Celebrate Human Achievement Hour

[free spirit 0]

So in lieu of "Earth Hour", I am personally celebrating "Celebrate Human Achievement Hour". Since I am confident the people here will be receptive to that... I am inviting all of you to share your top 3-5 things you are celebrating this hour....

I am personally celebrating (so far):

1) Ayn Rand. For saving my Life, and for helping realize reasons to make it oh, so worth living!

2) Modern Medicine for elongating the Life I love so much.

3) The computer :-D

[free spirit 0]

P.S, I can not take credit for the concept of "Celebrate Human Achievement Hour". It is a Facebook group, and got it from that. :-)

[jasonlockwood 0]

My reply to Carrie elsewhere was:

Ayn Rand: for being the greatest thinker ever to explain and justify the greatness of man

Thomas Edison: for making modern industrial society light up, literally

the computer industry: for making all our lives immeasurably better and enabling us all to spread good ideas easily

[~Sophia~ 0]

What a great idea!

(I don't want to repeat the answers already given)

1) birth control pill for giving women control over their bodies and livelihood

2) the discovery of antibiotics (for ending 'dark age' of medicine, keeping us many diseases free, and for giving pharmaceutical industry its initial burst of capital which enabled this sector to become what it is today) and vaccinations

3) Johannes Gutenberg for printing press

4) transportation technologies which revolutionized human mobility

[B. Royce 0]

I am working on a new poem. That's it.

[B. Royce 0]

The Light Switched On!

I celebrate no light switched off,

I celebrate no ragged cough,

But sing, I do, the men of mind,

And I myself, who am not blind.

I sing the pride of happy wealth---

That light-foot walk of free men's health

When, with chains of tyrants cast away,

Promethean minds invent and play.

They lighten loads and brighten night,

They make the wings of length'ning flight,

They shake up songs to which we dance,

That light-foot walk may full enhance,

Then smooth our throats with meds upon

To celebrate the light switched on!

_____________________________________

Brian Faulkner

Than you, Carrie.

[free spirit 0]

... thanks B Royce.

That was great! And you're welcome

[Mindy Newton 0]

Hello all,

It is the proper hour, and I'm basking in the defiant lights of my home, my castle, and my own best judgment!

Mindy Newton

[Paul's Here 0]

1. Anesthesia - I can't imagine having my tonsils taken out when I was 13 without it.

2. The young man who "wanted to decide whether life was worth living" in Chapter 1 Part 4 of the Fountainhead. That was me at 16.

3. Ayn Rand, for creating a framework within which I can feel comfortable and at home.

4. Dr. Peikoff, for being such a wonderful teacher of her philosophy.

5. My 9th grade algebra teacher for activating my conceptual faculty through the use of math and algebra: x + 3 = 5; x=2 she wrote on the blackboard. I remember her writing that on the board as if it were yesterday. I felt something in my brain click, as if new world opened up. I fell in love with math, and my education began.

[Thales 0]

Love the poem, Brian!

I'm definitely going to celebrate Human Achievement Hour, aka Edison Hour. Power surge city!

[free spirit 0]

Thanks for sharing #5 Paul's Here.

Power surge!! Woot woot!!

I celebrated it by having a glass of red wine, with my computer on of course, having an amazing conversation with my dear friend/ Philos. tutor about the ideas I've been conceptualizing / realizing

Now, I can't stop grinning... Life is great!

[RayK 0]

Ayn Rand

John Adams

Thomas Jefferson

Charles Darwin

And the hundreds of Capitalist of the 19th and 20th century that selfishly went after their goals/values as their achievements have enhanced man's life.

[ewv 0]

P.S, I can not take credit for the concept of "Celebrate Human Achievement Hour". It is a Facebook group, and got it from that. :-)

Celebrate Human Achievement Hour -- The Movie

[free spirit 0]

Great video! Thank you ewv.

[Paul's Here 0]

1. Anesthesia - I can't imagine having my tonsils taken out when I was 13 without it.

2. The young man who "wanted to decide whether life was worth living" in Chapter 1 Part 4 of the Fountainhead. That was me at 16.

3. Ayn Rand, for creating a framework within which I can feel comfortable and at home.

4. Dr. Peikoff, for being such a wonderful teacher of her philosophy.

5. My 9th grade algebra teacher for activating my conceptual faculty through the use of math and algebra: x + 3 = 5; x=2 she wrote on the blackboard. I remember her writing that on the board as if it were yesterday. I felt something in my brain click, as if new world opened up. I fell in love with math, and my education began.

And how could I have forgot:

6. My 12th grade calculus teacher, Herb Grossman, for introducing me to Objectivism and serving as my first example of what it means to live like an Objectivist.

