What are the most important inventions since flint tools and why?

I'll start with some of the more obvious and wide ranging ones to eliminate them from the discussion so we can get onto the more specific and contentious ones.
Not a complete list by any means but a start.
The wheel.
Writing.
Boats.
Gunpowder.
Agriculture and the domestication of animals.
Tribes, kingdoms, Empires, Democracy etc.
Religion.
Science.
Architecture.
Metallurgy.

 

In looking at my day to day life, I can think of the following:
Kindle - when in a remote location, I can 'buy' a book in seconds without leaving home. And I have built my own library which fits into the palm of my hand.
Keurig and Nespresso - no coffee pot washing, hot and fresh when I want it
Memory Foam Mattress - a game changer for sleeping (for me, at least)

 

It will be hard to choose the most important one, but I bet Electricity will be quite high on the list!

 

Not really the kind of world changing inventions I was thinking of but thanks for playing.
I'll accept the saucepan as a major invention though and also add bread to the list.

 

More of a development than an invention really but I'll accept the lightbulb. Possibly the greatest electrical invention of all time along with the electro-magnet.

 

Most important invention/development of mankind is probably verbal communication.
Followed by agriculture IMO.

 

Will you accept indoor plumbing and the flush toilet?

 

Certainly. Who gets the credit? Romans or earlier?

 

Sorry I started to participate - I didn't notice the category...I thought it was a fun thread in casual chat.

 

No reason it can't be fun. Apologies for coming across as so dismissive. Not my intention and I do welcome your participation.
My next offering is glass.
Thought to have marked the change of title of major scientific innovators from China to the West since they didn't develop it themselves.

 

Long distance communication from writing itself all the way through flags and banners, telegrams, telephones, radio and television to where we are today with the internet.
Each one a major world changing innovation.

 

I was kind of hoping that someone would challenge the importance of glass to scientific innovation but since no one did I'll go further back in ceramics and say that without pottery, civilisation itself may not have developed.

 

Mass availability of personal computers and worldwide internet connectivity to same. The effects for humanity ( good or ill) is still evolving.

 

the assembly line
penicillin
the internet
the refrigerator

 

The internet is already covered under long distance communication.
The other three are good calls. All world changing inventions.

 

Didn't Genghis Khan invent long distance communication with a pony express of sorts.
I doubt he had dial up - just saying, lol.

 

You could argue that the Sumerians invented long distance communication when they invented the written word. Even before that there would have been runners who memorised messages and passed them on.
Everything since is merely an improvement in the speed at which it is carried out.
Perhaps the moveable type printing press was the greatest innovation in communication, greater even that the internet in terms of changing the world.

 

Sanitation
Sterilisation

 

They invented the ability to pass messages through out the ages in that invention of writing or cave painting, whoever come up with it first. imo
But the thing Genghis Khan invented was taking that message from points a, b, and c over long distance.

 

I have trouble believing that there was no long distance communication involving stages before the 12th century.
The Romans certainly did it and no doubt the Greeks and Egyptians before them.
Like I said, goes back to the Sumerians at least.
Genghis Kahn just speeded it up.

 

Well the Arabians invented maths, if that hasn't been covered yet.
I'm going to say maths is an important invention.
That's not to say inventions and abilities that make use of maths aren't just as profound, I'm just saying maths.

 

Don't think that's true either. They are responsible for introducing the zero to Europe but they didn't invent it.

 

0 is pretty cool.

Well, I'm still saying maths, no matter who invented it.

Without maths, we'd have no aeroplanes or flight or stock markets or even an economy or psychics and equations that're paving the way for things for we're still working on now... We'd have no mass production or even a way to divvy up what's what and what is fair.

 

navigation
cartography
time keeping
. . . shoe laces

I'm going to say those things too.