One Hundred Achievements that make Humanity Awsome!

[Chocolate Kiwii]

We are a pretty damned impressive species, and I say it's about time we compiled a list to illustrate why. Please give a paragraph reason for what it is you appreciate about your choice. Also, number them. Don't be a listing hog, let other people have some neat Team Humanity achievements.

If you have a problem with someones recommendation for the Awesome-List, take it up in PM's, or another thread. This one is specifically dedicated to the positive aspects of our inventions and ingenuity.

Social achievements also count.

1. The Internet. It allows billions of people from wildly divergent backgrounds and societies to interact meaningfully and share amongst ourselves. It is the ultimate suppository of knowledge, and using it as a tool netters conceivably has access to every deposit of thought, and discoveries about the world around us that Man has ever documented. If true democracies ever become widely applicable: it will be because of the internet. If global peace is ever achieved it will be because we have this avenue of dialogue that everyone can participate in. On top of all of this, the internet serves to free people from the horror of social isolation when their backgrounds are otherwise disagreeable with their families, peers, and neighbors introducing them to people who can ease the suffering of loneliness without compromising the self to peer-pressure.

[CaptainChewbacca]

2. Powered flight.

We are the only species on earth that can fly through the air DESPITE the path evolution sent our bodies on. As an act of will we can cross continents and oceans, and literally circle the world without stopping. Flight means that heads of state can communicate face to face with less than a day of travel time, and that goods and people can move quickly and safely to their destination.

[Drooling Iguana]

3. Domesticated animals. We've bent the process of evolution to our will and bred entire subspecies which exist only to serve us. If that's not the mark of an awesome species I don't know what is.

[Count Chocula]

4. Spoken language. Unique among other species, we developed a way to communicate our knowledge to other humans and impart knowledge to future generations, through the oral tradition, to keep that knowledge alive and not lose our advances.

[wolveraptor]

4. Spoken language. Unique among other species, we developed a way to communicate our knowledge to other humans and impart knowledge to future generations, through the oral tradition, to keep that knowledge alive and not lose our advances.

And building on this:
5. Written language. Our ability to pass down knowledge is no longer solely dependent on our ability to remember things. Hugely important for progress and learning.

[Broomstick]

6. Altruism. It's not inherent in living things - there are plenty of species where individuals are ruthless towards each other as well as other species. Human beings have evolved amazing social systems where those with food feed those who have none; those who are strong protect those who are weak; people contribute to the larger social good, even to the extent of funding multi-generational projects; orphans are adopted by people they aren't related to yet raised as full members of the family; and some of us are so selfless as to contribute actual organs to those that are dying so that they may live. We even extend food, shelter, and care to those not of our species, our domestic animals and pets and even wild creatures that we rehab and return to the wild. And yet we take this so much for granted we do not see how extraordinary and unusual this human quality is, that we have this capacity at all.

[Modax]

In terms of the achievements of modern technology:

7. Interstellar probes such as Voyager and New Horizons. No matter what happens, they guarantee that some product of intelligent life on earth will long outlive the solar system they came from. Those things should last billions, if not trillions of years out there in the vacuum.

[Guardsman Bass]

8. Space Flight. We are the only race existing on Earth that even has the possibility of surviving a future catastrophe rendering Earth utterly life-less (not if one occurred right now, but at least the future possibility - and other life might survive it, but not without human assistance). Not to mention the whole "leaving the entire world, if only temporarily, by means other than asteroid impact". It's a highly impressive feat of engineering, that is only possible because of the massive technological and industrial edifice that mankind has created for itself, unique among all other species on Earth.

[Solauren]

9 Large Scale Terrain Modeling

I'm sorry, we don't like the way this area of land is; Time to change it!

Sure, some other animals can do it, but we do it scales unheard of outside our species.

[Singular Intellect]

10. Creation and implementation of the Scientific Method. It's the one tool that unlocked our ability to realize our potential for discovering and unlocking all others.

[Norade]

11. Art - We are the only race to make things purely because they are beautiful.

[JediToren]

The successful eradication of smallpox from the natural world. No one has had smallpox, let alone died from it, in over three decades because of the efforts of science. It exists only in laboratories as a scientific curiosity. It's quite an astounding achievement on par with the moon landing. That disease killed and maimed millions for thousands of years if not much longer. Even in its death throes it was claiming over 2 million lives a year. Donald Henderson said there was a lot of skepticism when they set out to finish the disease off. Thankfully they were not deterred and no has had to suffer from that disease in any way in 30+ years.

That success has nearly been repeated with polio.

