What do you believe was mankind's greatest achievement?

Question

To be honest, I believe it was when we harnessed the power of the sun in the atomic bomb.

Answer 1

I believe that man's greatest achievement is government.

1. Government allows for social order.
Without government to impose and enforce laws, anarchy is the result. Since, as it has been argued, some morals are relative to individuals, there is no moral basis by which laws can be imposed. Take the following example: One man is a homosexual, another is not. The heterosexual man walks up to the homosexual man and kills him in cold blood because the heterosexual man believes that homosexuals need to die, and he holds homosexuality to be morally offensive. Furthermore, there will be no 'justice' for the homosexual man because there is no government or police force that could enact or enforce a law against murder. The only 'justice' would be for a family member of the murdered man to kill the murderer, thus resulting in a family war. Government prevents these sorts of things through established laws.

2. Government protects its citizens from foreign threats.
Say there is an area that is under basic communal government. On the boarder of this area is a group of nations that have national governmental systems. If one of the national governments were to attack one of the communes, the commune would undoubtedly fall to the superior national government. Furthermore, the rest of the communes could fall one by one to an imperialistic foreign national government because they lack any sort of unity outside of their commune. National governments prevent these sorts of things to the best of their ability.

3. Governments promote progress
There are many inventions that have come about in the past that have made a great impact, and have been independent of government. But think of such achievements as the atom and hydrogen bombs, which you sited as the greatest achievement. Outside of government and its vast resources, the atom and hydrogen bombs could have never been accomplished because of the extreme amount of resources that they needed to be realised.

I hope that I have reasonably supported my answer.
Thanks

Answer 2

Although i dont believe we could have atomic power without

mass society,i can see this as a great achievement(and this is

despite my reservations that it has come-too-soon).

Also, my teachers taught that that above could not have

happened unless, 1. Books,(together with writing and
numerics) were invented, and 2. Criticism(of theories and
possibilities) was nurtured,used; to quickly take advantage
of the physical world prevailing(hence books ect). Despite the dangers.

( Only i have connected 1 and 2 with atomic power;for it seems
to me that without 1 and 2 the atom would have taken ages
more, to be discovered or invented).

Answer 3

i don't think of 'large' equals solid. i think of construction bridges, roads etc have been an success yet, in many cases, the destruction of the ambience which has entailed has been actually a bad, nay an evil, element. i think of language has been guy's properly suited success. Books, the printing press, desktops and the internet are technologies all deriving from this and build upon it. it fairly is the beginning place stone of society; it facilitates regulation, order and justice to alter into actual innovations and for the minds of many to alter into one in communique. it fairly is because of the fact of language all of our accomplishments have become conceivable.

Answer 4

Sir Frederick Grant Banting invented Insulin for Diabetics,that was a huge achievement.

Answer 5

Controlling the flow of Electrons from Positive to Negative potential, (ELECTRICITY).

Imagine Mankind without Electricity...
"i think we would still have been beating stones to make tools out of them"

Answer 6

The Neolithic Revolution. That tangental leap in brainpower and creativity was what seperated us from the chimpanzees. Everything else in comparrison to that is minimal.

Answer 7

In my view, humankind's greatest achievements are anything related to the advancement of modern medicine.

Answer 8

Internet, when we harnessed our intellect to create one huge collective mind.

Answer 9

Nope it would definitely be the light bulb. And second the damn phone.LOL

Answer 10

that we have managed to survive this long. that we haven't destroyed more of nature