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Gunpowder is an interesting one. Another perspective is that gunpowder empowers individuals or minorities. It can be an equalizer or amplifier of force usually unattainable. For example, a small and fragile person can have a chance to defend themself with a firearm, where as prior to firearms they would have to rely on others.
Without dynamite or similar explosives the mines that provided the minerals necessary for you to digitally write that comment probably would never have existed.
Dynamite 🧨 was necessary for building the Panama Canal and Hoover Dam
Oh, if you put that way, dynamite is probably the most dangerous discovery.
Nah, fire was! Or language...
That's true but I thought we were talking about how harmful inventions were, not what their net weighted impact after comparing positives and negatives were
Thing is, if positives aren't included at all, the discovery of fire and invention of language are probably it: the most global harm ever came from them.
That's a good point to go further back but I'd argue that the difference if that the harm from gunpowder is more direct and more tangible
It's probably hard to beat the invention of gunpowder in terms of harmfulness.
I think nuclear and biological weapons beat gunpowder.
Not that many people have died from those yet. Horrible things, true that. But in the grand scheme of things ... maybe not that big.
Alfred Nobel
Dynamite: invented for mining used in war.
Maybe go further back and say gunpowder? It's probably hard to beat the invention of gunpowder in terms of harmfulness.