One of the most important ones that a lot of people use every day are the huge advancements that have been made in creating modern chips. It might not be something new and exciting, but it actually involves very groundbreaking work and huge breakthroughs. Not just the crazy machines that ASML makes, thought to be breaking the laws of physics just years ago. But also advancements in manufacturing, being able to create super advanced 3D structures and large scale manufacturing at a very high level, yet with a surprising consistency in quality and low cost. Not just for ever bigger, more efficient and faster chips, but also things like MEMS at tiny sizes and low cost.

Often it's taken for granted what we have. People saying stuff to the sentiment that this isn't the future, everything is boring, we haven't got flying cars or people living on Mars. But the fact we all got this ultra powerful computer, with a high resolution high framerate self emitting screen, no active cooling, a bunch of sensors, lots of memory and storage and hyper connected to all sorts of networks, all powered by a high capacity high power low wear battery should be mind blowing. And not just that, but it fits in our pockets and they are so cheap everyone has at least one. Just because we've chosen to spec our tech tree into the small stuff instead of the large stuff, doesn't mean we haven't come a long way.

I think people look at the past at new "inventions" and think that's the way progress is. New revolutionary stuff. It's why people often invest in crowd funding of obvious scam products. They want something that changes the game. In reality it's a lot of little steps that create a big change over time. And imho this has always been the case. We always hear about the Wright brothers "inventing" the airplane. Like they had some magic sauce and thought of something nobody else thought of before. Then made it and bam the world was changed. In reality they didn't invent anything, they developed it. They made prototypes and iterative refinements. And they were far from the only ones working on the exact same concept. If they didn't finish first, someone else would have within the same time frame. But the romantic story of two American blokes with the right stuff changing the world all on their own just sounds good.

So let's also celebrate the thousands of smaller breakthroughs that got us where we are today.

Though overused; medication that effectively combats eating disorders.

I'd argue underused / inappropriately prescribed by social class. There are millions who could benefit from them who have poor access, while if you have money the Rx just gets thrown readily at your feet.

Extreme longevity shows serious advancements (but in mice only).

Common let's pile up some more good stuff!

Gravity waves detection and cheap solar cells are mind-blowing to me. Gravity waves for just the sensitivity achieved and solar for how rapidly it's improved. It used be a cute technology used in calculators, impossible to match economically turning a generator or directly burning stuff, and now it's the default first choice.

Thank you. With all the awfull stuff going on the atm I tend to forget all the amazing things we humans still achieve.

These are monetizable inventions, that are allowed, when big money backs them. Climate fuckery threatens incumbent big money, even when it threatens the little people's property values and cost of living.

I don’t want to downplay some of the amazing things in this list but i dint think the standard model of physics as made by humans can ever be completed.

What did happen is that something like HB must exists in order to make most of other things work. Now that we know HB is verifiably real we tied up a major loose end.

But there is still many stuff unanswered and a “complete model” would require constant revision.

Also, it’s engineers who land robots on other planets, not scientists