(December 11, 2015 at 2:44 pm)Stimbo Wrote: "Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. He didn’t even invent the assembly line. But more than any other single individual, he was responsible for transforming the automobile from an invention of unknown utility into an innovation that profoundly shaped the 20th century and continues to affect our lives today."

https://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/hf/

Henry Ford was just as much an inventor as the primary school Stimbo with Lego bricks.

yes I live very close to the henry Ford museum and have been many times.  Most say he invented the MOVING assembly line, but one can reasonable state he innovated the assembly process.  

He was like the company BASF slogan.  "We don't make the things you use.  We make the things you use better."

Then we agree that the epithet "inventor" is inaccurate at best? The most honest description would be "developer".

Fuck Henry Ford.  What are we "great" at now?

Having sexy American accents.

(December 11, 2015 at 3:05 pm)Kingpin Wrote: yes I live very close to the henry Ford museum and have been many times.  Most say he invented the MOVING assembly line, but one can reasonable state he innovated the assembly process.  

He was like the company BASF slogan.  "We don't make the things you use.  We make the things you use better."

What they probably don't mention is that he was a rabid anti semite, even writing the pamphlet, the international jew. They probably don't say that there was mutual sympathy between Hitler and Ford, and that a Ford half truck (produced in Germany) was one of the standard vehicles of the Wehrmacht.

They probably do mention that he provided good working conditions, which is true, but they probably leave out that he employed professionals to spy on his worker's private lives and if they didn't rise up to what he considered his moral code, they got fired.

Especially with industrial tycoons, there's always a lot of shadow beneath the light.

(December 11, 2015 at 2:34 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Ford didn't invent squat.

I thought he was credited with speeding up industrial production, not invention.

Edison doesn't deserve to be remembered as an inventor either - he did not invent most of the things which he's credited for, he produced them to the market after stealing the hard work of other hard-working inventors.

(December 11, 2015 at 3:51 pm)Evie Wrote: Having sexy American accents.

Isn't that limited to Sam Elliott?

Yes, America is the greatest country. The proper movie clip to watch is the John Goodman "Fuck you" speech from The Gambler.

It's right up there. America has amazing national parks and amazing geographical and geological diversity. We are stable and have good neighbors, aren't as crowded as Europe. You don't have to go through super cold winters like Canada. Even poor people own cars and X-boxes in America. We have the best weed. America is pretty good.

(December 11, 2015 at 12:47 pm)abaris Wrote:

(December 11, 2015 at 12:43 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: No, we've had a lot more than that, it's just that people tend to focus on things like weapons, not national parks or research facilities or roller coasters.

Bad advertisment on your part. And I'm not only speaking of what makes the news and what doesn't. It's also when asked who's the greatest American of all time in some poll, people tend to come up with generals, sometimes presidents and hardly ever with artists, writers or philosophers.

Not sure why you think I'm advertising anything -- just pointing out the things I like about my country.

As for what other Americans think the great Americans are, that's their opinion. It says more about their (lack of) education or breadth of thought than it does about the country itself. America has produced great writers and artists, but not so much philosophers -- that's a discipline many Americans, myself included, consider abstruse to the point of being disconnected from the real world. "Ivory tower" is a pejorative here, and rightly so, in my opinion.