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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.
...and continue to consume great quantities of cheese, whiskey and hard cider.
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Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
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 contraceptive pill.
It's saved trillions of dollars, saved trillions of hours of work, reduced poverty, childhood deaths, and the threat of countries being invaded for their land.
the atom bomb was still pretty disruptive.
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.
The AK-47. Bringing armed revolution to the masses!
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Those preserving techniques provided major sources of nutrients. Sauerkraut (and other fermented vegetables) has lots of Vitamin A, C, B-6, K as byproducts of the fermentation.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
"... the flush toilet developed and popularized by Thomas Crapper"
No, contrary to widespread misconceptions, Crapper did not invent the flush toilet.
Via snopes and wikipedia:
Wikipedia: It has often been claimed in popular culture that the slang term for human bodily waste, crap, originated with Thomas Crapper because of his association with lavatories. A common version of this story is that American servicemen stationed in England during World War I saw his name on cisterns and used it as army slang, i.e. "I'm going to the crapper".
Snopes: Alexander Cummings is generally credited with inventing the first flush mechanism in 1775 (more than 50 years before Crapper was born), and plumbers Joseph Bramah and Thomas Twyford further developed the technology with improvements such as the float-and-valve system. Thomas Crapper, said an article in Plumbing and Mechanical Magazine, "should best be remembered as a merchant of plumbing products, a terrific salesman and advertising genius."
I guess it's too much to hope that slashdot editors do even the most rudimentary fact-checking, eh?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Canning = Preservatives
Say what? No preservatives in anything I've canned.
Step 1: Buy pork
Step 2: Cut pork into smaller pieces
Step 3: Pack pork in canning jar
Step 4: Put lid on
Step 5: Process through pressure canner (~1.5 hours)
Step 6: Put on shelf for up to 5-10 years
Step 7: Serve and enjoy!
Pressure canning is one of the easiest things I've ever done.
But failure to do so results in starvation or death by food borne illness. It sounds like a good trade off to me. also note that food was more expensive due to lack of refrigeration, which is why it is the primary focus of what constitutes poverty in the US. It could also be argued that cheap food means obesity. If food was more expensive, less would be wasted and portions smaller.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
It also changed how people socialized. Instead of popping down to the corner store where you often met people from the neighborhood, you now have mega-marts. Instead of canning parties of in-season veggies, you have frozen foods. Small truck farms were driven out of business.
Also in the field of medicine. Some medicines are very temperature sensitive, insulin comes to mind. Easier blood storage. Easier organ storage and corpse storage.
It changed so many things besides just food storage and preparation.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
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.
The most disruptive tech of the last 100 years was the washing machine. Because it gave women some actual time to DO something during the day. Before the washing machine, women washed clothes all day. It was the most laborious thing they did, and it was a constant process. Yes, refrigeration REALLY changed a lot of things, but it didn't make life drastically more worth living for half the population. Washing machines. No question at all. Without them, women didn't need the vote, because they didn't have time to read, or work on getting educated. We're talking about half the population becoming part of the population, as opposed to beasts of burden.
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.
Smoking = carcinogens Pickling = excessive salt Canning = Preservatives Refrigeration = lower temperature I choose refrigeration .
Come on mods. "Insightful"? Bunch of stupid millennials ya'll are.
Smoking is not the same as barbecue or burned meat juice/flesh and doesn't contain the same level alleged carcinogens.
Pickling or lacto-fermentation doesn't require high levels of salt necessarily, and it's a lot less than some of the crap people shovel into their mouths now days, how much salt do you think is in chinese take out? Sushi, or even pizza? Back then, much of the pickling was also done to get something tasty with some water to people who needed both because they were doing physical labor. Salt is a very required mineral for humans that are actually _doing_ something.
Lastly, preservatives? This is total complete utter ignorance. Here's what goes in fruit preserves: fruit, water, sugar. Which one is the alleged "preservative"? Water bath canning and pressure canning used.... salt, maybe a few spices, sometimes pectin. Ooooh, plants boiled down to some other parts.Scary!
Refrigeration is good, it opens up all sorts of doors. The parent poster, is however, completely ignorant and using baseless "facts" for it's "reasoning."
I think the combine and other heavy machinery would be a contender. Heavy machinery has reduced the number of farm and construction workers by more than 90% allowing those other people to take up new jobs. The computer, the service industry, cities, etc... wouldn't exist as they are today if 90% of our workforce still worked on the farm. The article says that refrigeration and other household technologies made household work drop from 58 to 18 hours (a 69% reduction). Farm machinery has the beat by a long shot with something close to a 90% reduction in labor.
Other runner ups for other reasons would include birth control, antibiotics, plastic, the internal combustion engine, and factory automation.
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?
Yes the advent of white goods and decrease in the need for manual labour had a million times more to do with changing gender roles in western societies than feminism ever did.
