Which is more revolutionary?

Me and my brother argued this. I believe that computers are more revolutionary than the automobile. Computers have made so many things possible. You can use them for anything from editing pictures to using them to tracking objects in space. Cars are just merely a way to get from point A to point B faster. What do you think?

Cars for sure but without computers engines wouldent be like they are now.

I say computers because I agree completely with Tolkien.

the_Danarchist said:

I say computers because I agree completely with Tolkien.

and his standpoint was...?

Cars in the short-term and computers in the long run.

Goat said:

and his standpoint was...?

If I could find the damn quote I could prove it...

but he hated cars.

The mute button.

Well, I had to vote for cars. Sure, computers have made so much more possible, but cars have so much more fundamentally changed our way of life. Transportation took a quantum leap with the car. Journeys that took months now take days. The entire suburban lifestyle was created by the car. Suddenly, people were no longer forced to live where they work. Thus, people could move out of the cities and suburbs were born. Look at life pre-car revolution and post-car revolution, and life pre-computer revolution and post-computer revolution. Pre-car is vastly more different from post-car than pre-computer is from post-computer, if that statement makes any sense at all.

Soy milk.

geekmarine said:

Journeys that took months now take days. The entire suburban lifestyle was created by the car. Suddenly, people were no longer forced to live where they work. Thus, people could move out of the cities and suburbs were born.

There were trains long before there were cars, and they had many of those effects. If cars hadn't taken such a hold, it is fair to assume that there would have been more railway lines built (and fewer later closed), and it would have been more normal for cities to have excellent public transport systems.

Still, I vote for the Use key.

What Grazza said.

I think the internet is perhaps more revolutionary than just computers alone however. Now we have a world of information at our fingertips. You could argue that encyclopaedias on CD also did that, but the internet has much more information in the system than any encyclopaedia could ever have. You don't even have to leave the house anymore to do everything you need to do to live (like shopping for food etc).

My vote goes for free porn...

BBG said:

I believe that computers are more revolutionary than the automobile. Computers have made so many things possible. You can use them for anything from editing pictures to using them to tracking objects in space. Cars are just merely a way to get from point A to point B faster.

Ah, but how would all the computer manufacturers, researchers and technicians have gotten to work without cars? HMMMM?

Cars had a more immediate impact, but computers will have a more long-term influence.

Lüt said:

Ah, but how would all the computer manufacturers, researchers and technicians have gotten to work without cars? HMMMM?

Ah, but just how are said cars that allow the manufacturers to get to work made to be so kick-ass looking and kick-ass in performance? HMMMMMMMMMM?????

One thing you learn in economics; essentially, everything is interdependent, thus making one thing just a revolutionary as something that makes it :D

EDIT: Fuck, no smilies...

Python_Junkie said:

Ah, but just how are said cars that allow the manufacturers to get to work made to be so kick-ass looking and kick-ass in performance? HMMMMMMMMMM?????

I was thinking back to the very first days of computers' existence, though the interdependancy aspect is definately true in recent decades.

Lüt said:

I was thinking back to the very first days of computers' existence

Well, yeah, THAT'S a given...sorry :/

The car is an evolution of the train, so I think "trains" would go better in this poll than "cars".

Or maybe we can boil this down to "transistors" versus "internal-combustion engines".

I don't see cars as quite along the same lines as trains. Granted both are transportation, and single human transportation is the next step from mass. But cars, and the assembly line, gave EVERY person the ability to go where THEY wanted. No schedules, no tickets, no predetermined destination by tracks. It instantly turned the nation into a coheisve whole, people could go where they wanted at any time without restriction. Everything Geekmarine said basically.

Also.. we should separate the internet and compters as 2 different developments, like cars and the assembly line. Computers allowed for automation and advanced machinery never thought imaginable, and also for advanced calculations otherwise impossible by humans. The internet gave EVERY man, woman and child with access to it... the ability to say whatever they wanted, with the protection of free speech... AND most inportantly the ability to reach MILLIONS of people instantly. No longer did you need media coverage, printed paper or name recognition. For the first time ever, Instant mass communication for every individual was possible.

I vote computers because iirc they've advanced a lot in a shorter amount of time.

Computers, of course. Cars suck. carfree.com

Lüt said:

Ah, but how would all the computer manufacturers, researchers and technicians have gotten to work without cars? HMMMM?

Computers and computer science were around before cars, though not electronically :P

Fredrik said:

Computers, of course. Cars suck.

I agree. Without cars, somebody would have thougth of another way of quick, easy transportation for a handfull of people. Maybe that something would have been better than a car. Maybe wed have flying cars by now. Or maybe that electric one man vehicle thing would be the norm.

But without computers.... youd have no Internet (aruably the most important invention ever), no digital technology (everything from cell phones to the entertainment business), no space exploration, no nanotech, no genome research, no particle physics. Oh and most importantily for you, no Doom (yes, it might be a schock, but Doom is only a COMPUTER game, its not real)

Cars

pro: transport of goods/people over long distances in shorter time
con: makes the world smell like teen spirit

computers

pro: communication
con: porn

BlueSonnet said:

I vote computers because iirc they've advanced a lot in a shorter amount of time.

I imagine most people have seen this (no img-timelines, please), but it's still funny.

Grazza said:

I imagine most people have seen this (no img-timelines, please), but it's still funny.

LOL, I've never seen that..

sounds like my truck.. =(

uhm... Cars can only do so much while the computer has endless options.

Tobester said:

Computers
con: porn

Since when was pr0n a con?

Heh, for the most part, computers have only replaced things that people had already been doing before computers. Cars, on the other hand, gave people a freedoom they had never had before.

DooMBoy said:

Since when was pr0n a con?

the way I see it, when your driving a car, it teaches you how to aim better with your grill.

porn teaches you to type one handed.

geekmarine said:

Heh, for the most part, computers have only replaced things that people had already been doing before computers. Cars, on the other hand, gave people a freedoom they had never had before.

That statement doesn't make any sense at all.