on computers doesn't mean it's not more significant imo. A PC on its own was cool and definitely transformative, but not like the internet has been on the last 25 years or so.
 

ToddBonzalez

The Pyramids? That's nothing compared to RDR2
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,530
Smartphones+Wifi is literally a life-altering invention for many people.
 

iapetus

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,078
I mean, just because the internet relies on computers doesn't mean it's not more significant imo. A PC on its own was cool and definitely transformative, but not like the internet has been on the last 25 years or so.

It's the combination of the two that has been transformative. If you had the internet, but limited to large institutions on expensive shared machines, it wouldn't have been particularly cool or transformative of everyday live. Cheap, widely accessible computing resources have transformed our lives more, I'd argue; widely available computing resources with pre-internet comms technologies would still have a major impact on our lives.
 

JonnyDBrit

God and Anime
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,012
The development of the smart phone. It is basically a miniature computer in your pocket, making the Pokedex look like some amateur hour technology. Like, as much as the Internet itself, being able to access it at basically all times, while also having such conveniences as a digital wallet, torch, a camera, a timer, games, and just... Well, whatever you can find an app for really, is mind blowing. Even a lot of sci-fi still struggles to integrate them properly because of just how sweeping they are now, never mind where they might be in a hundred years.
 

gigaslash

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,122
Smartphones, by far. I remember well the times when we didn't have them, and somehow I still can't imagine how we lived before the convenience of google maps, messengers, streaming, etc.
 

Dan Thunder

Member
Nov 2, 2017
13,990
The ability to mass produce medicine/antibiotics.

Even basic things like headaches are so much worse if you don't have any paracetamol to hand.
 

astro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
56,852
I want to say something clever, funny, or interesting... but it's the internet.
 

Skade

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,836
asthma-inhaler-1406174905.jpg

My shitty lungs agree with you.

Other than that, i'd simply say computers. My life revolve around them.
 

applejuice

Member
Oct 27, 2017
416
Tampa, FL
Do glasses count? I have a -5.25 prescription in each eye and could not function without my glasses. When I was a poor kid there were times I had to go without glasses because they broke or they got lost. Once a neighborhood bully stole them and threw them in a lake. I don't even go to the bathroom without them.
 

Poimandres

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,848
As someone born in 1984... The internet changed everything. The second biggest thing, probably mobile phones.

It's easy to look around and feel like not much has changed in my relatively small city. But those two? They are generation defining changes.
 

LL_Decitrig

User-Requested Ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
10,334
Sunderland
So many candidates, because I was born in the 1950s. Cellular radio, the technological innovation that drives our mobile phone networks, is one. The successful reduction or elimination of several formerly common fatal illnesses is another. Packet-switched networking, which forms the technological basis of Ethernet and the Internet, undoubtedly make the world much more connected then it used to be. Geostationary communications satellites, weather monitoring and prediction, improvements in agricultural efficiency, and many other changes I could name directly benefit billions of people alive today.

There are many remaining problems, and some of those have emerged at least partly because of our advances in technology. We're in the middle of a mass extinction, caused by our success in dominating every niche and every part of the planet, that could soon begin to threaten our own viability through the loss of biodiversity and the habitats that contribute to the global ecology. We show none of the necessary awareness or political will required to fix the emerging problems. The eventual cost will have to be paid, but it's likely to be much higher the later we delay the reckoning.
 

I_D

Member
Oct 27, 2017
572
The internet has to be the single most-important breakthrough in decades. In just fifteen-ish years, it has grown from a "series of tubes" to something people carry about in their pockets. Cell phones are a close second to the internet, but mostly because they simply provide access to the internet itself.

Just remember how different life was before the internet. It's like living with no automobiles in the world to suddenly having highways in every neighborhood.
 

jchap

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,772
I use 3D printing nearly daily. It makes prototyping hardware so fast and easy.
 

Aeriscloud

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,208
Florida
The fact that a phone can stream music to a car and video/music to televisions. Sure, we could do things like this through other wired devices in the past, but this is so damn fast and so much easier to set up.
 

Aftermath

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,756
Broadband Internet, if you have ever experienced life before the Internet and then onto Dial Up you'd understand why. But Wi-Fi too was a must

Ipad (tablets in general) - instead of Newspapers/Magazines I get my daily news from these available 24/7 up to the minute breaking news, all info I never thought I wanted to know via Wikipedia etc and everything else i can do all in my hands, including video n music etc with a screen size clise to a small magazine or comic
 

Charsace

Chicken Chaser
Banned
Nov 22, 2017
2,845
The internet and not having to pay $20 amonth for 6 hours of internet access a month. AOL changed everything with the $20 a month flat fee for unlimited internet access.
 

DavidDesu

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
5,718
Glasgow, Scotland
The internet, which was being established as I grew up, essential for me not being a completely antisocial hermit and leading me to having relationships that would probably not have happened were I born even 10 years earlier (born in 84). For all the negatives it brings the net has allowed super shy and reserved people like myself to come out of my shell.