My fridge helped get women the vote. True story.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
This is a common misconception. The "separate spheres" theory of gender roles, which you aptly refer to as "separate but equal," is really a product of the 19th century. Prior to that time, the vast majority of people didn't have the economic resources for that kind of segregation. At planting and harvest time especially, everyone was in the field pretty much equally. Of course there was some division of labor by gender, but not anything like what was seen in the 19th century. Gender segregation, and rigidly defined gender roles, were luxuries for the rich. The 19th century was somewhat unique because there was enough material prosperity that a large proportion of families could afford this "luxury," but not enough prosperity to start freeing women from full time household drudgery.
On a side note, I don't have much love for third-wave feminists, but I think they do have a point that our perceptions of gender roles are very heavily skewed towards the upper and middle-class perspective, especially when looking back at historical accounts. I always found it strange in history class that when the American feminist movement was covered, the experience of women in the 40's and 50's didn't resemble the life that either of my grandmothers lived very much. The women in the history books were all upper/middle class, whereas one of my grandmothers was a riveter, and the other worked as a farm-hand before scraping together enough money to train to be a secretary. Both married in their late thirties after living on their own for 15-20 years. Not working, or being dependent on/subservient to a man, was not an option for them.
So were refrigerators.
And I'd say running water, followed by toilets, and then electricity. Everything else flows from there.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I do all three. I grow and hunt (or fish for) my own food or know where it came from. Almost all of it, actually. Well, except when I'm on the road and then I find that other food tastes a bit different than I'm used to. I still eat it - it's not like I'm picky. I do it because I enjoy it, not any health or ethical reasons. Of course, freezing and refrigeration are also involved. I've learned to do all of these things and how to butcher my own meat from a neighbor and his wife. I usually buy a pig and a half a cow at a time and now I can do most of the cuts on my own and have learned a whole bunch of tasty preservation methods.
I don't really grow my own grains. I have the land but not the equipment to harvest efficiently. I've given it some thought but I just don't think I'll ever do it unless I'm forced to and that seems rather unlikely.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Sure there is some salt, but you only have to do enough of a ratio to ensure that the healthy bacteria are able to culture and ferment you food with the acid by products and CO2.
Heck, many of the old natural ways of preserving aided with "friendly" bacteria...beer for instance, when not pasteurized and filtered, has great live yeast in there that help with your B vitamins.
IN many ways, modern conveniences have caused some problems.
Hell, living TOO cleanly has likely put our present day children at health risks....they aren't exposed like we were in my day to microbes in the environment and were able to build our immune systems. Too sterile an environment is not good for kids today (do any of them actually PLAY outside in the dirt anymore?)....as that their immune systems may be weaker than should be...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If you had asked me the question without prompting, it would have been a tough choice between electricity and automobiles. The fridge isn't there without reliable electricity in the home. Another guy cited the washing machine, since it saved so much labor for women. Same thing. It doesn't happen if you can't plug it in. In a world with cars but no home electric, I think life would still be pretty rough. OTOH, we build "streetcar suburbs" that ran with overhead electric, which solved transit for a lot of people. Car companies killed the street-cars, but nobody could kill electric so I'm going to go with "reliable electricity to the home" as the most disruptive technology even though electrification started well over 100 years ago. For rural people in the USA, 1930-1950 were the swing decades which puts us well in that time-frame.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Different people who consider themselves feminists think differently. I had a female high school friend who said I should be happy that half the population was exempt from the draft, and refused to consider that this meant that men were twice as likely to be drafted than if it were sex-neutral. My wife, on the other hand, sent in her draft registration, which was refused because she was of course female. (Guess who I had the more respect for.)
I don't see why the right to vote is necessarily tied up with conscription. When women got the vote, they were neither legally nor socially equal to men in other ways. That came much later, much of it after the last man had been drafted.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
How many people had running water, toilets, and electricity in 1915?
Toilets, most people in the 1st world. At worst if you lived in a worker area of a big city you shared the toilets with you neighbour. Electricity is more recent, many rural areas didn't get that until the 1960s, and running water in rural areas depends on pumps and often came with electricity, in cities running water goes back to the Ancient rome.
Fresh mead from the butcher? That's quite medieval. Lucky guy. I have to make my own mead these days.
Then "electrification" instead of electricity. Both my parents were raised in houses that didn't have electricity. It wasn't as long ago when the REA was changing lives. The REA started in 1935, because the US trailed the (industrialized) world in rural electrification. Yes, my parents are old and born in rural areas.
Learn to love Alaska
The story that some guy named Thomas Crapper invented the flush toilet started with Martin Gardner's monthly column in the Scientific American, when suckers failed to note that it was for the April edition. That April Fool's joke spread so fast, showing that even pre-internet people would believe pretty much anything.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.