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comment by scarp
scarp  ·  4455 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: AskHubski: What are the top ten most positively influential events in human history?
These are all fine lists and I think most of the good ones have been taken, so I'll just add a couple of my own modest suggestions.

The first one is perspective. And I mean this in two ways. Perspective in art, of course, because we discovered how to capture the world not just symbolically but how it actually is, in all its depth and variety. And perspective in philosophy: the sense of empathy and understanding that comes with the realization that each person experiences his own pain and pleasure, and that collectively we have positive and negative effects on each other's lives.

The second one, which may be tangentially related to the first, is optic technology: inventions like the microscope, the telescope and the camera -- devices which allow us to discover and experience our universe in new ways, and which lead directly or indirectly to developments in medicine, biology, astronomy, physics, space exploration and much more. Satellite photography and telescopic imaging in particular gives us a much grander sense of the size and scope of the universe and gave us images such as Pale Blue Dot, which of course directly inspired the admirable Dr. Carl Sagan to write the iconic book of the same name.





AnSionnachRua  ·  4455 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Good point! Theory of mind was one I was going to include and promptly forgot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

scarp  ·  4455 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Heh, I knew there was a better term for what I was describing.
caio  ·  4455 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Speaking of Theory of Mind and other human attributes. http://hubski.com/pub?id=2616