In the movie, character George Bailey gets to see what life in his town would be like had he never existed. In this column, I'm considering inventions and discoveries.
Simply put: What invention of the past 200 years (we'll make it 242 years, equaling the age of the Untied States) would affect you the most if it hadn't happened?
If, for instance, air conditioning was never invented, how big an impact would it have on your day-to-day life? In my scenario, it doesn't exist. The issue is how much worse would your life be?
Get the idea?
I asked a few colleagues and Mrs. Brad for their opinions, stole some of them and then made my own definitive list of the most important inventions of the past 242 years, based on how much they would affect our lives on a daily basis if they didn't exist.
10. The internet. This ranks high on lists of people younger than 40, obviously, while my generation remembers life without it. However, while the web has been around only since the 1990s, it's like the printing press: It changed communication and it gave a platform to those previously without one.
9. Telephones. Imagine a life where you had to see someone face to face to communicate. STOP. Or had to send a telegraph. STOP. That would be terrible. STOP.
8. Penicillin. This was discovered in 1928 and changed everything. Stuff that used to kill people – infections, pneumonia, riding BART, skydiving without a parachute – now are easily healed with penicillin. Usually.
7. Cars. This was originally higher on the list, but I realized that the biggest change is that I would just have to live closer to work and ride my bike, horse or pogo stick. However, cars made widespread travel possible and created a world of commuters – even if you live and work in the same city, imagine if you didn't have a vehicle. A hassle.
6. Chemical preservatives. Nearly everything in your cupboard and refrigerator has some sort of preservative. Without these, we would be forced to buy fresh foods every day – a development that may sound good until you realize the difficulty and expense of doing it, as well as the difficulty of getting any kind of variety of food. I don't want to live in that world.
5. Radio/TV. Radio changed the world and TV did it again. Without these inventions, we would have to see live entertainment (or movies, I guess) and would only know what we heard locally. Entertainment and information would be absolutely different. However, newspapers would thrive!
4. Refrigerator. If I had to choose between a world without chemical preservatives (No. 6) and without a refrigerator, I would go without preservatives (even though both are necessary). Being forced to either get ice for an icebox or to live without refrigerated food would be brutal. Where would you keep your ice cream?
3. Electricity. It was an absolute game-changer when we gained the ability to harness it so we could have lights and The Clapper. Electricity in homes changed sleep habits, health habits and entertainment. Imagine life without electricity. You don't want that.
2. Indoor plumbing. If I had to pick between having electricity and no indoor toilet or an indoor toilet without electricity, I'd take the toilet. But not by much. This, though, is the very definition of "your life would be different every day without it." Who would even want to live in that world?
1. Insulin. I'm a Type 1 diabetic who has used insulin since I was 14. Had I been born a century earlier – long before the 1920 discovery/invention of insulin – I would have wasted away and died at a young age, meaning the use of indoor plumbing, electricity, cars and the internet would be a moot point. This is a clear No. 1 for me (although I had to use the internet to find out when it was discovered).
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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