[Opies]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'T')he Internet.

Thank you Mr Gore, we are unworthy.

[Denny]

Television, because without it, we'd have no televangelists.

Its like the new Guttenburg printing press.

[Nicholai]

Religion has been an interesting contribution although I wouldn't say it was 'great', effective but not 'great'.

Soap?

[Tanada]

Pollitics of course! No really, pollitics is how you talk people into selling/trading/surrendering their stuff so that you don't have to go to war and risk getting killed to get their stuff.

I admit it doesn't work all that well, but before Pollitics it was always war.

[eastbay]

Ok, now I have it.

The domestication of fire.

[gnm]

The Voyager probes... hands down.




Well nukes are pretty cool too...

-G

[gnm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'G')auss's construction of the 17 sided polygon.

[eastbay]

Ok, now I have it.

The domestication of fire.

[lawnchair]

I have a personal weakness for the integrated circuit. Not sure it's #1, but it's gotta be in the top ten. Plus, one of the inventors (Jack Kilby) graduated from my high school. I fought to get the school renamed after him (mascot: the Fightin Microchips. Didn't succeed). Met the guy a couple of times. Pretty neat to say something you did one summer changed human history in your lifetime.

Beyond that, obviously Apollo comes up there with our greatest acts. Check back on December 17. That's the day I celebrate as the peak, at least of America. About the time we started importing our fuel and eating into our capital... 17-December-1972 was the day we walked away from walking any further.

[jasonraymondson]

I am voting for Twinkees. Who can deny the complete awesomeness of this delicious yellow cake filled with white creamy stuff

[Nicholai]

They can also stay fresh after a nuclear holocaust or a plague!

[Zardoz]

The screw thread.



Without it, everything mentioned above could never have happened. Everything followed that most crucial of all developments. Being able to securely put things together with nuts, bolts, and screws made technology and industrialization possible.

Whether or not that will turn out to be a good thing, or the instrument of our destruction as a species, remains to be seen.

[Bas]

language, it was the first and most important step in ICT (though you can wonder if this was not an accomplishment of nature rather than man)

[TheDude]

Music. Porn. Both of great antiquity.



And of course the king of them all, the PO.com Expert stripe.

[oowolf]

Living in harmony with nature for 2,000,000 years (last 12,000 exempted).

[RonMN]

Bas Wrote:
language, it was the first and most important step

I'll vote for the written or printed word...it allowed us to learn things from persons who are long dead. It allows us to leave information for others long after we're dead.

IMHO THIS is the most important step (although you would need language first ofcourse).

<edit> sliced bread is a close 2nd

[PenultimateManStanding]

so it's a toss up, twinkees or language.

[PenultimateManStanding]

when pops is mean to me, it hurts, when you are mean I laugh.

[BigTex]

Air conditioning.

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '
')No, I can't, because my restricted, linear, pragmatic sheep's brain cannot make out a "screw head" in those images.

You can, though, huh? Ooooooh-kay.....