The other night at dinner my husband and I had an extended conversation about the most life changing inventions (or discoveries) of the past 100 years.  This is a partial list

1. Electricity

2. Automobiles

3. Airplanes

4. The Internet (Thanks Al!)

5. Antibiotics

6. Immunizations

7. Nitrogen fertilizer

8. Birth Control Pills (my suggestion of course)

9. Deodorant (still hasn’t caught on in Europe in some spots)

10. Refrigeration

11. Television

12. The A Bomb

What we thought was most striking about this list is that every one of them save one (nitrogen fertilizer which came from Germany) was invented in the United States. This prompted a discussion as to why in which we determined that  capitalist systems provide incentives for innovation (of course, so does war, which we are also good at).