Almost all the global society-altering creations i can think of FROM THE PAST 100 YEARS are from America. I highly doubt that’s true, so I’m looking for counter-examples.

To clarify, I’m looking for items on the level of:

  • the internet
  • rock music
  • nuclear weapons
  • ai
  • airplane flight (older than 100 years)

And clearly I’m not just including things that improved the world.

The best ones i can think of are (I think):

  • Rocketry (Germany)?
  • Cheap tech manufacturing (Asian countries)?

EDIT:

Actually rocketry has been around much longer than 100 years. Even the category of “modern rocketry” begins in the late 1800s. Source: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/TRC/Rockets/history_of_rockets.html

EDIT 2:

A further explanation of what level I’m talking about.

There has to be a clear before and after, and it has to directly and quickly effect most of the world. For example the Internet. There’s life before the internet, and there’s life after the internet, which are both very different.

As opposed to for example if someone makes a groundbreaking foundational research discovery that effects the entire realm of their field of study, but doesn’t quickly and directly create a difference in most people’s lives, then it doesn’t fit the category.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    14·
    3 days ago

    Sputnik, Vostok, the artificial heart, the math behind modern multi-stage rocketry, and space rovers were all invented by the Soviets.

    • Glowstick@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      25·
      3 days ago

      First satellite! Yes! Great one!

      As for the rest, they don’t meet the criteria. I don’t know what vostok is and a web search doesn’t show anything. And the others aren’t on the same level of world-changing, even though they’re extremely important and impressive

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        8·
        3 days ago

        Vostok 1 was the capsule that contained Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. All of these were critical advancements in space flight and science. What is the criterion for “world changing” that doesn’t include the numerous critical advancements in space?

        • Glowstick@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          16·
          3 days ago

          Again, first satellite! Great example! And an absolute first achievement in rocketry!

          First man in space is close, but it’s not as world changing, more of a synthetic goal post that was reached. There’s no actual border between space vs not space, it’s just a synthetic line we drew arbitrarily at exactly 100 km.

          But a satellite is an altogether different thing. That’s the first thing humans ever pushed up that didn’t immediately fall back to earth after it stopped being pushed upward. A true and massive achievement, and that achievement created brand new world-changing technologies in communications, created breakthroughs in almost all branches of sciences, changed how we humans live through gps, and all the zillion other world-changing advanced that flowed as a direct immediate consequence

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            5·
            3 days ago

            Surviving in space and successfully returning from orbit is absolutely an incredible achievement that spurred on the space race.

            • Glowstick@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              22·
              3 days ago

              I agree, but it’s not a world-changing breakthrough. There had previously been humans extremely high up, but they just didn’t cross above the synthetic threshold we randomly drew

              EDIT

              Nope, i was totally wrong. I did some reading and it’s clear that Yuri’s flight was absolutely world-changing

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                4·
                3 days ago

                That’s why I am asking what counts as “world-changing,” as most people would consider the first man in space to be world-changing.

                • Luke@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  3·
                  3 days ago

                  Especially considering that Yuri Gagarin’s flight inspired generations of people all over the world after him to a probably immeasurable extent. If the OP wanted “global society-altering”, then that certainly qualifies.

                • Glowstick@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
                  31·
                  3 days ago

                  I did some reading and learned a bunch of stuff, and now i see that you’re right and I’m wrong. Yuri’s first spaceflight does in fact totally qualify, completely. I was under the misunderstanding thinking that he was the first to cross the synthetic goal line into space but i assumed that previous attempts were close-ish but not quite to the same altitude. Nope. I just learned that he DEMOLISHED the previous altitude record by an order of magnitude, 32 km vs 320 km, and that all previous flights were using atmosphere conditions to power their flight. You’re totally right, Vostok1 was a totally world-changing achievement

              • Glowstick@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
                11·
                3 days ago

                And i just realized i have to remove my item from my own list, because the wright brothers flight was more than 100 years ago

    • Glowstick@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      31·
      2 days ago

      I don’t understand how a few of you are so completely misunderstanding this post. I’m literally asking for specific examples that are counter to my current understanding which i assumed was wrong, specifically so that i could learn a LESS biased us-centric view.

      But frankly, overall y’all didn’t do a great job, and I’m somewhat disappointed. There were a small number of HUGE ones people listed which were fantastic examples, but a lot of people listed a TON of incorrect items that when i looked it up turned out not to be from the country they claimed, or obviously weren’t on the same world-changing level as the topic was about, or were over 100 years old.

      I’m literally asking for information to learn to be LESS us-centric

  • yenahmik@lemmy.world
    6·
    3 days ago

    Somewhat small, but I’d say one of the most useful inventions that is used by literally everyone…the ballpoint pen was invented in Argentina.

  • Luke@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    Since many other comments have focused heavily on technological inventions, I think it makes sense to add some notable cultural impacts on society as well. As with most of the technological inventions mentioned, cultural forces also don’t come out of nowhere and arguably have been around for a lot longer than 100 years, but I think it’s pretty obvious that society within the past 100 years has been and still is being massively affected by the following concepts that did not originate in the USA:

    • feminism
    • civil rights movement (usually seen through a US-focused lens, but is happening everywhere)
    • gay rights movement (esp. in the 1990’s and beyond)
    • gender-spectrum concepts
    • widespread influence of evolutionary theory (even the word “meme” came from a British biologist’s book about evolution)
    • Glowstick@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      24·
      3 days ago

      All extremely important, but are all way older than 100 years, or have no single country that created it

  • ji88aja88a@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    origins of wifi started in australia… the centre differential , black box recorders, cochlear implants, the pacemaker, rotary clotheslines, spray on skin

  • folaht@lemmy.ml
    31·
    3 days ago

    Capilliary democracy,
    or whatever it’s called that Deng Xioaping has introduced.

    I’m talking about layered elections + civic exams.

    Liberal democracy has campaign fraud in it practically by design,
    thus the will of the people becomes the will of the oligarchs right after every election,
    and not even the will of domestic oligarchs for most countries.

    Marx’ idea of democracy hardly got off the ground.
    Lenin’s idea of democracy had the unintended consequence of turning the General Secretary of the communist party as its most powerful position soon after he died.

  • hoagecko (he/his)@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    3 days ago

    Invented in Japan in 1999, i-mode is a remarkable technology for connecting mobile devices to a wide range of web services.

    It’s well-known in Japan that this invention, not the iPhone, was the first to enable games, email, emojis, and selfies on mobile devices.

    I believe that the Japanese girls of the early 2000s who created this culture are the greatest hackers who shaped the smartphone era.

    Super Galapagos - Matt Alt’s Pure Invention https://blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/super-galapagos

    • Glowstick@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      26·
      3 days ago

      That’s not nearly on the same level. The first commercially successful cell phone was the dynatac 8000, a phone made by an American and in the American market