[Stussy88 0]

P.S, I can not take credit for the concept of "Celebrate Human Achievement Hour". It is a Facebook group, and got it from that. :-)

Celebrate Human Achievement Hour -- The Movie

Ditto for me, great video

Can I also add whoever invented and brought to market

1. Sat-Nav

2. Mobile phone technology, especially video to e-mail and vica versa

3. Digital photography

4. Air-con in cars

5. Literature

6. The law of contract and slightly whimsically,

7. Indoor heating that makes things like the short skirt possible!

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Here's how I celebrated Human Achievement Hour 2010 at my house

[RayK 0]

Betsy, you have a beautiful home and I am glad you decided to light it up!

[Bob Kolker 0]

My reply to Carrie elsewhere was:

Ayn Rand: for being the greatest thinker ever to explain and justify the greatness of man

Thomas Edison: for making modern industrial society light up, literally

the computer industry: for making all our lives immeasurably better and enabling us all to spread good ideas easily

Tom Edison gets credit for version 1.0 of an electrical lighting system. It was not a good system, but it was the first. Nikola Tesla gets the heavy credit for making it possible for moving electrical energy any significant distance. Edison cheated Tesla out of a promised bonus and when Tesla quite and got heavy backing from George Westinghouse to generate AC current Edison fought him, not always cleanly. Edison was determined to push DC current regardless of the fact it was not feasible to transmit electrical energy by DC long distances at low voltages. Tesla got his chance to show the brilliance of both his mind and his electric lights in 1906 at the World Exposition in Buffalo N.Y. His system provided both the power and the lighting. It was electricity transmitted more than twenty miles from the AC generators at Niagara Falls. Edison's DC system could not have done it.

Bottom line: The world runs on AC, the current that Edison fought tooth and nail to push out of the market place. Your computer runs, and your house is lighted by Nikola Tesla's brilliance.

Edison was an energetic businessman, but intellectually he was a blunt instrument compared to Nikola Tesla who was the theoretical and practical genius that truly lit up the world.

PS: It was Tesla and not Marconi that first invented wireless electromagnetic transmission of data. In 1942 the courts finally ruled that Tesla had the priority of invention over Marconi.

Bob Kolker

[Bob Kolker 0]

Here's how I celebrated Human Achievement Hour 2010 at my house

Way to go! I turned on every light in my humble abode. I also did the dishes and ran the electric clothes dryer starting at 20:30 local time (New Jersey). It probably cost me ten bucks extra at New Jersey Power and Light rates, but what the heck. I would have used my atmospheric electric generator, but it blew a fuse (just kidding).

Bob Kolker

[rtg24 0]

Well, I was working, but I would have celebrated those that made great achievements by modern day Reardens possible.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, for freeing their respective countries' economies and Paul Volcker for having the guts to carry out anti-Keynesian policy in the midst of furious attack for years, resulting in the 80s and 90s economic boom...

Arthur Rock for inventing private equity, Mike Milken for destroying US corporatocracy together with associated raiders (Carl Icahn, Sir James Goldsmith, etc.). There were touching moments - Sir James bought L'Express, a French newspaper, to make it an instrument in the fight against communist influence in France. But I remember these men for liberalizing capital markets, which has benefited us so massively.

Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, for providing, if flawed, at least some degree of intellectual support (of the popular, read kind) for free markets in the midst of a century that considered central control "the future". Whilst philosophically, as discussed many times on this board, these men held the wrong premises, it is a fact that their writings influenced many politicians from Thatcher to Pinochet into freeing their countries with substantial economic results. "Wealth of Nations" is always present in the suitcase of the Chinese Premier, so I don't think we've seen the end yet.

Deng Xiao Ping, for sparing China the fate of the USSR. It took formidable courage to do what he did. Yes, his speech ultimately are socialist (or arguing for a mixed economy). Better, to me, that, than the alternative, as witnessed in North Korea.

There are many more, but those men and woman ought to be celebrated for their courage and vision, and ability to understand the mechanics of freedom and prosperity. Hopefully, Ayn Rand will one day outdo all of them in terms of physical influence on the world. We're well on our way!

[B. Royce 0]

The Light Switched On!

I celebrate no light switched off,

I celebrate no ragged cough,

But sing, I do, the men of mind,

And I myself, who am not blind.

I sing the pride of happy wealth---

That light-foot walk of free men's health

When, with chains of tyrants cast away,

Promethean minds invent and play.

They lighten loads and brighten night,

They make the wings of length'ning flight,

They shake up songs to which we dance,

That light-foot walk may full enhance,

Then smooth our throats with meds upon

To celebrate the light switched on!

_____________________________________

Brian Faulkner

Than you, Carrie.

And on again!

[Salas 0]

The Light Switched On!

I celebrate no light switched off,

I celebrate no ragged cough,

But sing, I do, the men of mind,

And I myself, who am not blind.

I sing the pride of happy wealth---

That light-foot walk of free men's health

When, with chains of tyrants cast away,

Promethean minds invent and play.

They lighten loads and brighten night,

They make the wings of length'ning flight,

They shake up songs to which we dance,

That light-foot walk may full enhance,

Then smooth our throats with meds upon

To celebrate the light switched on!

_____________________________________

Brian Faulkner

Than you, Carrie.

I love it! I would like to post it in my Facebook page.

Thank you,

Manny