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What are world-changing creations made by a country other than the US? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Glowstick@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

67 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Almost all the global society-altering creations i can think of FROM THE PAST 100 YEARS are from America. I highly doubt that's true, so I'm looking for counter-examples.

To clarify, I'm looking for items on the level of:

the internet
rock music
nuclear weapons
ai
~~airplane flight~~ (older than 100 years)

And clearly I'm not just including things that improved the world.

The best ones i can think of are (I think):

~~Rocketry (Germany)?~~
Cheap tech manufacturing (Asian countries)?

EDIT:

Actually rocketry has been around much longer than 100 years. Even the category of "modern rocketry" begins in the late 1800s. Source: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/TRC/Rockets/history_of_rockets.html

EDIT 2:

A further explanation of what level I'm talking about.

There has to be a clear before and after, and it has to directly and quickly effect most of the world. For example the Internet. There's life before the internet, and there's life after the internet, which are both very different.

As opposed to for example if someone makes a groundbreaking foundational research discovery that effects the entire realm of their field of study, but doesn't quickly and directly create a difference in most people's lives, then it doesn't fit the category.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Vostok 1 was the capsule that contained Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. All of these were critical advancements in space flight and science. What is the criterion for "world changing" that doesn't include the numerous critical advancements in space?

[+] Glowstick@lemmy.world -9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Again, first satellite! Great example! And an absolute first achievement in rocketry!

First man in space is close, but it's not as world changing, more of a synthetic goal post that was reached. There's no actual border between space vs not space, it's just a synthetic line we drew arbitrarily at exactly 100 km.

But a satellite is an altogether different thing. That's the first thing humans ever pushed up that didn't immediately fall back to earth after it stopped being pushed upward. A true and massive achievement, and that achievement created brand new world-changing technologies in communications, created breakthroughs in almost all branches of sciences, changed how we humans live through gps, and all the zillion other world-changing advanced that flowed as a direct immediate consequence

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Surviving in space and successfully returning from orbit is absolutely an incredible achievement that spurred on the space race.

[–] Glowstick@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I agree, but ~~it's not a world-changing breakthrough. There had previously been humans extremely high up, but they just didn't cross above the synthetic threshold we randomly drew~~

EDIT

Nope, i was totally wrong. I did some reading and it's clear that Yuri's flight was absolutely world-changing

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's why I am asking what counts as "world-changing," as most people would consider the first man in space to be world-changing.

[–] lukecooperatus@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Especially considering that Yuri Gagarin's flight inspired generations of people all over the world after him to a probably immeasurable extent. If the OP wanted "global society-altering", then that certainly qualifies.

[–] Glowstick@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I did some reading and learned a bunch of stuff, and now i see that you're right and I'm wrong. Yuri's first spaceflight does in fact totally qualify, completely. I was under the misunderstanding thinking that he was the first to cross the synthetic goal line into space but i assumed that previous attempts were close-ish but not quite to the same altitude. Nope. I just learned that he DEMOLISHED the previous altitude record by an order of magnitude, 32 km vs 320 km, and that all previous flights were using atmosphere conditions to power their flight. You're totally right, Vostok1 was a totally world-changing achievement

[–] Glowstick@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

And i just realized i have to remove my item from my own list, because the wright brothers flight was more than 100 years ago