this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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The zipper has more impact on the modern world than George Washington
There comes a point where who made the thing doesn't even matter. It's just that it was made. There's a reason so many inventions have multiple originators. They always come from what came before. No one person is uniquely amazing, there's just occasionally people with the correct drive, skill, and opportunity to connect the dots and come up with the thing.
Look up the number of inventors who died destitute trying to sell their invention that later went on to change the world. How many of them do we just not know about because Edison et al didn't find a way to exploit their work or know they existed?
I can accept both Washington and Lincoln being on the list due to their personalities being very influential in shaping the US. While the country would probably be the great satan with or without them, they have left clear marks on it, and it is the world empire right now.
Sort of like how Churchill is probably fine to keep in. Pivotal for the immediate post WWII events.
But like all of the British monarchs?? Louis 14 AND 16? Get outta here. Add in Gustav Vasa if you're gonna do this dumb shit anyway.
...which is why this list is deeply unserious. The Great Man of History isn't real because history is driven by systems, people within those systems, and through advancement in how humans perform labor.
So when Eli Whitney rediscovered interchangeable parts (they were discovered much, much earlier by Carthage, then lost), it allowed for rapid industrialization. And Whitney was only one of a handful of people making the same discovery, but the first to present it to people with the power to implement it. Putting Woodrow Wilson in the same category, however, is complete nonsense.
Vulcanization is another good one. Exploitation of a natural resource in South America. It was kinda useless, then vulcanization was "discovered" when they literally could have just spoken to the tribes they enslaved to harvest rubber for 3 seconds and seen that they had been vulcanizing for a thousand years...
/great man theory