I gotta say mRNA vaccines. It's not technically a 21st century invention, but much of the work to make them viable started in the early 2000s. The speed at which the COVID vaccine got developed and widely deployed was honestly incredible and a massive W for humanity. I remember thinking a vaccine would be years away.
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
69 points (94.8% liked)
Asklemmy
47935 readers
1033 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
I cast: sudo shred *
Those little straws with the filters inside that allow people to drink contaminated water right from the source.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Like it or not. The iPhone. It changed the phone and how we use it. I literally use my android phone for everything now, as a credit card, ticket, pc, social, gaming... some people get laid and marry thanks to them...
Marriage and sex decline when societies adopt smartphones and the digital craze.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Hard to quantify, but stuff like PrEP (a drug used to prevent HIV infection) has probably saved a staggering number of lives across the globe, same with the yearly influenza vaccines.
For a more personal one?
I'd say the innovations to bikes, which have been staggering since 2000. Downhill mountain bikes have had staggering changes that make them lighter, faster, stronger, and way more stable, and they look dramatically different to their 90s counterparts. Stuff like dropper posts, modern full suspension, tubeless tires, disc brakes, and massive cassettes make them incredible. You can roll over a cantaloupe-sized rock at 20mph and the bike will just take it without you being ejected over the bars.
Ebikes have totally changed the calculus in hilly cities, even in flat ones to some extent. Being able to effortlessly bike 45 miles and not be totally thrashed the next day is such a gamechanger, it's actually beyond belief. My car has been largely collecting dust because most trips day to day are under 45 miles. And it takes pennies to recharge vs $90 or so to refill the tank.
Bikes already help take tons of cars off the road worldwide, but ebikes could really help extend people's ranges, particularly if they would normally drive otherwise.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I mean we only have had fourth and things happen over time. So I want to say blue led but they existed before the century but just got the process such they can manufacture them. Native white ones are invented now but most white is using the combination method currently with the blue ones. Anyway if it counts I can't imagine how much energy this has saved even over halogens for lighting and then for dispalys to. I would hate to think how much fossile fuel we would be using if we were still on incadescents and crts.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Although not very impactful yet, it think aerographene has the potential to be massive.
CRISPR
Corona vaccines
Online Streaming
Online Maps
Wikipedia
Drone Warfare
LHC
Paris climate treaty
load more comments
(3 replies)
The 21st century has been mostly focused on finding new applications of existing technology. A lot of things are changing in pretty much every aspect of life, but nothing is entirely new.
The internet has really changed the shape of our world, but, even though it really kicked off after the year 2000, it was invented during the 20th century.
Something to keep in mind is that humanity is redifining what counts as an invention, a lot of ideas are created all the time, so the bar has been raised significantly.
Also, we need to keep in mind how big corps have been killing innovation in the name of profit. New products are being created all the time, but they are bought by bigger companies and burried. This is happenig because these innovations carry a certain risk that an established company with a good revenue flow is not willing to accept.
Personally, I am excited about the field of Social Computing, it is still at its infancy and has a lot of potential. The main idea is to create alogirthms based on human interactions that solve real world problems. A few questions one may ask include: How misinformation is being spread, and what is the optimal way to fight it? How do we fight corruption and authoriative power? These questions have been approached by a lot of fields, but creating algorithms and proving their effectiveness requires a deep understanding of computer science.
Personally, I am excited about the field of Social Computing, it is still at its infancy and has a lot of potential. The main idea is to create alogirthms based on human interactions that solve real world problems. A few questions one may ask include: How misinformation is being spread, and what is the optimal way to fight it? How do we fight corruption and authoriative power? These questions have been approached by a lot of fields, but creating algorithms and proving their effectiveness requires a deep understanding of computer science.
I'm not a pessimistic person (I'm neutral), but the sinister implications are obvious.
Well, I can see your point of view, after all computer science has been used for a lot of sinister things in our time. However, science is a neutral thing on itself, how we use it makes the difference.
A great example are corporate social media vs the fediverse. While we can all see the good a social media platforms can offer, they way corporate social media have been shaped introduces a lot of problems. Given the circumstances I may argue they were a necessary step, but it's definitely time for change, and a lot of people (including us right now) are working hard for that change.
Social Computing as field would study this change, how people made decisions, and how it influenced both their lives and the society we live in. It involves asking questions like: How the fediverse came to be? How the transition could have been faster? Or, How it can be used for the greater good?
Of course, these questions can be shaped in an exploitative way like: How the evolution of the fediverse could stopped or slowed down? How the fediverse could be exploited for the gain of the few? etc...
In the end, I believe the question is who is more powerful, a few people with a lot of money, or a lot of people with little money? Right now the few seem to have the upper hand, but if the access to resources is the only difference, then I believe that we can be optimistic as science and technology have always been about doing more with less resources.
In the end, I believe the question is who is more powerful, a few people with a lot of money, or a lot of people with little money?
