Also, what was the alternative? The refrigerants used before it were far more dangerous (at least in the short-term), from my understanding. And people were still buying them, so was it a case of the “least bad option” or not? I mean, were there other options at the time that were safer and would do the same thing (honest question, because I do not know)? And how much do you think refrigeration helped/hurt? Obviously, cutting down on food spoilage (and foodborne illness) was huge. Did increase transport and eating more foods produced further way, too, so there’s that environmental impact. Then there’s the small subset of people who think more people dying and consequent smaller population would be wonderful, because people are bad for earth.
Omnibus, actually. No “horse” needed as that’s all they had.
Yes, of course.
Well, there are some trips you simply cannot take without airplanes. If my family in California has an emergency I must get to, without planes, I cannot.
How are trains necessary? We used to just ride horses or walk. How is TV necessary? Do you have a smartphone? Unnecessary. Essentially EVERYTHING save food, clothing and shelter is “unnecessary” if you want to get ridiculous about it.
That was absolutely not normal in the 1950s and probably wasn’t in the 1920s, either. Your grandparents might well have been significant outliers, but since long before they were born, farmers and farming communities were largely not self-sufficient in industrialized nations. The garment industry was heavily urban and industrial before the 1920s and would have been the source of most clothing in your grandparents’ community.
Where’d your grandparents get all their farming equipment? Large companies have absolutely dominated that market for a very long time; John Deere is getting close to their 200th anniversary. Stuff for around their house? Not every little town could make their own light bulbs. No small town could make everything, even in the 20s and long before then a lot of the things you mention were largely made by large manufacturers. That’s what trains were doing.
That’s really it. The whole “what is necessary” game is silly. Everything’s “necessary” for a certain standard of living/lifestyle, and very little outside of food, clothing, and shelter is necessary to live.
The question as I see it, is what standard of living and lifestyle is reasonable in the modern world. And I don’t think the majority of people like the idea of living in large, multifamily buildings, and walking/taking public transit everywhere. That sucks- few people want to be all up on their neighbors like that, or limited by what’s within walking distance, what they can carry on the train/bus/subway, or to the bus/train/subway schedule.
Maybe it works somewhere like Manhattan or central London, but it’s not really the kind of thing that’s doable in most larger, newer American cities.
My grandmother once told me that during the Depression, they survived well, not because they had money, which they didn’t, but on “lack of need”. Farm families into the post-war era grew most of their own food. I lived on a farm in the 1970’,s in Nova Scotia, which grew most of its own food. They bought wheat flour, salt, sugar, coffee, not much else – in terms of food. It was perhaps not “normal” but it wasn’t wildly unusual either, not in areas in which family farms still predominated.
No, of course even by the 1920’s they used commercial machinery like everyone else (although they still used horses to pull it), I was just talking about food here.
I think the argument is too vague. What we call necessities were in recent memory not even ideas. Is this a thread about inventions that are absolutely pointless? Or inventions that we could easily give up without suffering any perturbations to our lifestyles? Or inventions that we certainly do not require for a useful, healthy life? Or what?
None of those are an invention, and Play-Dough is non-toxic.
If we are referring to actual Play-Doh, yeah, it’s always been non toxic. That was a major selling point, in fact, from the get go.
It has a few preservatives in it, but it’s mostly flour, salt, food coloring, and a little water, like the homemade stuff.
I think you’d have to admit it IS an invention, though.
My grandfather had a pair of horses, Tulipe and Margeurit. They didn’t buy coffee, or sugar [herb tisanes and honey] and were within reason self sufficient. Of course, they were Amish =) My mother and aunt died as a result of a kerosene lamp accident [spilled while filling it, fwoosh.]
This is true, and you could say the same thing about war.
However, one can make the argument that slavery was reinvented in the early colonization of the Americas. At that time, slavery was mostly a historical memory in Western civilization, and serfdom – which isn’t the same thing – was on the decline. AFAIK countries such as England and Spain were doing fine without slaves at home, but when they came to North and South America they reintroduced slavery on such a massive scale that in some places slaves were a large percentage of the population. The fallout from this has turned out to be a tragedy.
Absotively.
Yes, but in Africa and part of Asia is was still going strong.
But yeah, a tragedy. Oddly slavery in North America was in decline until the cotton gin made slavery an almost must have.
Slavery wasn’t exactly invented recently, but the industrial slavery of the Americas was a special variety.
industrial slavery?
The whole Eukaryotic experiment has been an abject failure.
I really meant the institution of chattel slavery such that anyone imported or born into slavery could never be freed, nor could any child of theirs. Humans as a commodity, from which there was almost no possible escape. That was the American difference.
tell it.
Heard one on Marketplace Morning Report on NPR today - a smart oven with a camera inside the oven itself so you can live-stream your roasting/baking goodies. Really?
I bought a second humidifier for the apartment, since our hair is standing on end and our clothes are sticking to us. It came with a remote and voice control. Yeah, it’s a real inconvenience to walk across the room and push a button.
Hah. Bought a used 2 door pickup truck. The stereo was very fancy. Fine.
The stereo had a remote control. Umm the stereo is literally at arms reach.
How else can someone post inspirational and life-giving pictures of their food with the caption “Mmmm” on social media?