[Chocolate Kiwii]

Genomic Mapping. The human genome project will conceivably allow us to weed out genetic ailments from the serious to the just annoying. Making sure that countless of our species will not suffer from allele weakness that have plagued our species from inception. Taysachs, Hereditary diabetes, Cystic Fibrosis, Down Syndrome, Alzheimers. Maybe even some day it will lead to curing death as we come up with working strategies to deal with damaging free radicals freed from our cellular-energy process, and maintaining healthy Telomeres!

(By the way, I didn't mean "Only get to post one thing" I just meant don't do 10 and 20 things on a single post. Sorry if I was unclear.)

[Civil War Man]

I'd expand the part on domesticated animals a bit.

Agriculture. By specifically gathering and cultivating animals and plants, humanity developed a more reliable and efficient way to obtain food. The invention of agriculture opened up the doorway to the creation of city-states. While this all carries its own share of problems, modern science and a global society would probably not exist if we still had to hunt and forage in order to feed our families.

[Zixinus]

The successful eradication of smallpox from the natural world. No one has had smallpox, let alone died from it, in over three decades because of the efforts of science. It exists only in laboratories as a scientific curiosity. It's quite an astounding achievement on par with the moon landing. That disease killed and maimed millions for thousands of years if not much longer. Even in its death throes it was claiming over 2 million lives a year. Donald Henderson said there was a lot of skepticism when they set out to finish the disease off. Thankfully they were not deterred and no has had to suffer from that disease in any way in 30+ years.

That success has nearly been repeated with polio.

I would chalk it up with vaccines in general. No other species has made an effort and advancement to save those infected and crippled of our own.

[Wyrm]

15. The heat engine. External or internal combustion, harnessing the power of heat has freed us from backbreaking labor, and the fact that we can get this power by burning shit means this activity can be done anywhere motive power is needed or desired. It's also not limited to the number of animals you can stuff into one spot. (Can you imagine stuffing 100 horses into a few cubic feet? — Well, you can, but they won't be in running condition... ew...)

The disadvantage, of course, is the CO2. Pesky global warming.

[Dargos]

I got all you beat with the one Achievement that allowed a majority of all other achievements be acomplished.

The Use of Fire!

[loomer]

17:
The atomic bombs. We have succesfully harnessed the power of the atom, all for the sake of war! You have to admit, that makes us awesome in the original sense - we provoke awe. That awe can be quite terrified.

[The Spartan]

17:
The atomic bombs. We have succesfully harnessed the power of the atom, all for the sake of war! You have to admit, that makes us awesome in the original sense - we provoke awe. That awe can be quite terrified.

Building on that in a non-violent way: Atomic Power. Yes, it can be dangerous, but with appropriate safeties and reprocessing, etc. it can be a relatively environmentally friendly way to produce power on an industrial scale.

[wautd]

18. The Pointy Stick(TM): the hunted became the hunter.

[Guardsman Bass]

I got all you beat with the one Achievement that allowed a majority of all other achievements be acomplished.

The Use of Fire!

Oh, definitely. Even before agriculture became wide-spread there is evidence that hunter-gatherers and the like were using fire as a means of changing the ecosystems in various areas (like parts of North America) to their liking.

[Zixinus]

17:
The atomic bombs. We have succesfully harnessed the power of the atom, all for the sake of war! You have to admit, that makes us awesome in the original sense - we provoke awe. That awe can be quite terrified.

Building on that in a non-violent way: Atomic Power. Yes, it can be dangerous, but with appropriate safeties and reprocessing, etc. it can be a relatively environmentally friendly way to produce power on an industrial scale.

I would lump the two together in: 1x : The utilization and control of the fission chain-reaction process. That way, the two achievements are united.

I would also put in fusion. We're not near anything truly utilizable yet, but we're getting there.

I mean, the fusor machines can be made at home, in someone's basement. We understand fusion that well. Tell me that isn't awesome.

[Isolder74]

19:

Simple Machines namely the lever, incline plane, Wheel and axle and the pulley. Allows man to move and transport things much larger then simple body strength would normally allow.

[Serafine666]

20:
Heart-lung machine. Seriously, a machine that can take over for both your heart and lungs during heart surgery. How is that not cool?

[Oskuro]

21: Sex for Pleasure - Including the development of contraceptives, sexual freedom, and all the kinky stuff we've come up with in between. Imagine how utterly horrible life would be if we were to have sex exclusively to have children? That'd mean once or twice in a lifetime to keep sustainable population growth! (by modern standards) And before it's brought up, anal sex counts as one of the kinky things in between.
To quote Mike "The miniskirt is truly one of the greatest inventions of mankind. It is up there, along with lube and air conditioning"

22: Air Conditioning <- Just Kidding