Coördination is easier for the former.
Can't tbink if anythung really, all we've done is refined some stuff butmaybe mRNA vaccines ?
Mostly we've just enshitified everything and/or made it disposable..From headphones to entire operating systems etc.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The reprap basically started the entire home 3d printer thing.
Waze.
Boycott Israel
¿Porque no los dos? 💈
Boycott Waze, Wix, HP, Unilever (and their many subsidiaries), Cif, Coca-Cola, Colman's, Danone, Dell, Domino's, Elle, McDonald's, Monster Energy drinks, Nescafé/Nestlé, Paypal, Pret-a-Manger, Reebok, Starbuck's, Sun (the laundry detergent)
Waze and many of the companies you listed are not BDS targets, for good reason:
The global nature of today’s economy means that there are thousands of companies that have links to Israel and are complicit to various degrees in Israel’s violations of international law. However, for our movement to have real impact we need our consumer boycotts to be easy to explain, have wide appeal and the potential for success. That’s why globally, while we call for divestment from all companies implicated in Israel's human rights violations, we focus our boycott campaigns on a select few strategic targets. We also encourage the principle of context sensitivity, whereby activists in any given context decide what best to target and how, in line with BDS guidelines.
https://craft.co/waze/locations - it's headquartered in Tel Aviv. Boycott it.
"The modern economy is very global and interconnected" is a cliché - too vague and obvious to guide action. Boycott Israeli companies. Waze is an Israeli company.
https://craft.co/waze/locations - it’s headquartered in Tel Aviv. Boycott it.
Maybe some horrible massacre happened there once, but that's like the heart of 1948 Israel, not some illegal settlement in the West Bank.
“The modern economy is very global and interconnected” is a cliché - too vague and obvious to guide action.
Maybe, but it is an esteemed, Palestinian lead organization employing that cliché and providing good justification for it. I will be giving the guidance from BDS more weight than yours, @[email protected].
Maybe some horrible massacre happened there once, but that’s like the heart of 1948 Israel, not some illegal settlement in the West Bank.
So people reading this are aware: the boycott movement is not just about boycotting goods from the occupied territories: it's about the whole of Israel.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
I'm genuinely not sure that anything has been invented in the 21st century.
Only birds.
Yeah, I was thinking about it and then asked here. It seems like most of nice stuff was invented in the 19st century, and in the past 24 years we just improve it.
Many things that were conceptually conceived in the 20th century didn't become viable until the 21st, such as OLED, VR and AR, raytracing, telesurgery, a whole slew of types of artificial organs, a gigantic amount of miscellaneous advancements in integrated circuit fabrication, alternative vehicle fuel such as methane, hydrogen and rechargeable batteries; maglev trains, innumerable safety improvements in aviation, mRNA vaccines and so on and so forth. I don't think it's fair to credit all that stuff to the 20th century, unless someone somewhere saying "be real cool if we could do that" counts as inventing something.
OLEDs were built in 1987 I saw my first VR demonstration in the 90s (and it wasn't cutting edge then). I saw my first AR demonstration then as well as part of an undergraduate engineering fair. And so on. I just looked up maglev trains - in commercial use since 1984.
I don't disagree that there hasn't been refinements, improvements, or commercialization of technology, but there hasn't been a technological leap or invention that I can think of in the 21st century.
3D printers were a 21st century invention, I think.
Quadcopters and other multirotor designs resulted in an incredible leap in affordable cinematography, racing applications, rescue, mapping, and warfare.
A lot of 3D printing patents from the 80s and 90s expired between 2010-2020, clearing the way for commercial 3d printers and a million innovations. I'd call them honorary 21st century inventions, since the patent holders squandered the technology in the 90s.
https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/how-patents-die-expiring-3d-printing-patents.html
load more comments
(1 replies)
To be fair, there’s only been 24 year’s of 21 century. Most things you gave listed happened at the end of the 20th century. But also the question is somewhat self negating - we won’t know what’s the greatest invention until we see it working great, but it takes much more than 24 years to take an invention from concept to consumption. For example computational biology is kicking off. Computer aided dna generation started in the past 24 years. But it’s so new few people think about it. Just like no one thought of internet as the greatest invention in the 70s… it was just too new
You're not wrong. But there are counter examples. I was going to use the example of the jet engine in my last answer as a true paradigm shifting development that had immediate impact. And in the mid-century period too! Or the first powered flight occurred in the first decade of the 20th century and had an immediate impact. The transistor and solid state electronics would be another example.
So let me flip it around and say we've had a quarter century without a major technological breakthrough. There's been progress, but it feels incremental. I spent a night with a physicist a few years ago who was arguing that progress is slowing because we are still relying on the exploitation of Newtonian physics. There are a few technologies that have made the leap to nuclear physics. But we've had the basics of quantum physics for a century now and haven't been able to exploit it in a useful fashion.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)