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Click pic to play the “animated comic strip”

Greatest Things Before Sliced Bread

Forget the wheel, the lever, horseshoes, and pottery. Never mind the steam engine, the airplane, and the printed circuit. While invention separated the men from the boys, and from the animals, if you think the better mousetrap was the ultimate killer app you may want to consider the following ten world changing innovations instead:

  1. Talking about stuff
  2. Pointed stick
  3. Broken rock
  4. Watching the grass grow
  5. Living with animals
  6. Processed food
  7. Recording
  8. Two plus two equals four
  9. Metal discs
  10. Imaginary metal discs

1. Talking about stuff

We can talk about stuff, or simply talk, which is what I’m really getting at, because somewhere along the line we invented language. Think about it, without language you couldn’t, well, think about it. At least not in the way you think now. If we couldn’t talk we’d have to communicate by waving our hands and making faces or playing charades and pic­tionary. Believe it. Would I lie to you? Heck, without language I couldn’t lie.

What would mankind be without language? No folk lore, no lectures, no political speeches, no talk shows. We’d all be savages, I tell you, savages! While they say actions speak louder than words, they need words to say that, eh? Besides, if you’re ever been lost in a foreign land and try asking for directions to the nearest restroom with hand gestures you’ll quickly realize how much easier that would be if you knew the language.

2. Pointed stick

A stick with a point is much more effective for hunting a mastodon than a stick without a point. With which you’d have to bludgeon the beast into submission, which would probably just make a mastodon angry. The longer the stick the farther away you can be when you jab it while it gets angry. If you can throw it like a spear while hiding behind a big rock, even better. Pointed sticks eventually became spears, then arrows, then bullets so that nowadays it is safer and easier than ever to hunt mastodons, though there aren’t any around. Perhaps because prehistoric people with pointed sticks ate them all.

3. Broken rock

When you break up certain types of rocks you get a sharp edge, which is what we’re really after here. The first sharpened edges on rocks begat the stone age as there’s not much difference between a stone and a rock. If you’ve ever tried to chop down a tree with a dull ax or cut a mastodon steak with a butter knife you know how important a sharp edge can be.

The sharpened edge might be the greatest time saving invention ever. Otherwise you’d have to wait for trees to fall over on their own to build a hut. Which could be quite some time, especially since trees can outlive people by a hundred years. Also, sharpened edges can be used to make pointed sticks which don’t grow on trees. Admit it, the sharpened edge is the ultimate cutting edge technology.

4. Watching the grass grow

The grass in question being plants like wheat, rice and barley. The watching being tend­ing, as in farming. Planning a vegetarian menu was an iffy proposition before farming was thought of. Not that a vegan diet is all that tasty in my estimation, but it beats starvation. Though not by much.

Farming took more work up front with all the plowing and whatnot, but it saved legwork finding food to gather because you knew where it was since you planted it there. Plus you could grow lots of the tastier plants and avoid supplementing your diet by eating nasty weeds and tree bark just because they’re close at hand. Farming meant people could finally settle down in settlements, villages, towns, cities and even­tually mega­lopolises where we watch the grass grow but don’t eat it.

5. Living with animals

The best way to have tasty meat on the hoof without having to chase it down hither and yon with a pointed stick is herding. With sheep herding you get wool. If you herd chickens you get eggs, if that’s actually herding. From goats and cows you get milk for butter, cheese and for pouring on your cereal you made from all that farming done above.

Hook your bigger, more co-operative types of beasts to a plow or wagon and the farming part gets a lot easier. Provided some clever sort invented a wheel somewhere along the line. While we don’t actually herd dogs, they’re great to have around as best friends who’ll do some of the herding work for us at very low pay. Cats, on the other hand…

6. Processed food

By processing I mean chopping and mixing things up and tossing it into a fire. In other words, cooking. This is how all that farming and herding pays off by making the resulting food more yummy. Let’s face it, an apple pie beats chomping on celery stalks and hamburgers are much tastier than freshly dug grubs. Raw meat and vegetables are fine for tigers and squirrels, but then they don’t build civilizations and so have no need for restaurants, cafes, chefs or cooking shows on TV.

7. Recording

Not cds, tapes or vinyl discs, but the earliest type of recording we call writing. What would we be without reading and writing? Illiterate, of course. The only books would be comics, but without the word balloons. Pretty to look at, but rather hard to follow the story line. While they say a million monkeys can write Shakespeare, they can’t draw a lick.

Modern life depends on literacy. Without which there’d be no newspapers, memos, shopping lists, or instruction manuals. We’d have to memorize every­thing. Who could memorize how to build a car? Not only that, web content would have to be delivered word of mouth door to door. Sort-of a Minstrelnet.

8. Two plus two equals four

Which means more than basic math, but basically numbers themselves. You can keep track of things easier with numbers than without. Otherwise if you wanted to trade ten fish for three chickens you’d have to say, “I’ll give you a fish, a fish, a fish, a fish, a fish, a fish, a fish, a fish, a fish, and a fish for a chicken, a chicken and a chicken.” Even then, once you got past ten you run out of fingers to keep track of how many times you said fish. Math makes it possible to more easily figure the exchange rate of fish to chickens, soup to nuts, and dollars to donuts.

9. Metal discs

If you’d really rather not break rocks or process food yourself you can buy them or pay somebody to do the work for you. For that we have little metal discs called coins, also known as money. This beats toting around all the fish and chickens you’d need to buy a car. Besides, fish stink after three days while coins remain fresh as a daisy for lengthy periods.

If you’re a rich venture capitalist you can even pay folks to invent new things. They might not be great inventions, but they could make you more money, an already great invention. While money can’t buy you love or happiness, neither will poverty.

10. Imaginary metal discs

If you don’t have any money, you can still buy things with the promise of money which we call credit. In that case you don’t have to carry little metal discs around. Though you will have to carry debt.

Basically, debt is promised money which represents chickens counted before they hatch. Credit was invented by bankers a long time ago so buyer’s agents could travel light. Though if you’ve read the news lately, you know they really haven’t worked out all the bugs yet. The problem with imaginary money is some folks let their imagin­ations run away with them.

Whether these are the ten greatest inventions, or can actually be classified as inventions, I suppose is debatable. Be that as it may, despite how modern and clever we may be, how many of us could come up with something as earth shaking as any of them?

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