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The Most Disruptive Technology of the Last 100 Years Isn't What You Think
HughPickens.com writes: Ana Swanson writes in the Washington Post that when people talk about "disruptive technologies," they're usually thinking of the latest thing out of Silicon Valley but some of the most historically disruptive technologies aren't exactly what you would expect and arguably, the most disruptive technologiy of the last century is the refrigerator. In the 1920s, only about a third of households reported having a washer or a vacuum, and refrigerators were even rarer. But just 20 years later, refrigerator ownership was common, with more than two-thirds of Americans owning an icebox. According to Helen Veit, the surge in refrigerator ownership totally changed the way that Americans cooked. "Before reliable refrigeration, cooking and food preservation were barely distinguishable tasks" and techniques like pickling, smoking and canning were common in nearly every American kitchen. With the arrival of the icebox and then the electric refrigerator, foods could now be kept and consumed in the same form for days. Americans no longer had to make and consume great quantities of cheese, whiskey and hard cider — some of the only ways to keep foods edible through the winter. "A whole arsenal of home preservation techniques, from cheese-making to meat-smoking to egg-pickling to ketchup-making, receded from daily use within a single generation," writes Veit.
Technologies like the smartphone, the computer and the Internet have, of course, dramatically changed the ways we live and work but consider the spread of electricity, running water, the flush toilet developed and popularized by Thomas Crapper and central heating and the changes these have wrought. "These technologies were so disruptive because they massively reduced the time spent on housework," concludes Swanson. "The number of hours that people spent per week preparing meals, doing laundry and cleaning fell from 58 in 1900 to only 18 hours in 1970, and it has declined further since then."
Technologies like the smartphone, the computer and the Internet have, of course, dramatically changed the ways we live and work but consider the spread of electricity, running water, the flush toilet developed and popularized by Thomas Crapper and central heating and the changes these have wrought. "These technologies were so disruptive because they massively reduced the time spent on housework," concludes Swanson. "The number of hours that people spent per week preparing meals, doing laundry and cleaning fell from 58 in 1900 to only 18 hours in 1970, and it has declined further since then."
The Most Disruptive Technology of the Last 100 Years Isn't What You Think
Don't tell me what I think. You don't know what I think.
You don't want to know what I think.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You can just live in a bubble, and avoid anything dangerous. Oh wait, we found that we need a good supply of microorganisms to keep our body healthy, so living in a bubble is bad for our health too.
Our body can deal with with many of these "Bad" things when at the correct level. And with the amounts ideal, you are probably overall healthier than without them.
We americans trend towards excess, and will even go with excess of absence. Our body is designed to process many of these things, and without ingesting these harmful things, those part of our bodies atrophy and weaken our ability to protect against it. But that doesn't mean go hog while and base your diet strictly on foods with harmful elements. Just take things in moderation. A Balanced Diet, not an extreme one.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
the atom bomb was still pretty disruptive.
It's odd how a certain kind of mindset instantly equates children to poverty and misery, and inexplicably in this case, war.
Agreed that the refrigerator (along with birth control) is one of the most disruptive technologies in the past 100 years. However, this is not yet the case for the world at large. Only 27% of people in India own a refrigerator. In the West we take things like refrigeration and toilets for granted...
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Smoking = carcinogens Pickling = excessive salt Canning = Preservatives Refrigeration = lower temperature I choose refrigeration .
Of course, if there exists the luxury of such a choice.
An even easier conundrum? Carcinogens, salt, and preservatives or starvation...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Smoking = carcinogens .
Pickling = excessive salt
Canning = Preservatives
Refrigeration = lower temperature
I choose refrigeration
I'm not sure you understand what the work disruptive means. One of the reasons refrigeration was disruptive is because everyone chose it over all of the previous methods. That's exactly what disruptive means.
Close but incorrect.
The most disruptive technology of the last 100 years was . . .
Ta da . . .
Northern Toilet Tissue. Introduced in 1935. The very first splinter free toilet tissue.
Now that's innovation we take for granted.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Er... refrigeration preserves the microorganisms in food, it just slows down their metabolism. Smoking, pickling and canning are all designed to sterilize food so that it can be stored at room temperature. And I'm fairly certain we eat more salt, smoke and preservatives than hunter-gatherers ever did.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
But here is the issue, as part of balance, if we have too much bacteria or the wrong type we get sick too. Refrigeration slows down the spoiling process however it doesn't stop it, thus giving us a false sense of security, while eating spoiled food, just because a particular strand seems to thrive better in colder temperatures than the others. While the food is sterilized to serve at room temperature still isn't sterilized, and sometimes fermentation takes advantage of microorganisms to create the flavor we like.
We like the flavor from smoked, salted, and preserved foods. Why? Because we were evolved to like those, because we knew that it wasn't spoiled food and those side effect we can deal with.
I am not contradicting myself BALANCE is the keyword. Pining on all the bad stuff we face in our environment isn't healthy. Taking normal precautions and finding what your body feels as a good balance will probably help you live longer than picking up on the weekly buzzword diet trend. Or trying to do what that pretty girl is trying this week.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.