There is no doubt about it, the 20th century is unparalleled by any that came before it in terms of its rate of technological advances and scientific discoveries – a rate that continues to speed through these early years of century 21 at an unprecedented pace.  There were so many new developments and discoveries during this time, it was hard to narrow things down to just ten, but that’s what we did.  The list below has effected humanity both positively and negatively. Regardless, they have held a tremendous influence over how our world has unfolded over the last 100 years.  RELATIVITY OnLine’s list of greatest inventions and discoveries of the twentieth century follows, but allow us to ask – did we forget anything?

• 1. The Internet – The typewriter became obsolete after the personal computer was introduced to the general public and this slowly made writing in long-hand a thing of the past, but it took the internet to make the computer what it is today. While the airplane shrank our planet to the point that one could fly from Paris to New York in a few hours, the internet made it possible to be there in seconds.
• 2. Radio – suddenly it was possible for a person to be heard from thousands of miles away without the use of a wire (a real accomplishment in the early 1900s) but more importantly it was the center of family life until the onset of television in the 1950s.
• 3. Antibiotics – Until 1928 when Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin  nearly any little bug someone picked up was potentially fatal.
• 4. Television – Where would we be without the boob tube?
• 5. The Airplane – The world was first made a smaller place by the locomotive in the 19th century, and the airplane did the same the 20th. Suddenly, any place in the world was there for the choosing. 
• 6. The Automobile – The automobile became the most practical and reliable source of transportation ever invented and people the world over still cannot imagine life without them.
  
• 7. The Personal Computer – It’s hard to imagine a world without computers these days. They may have been around since World War Two, but these clunky underachieving hunks of scrap cannot be compared to today’s models, in which a person’s entire life can be stored and organized.
  
• 8. Rocketry – The Chinese are credited with inventing rockets over three thousand years ago, but it was in the 20th century when they transformed from exciting amusement to an effective weapon of war and terror.
  
• 9. The Submarine – Although predating the 20th century, submarines as we know them today came into being during the 20th century.  With development of nuclear power, a submarine’s range and endurance become nearly unlimited effectively rendering all previous forms of  naval warfare obsolete.
• 10. Nuclear Energy – With nuclear energy, humanity suddenly had a power source that was efficient, virtually unlimited, and didn’t pollute.
  

While not strictly a generation, those citizens currently over the age of forty constitute a group of people that have caused possibly insurmountable problems, massive debts, and extreme hardship, both now and in the years to come, for those younger than them – this is the Failed Generation.

Baby Boomers and the older half of Generation X like to claim to be the greatest generation the world’s ever seen, and consistently congratulate themselves on what they imagine to be a job well done, having indelibly effected the world for the better; however, this could not be further from the truth.

This Failed Generation has been behind almost all of the disasters and problems that existed in the late 20th century and in the first decade of the 21st century – the blame can be passed to no-one else.  Governments have become stagnant at best, the world was brought to the brink of economic collapse, the civil rights of countless groups have been subjugated, massive accumulated debts both personal and national will take many decades to repay, human-accelerated planetary ecological danger has been ignored for countless years, monetary greed surmounts any and all other nodes of life, public education has been all but ruined, intellectualism is highly distrusted and unwanted, liberating technological innovations are hampered with procedure and censure, and considerably more.  Welcome to the greatest generation the world’s ever seen.

It is these individuals that are solely responsible for the current state of the world, and there are a few prevailing themes:  greed, stupidity, and traditionalism.  For the latter half of Generation X and Millennials, the future looks exceedingly bleak, since many of these issues will likely have a disturbing large effect on how much can be accomplished during their reign of power.  Instead of innovation, exploration, and the betterment of society, the majority of effort now has to be spent on fixing the problems created over the last fifty years, which is, in and of itself, an entirely unprecedented event.  Yet this work cannot begin until those in power are replaced and the electoral population is modern enough to address these issues – gay marriage, a perfect example in generational differences, is only likely to become a non-issue once the older generations either die out or are stripped of all their influence.

Those who grew up on Star Trek/Star Wars, computers, and dreaming of the stars must now downgrade their dreams to far more earthly and mundane goals, implementing a method of self-control that was simply not part of the Baby Boomer or early Generation-X’s vocabulary.  College graduates that had entered school with hopes, dreams, and a shining future are now scrounging for jobs, and have had their careers substantially set back by both years and income.  It is these young citizens who will, literally and metaphorically, save the world, and still they are cheated, ignored, and generally used by the selfsame individuals who need saving.

Keep your chin held high, Failed Generation – it’s the only pride you’ll ever have, since history will not smile kindly upon you.

From Kyle Brady…

Kyle can be found on his blog, via email, or on Twitter.