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Comment count is 26
duck&cover - 2014-06-19

Are you talking about the cotton gin and how it increased the need for slaves?


1394 - 2014-06-19

The actor does look like Eli Whitney


Bort - 2014-06-20

Yep, the problem is implying that the cotton gin is in the running for the "greatest" American invention. Influential, sure. Successful, no doubt. But I'd be careful about calling it "great" much less "greatest", considering its impact.

The greatest American invention is the Pawnee Burger, which is using pizza as the bun for your burger. (So named because the idea originated in Pawnee, Indiana.)


infinite zest - 2014-06-20

..but what about the Gary Indiana Mudslide?


The Mothership - 2014-06-19

Yea I missed it here, care to explain?


Cena_mark - 2014-06-19

I figure its all about the Cotton Gin. Increased demand for slaves aside its also rumored that the true inventor of it was one of Whitney's slaves.

I really hate this 'Murica bullshit. We're so mindless with our patriotism that its become a terrible joke.


John Holmes Motherfucker - 2014-06-19

And the hot dogs suck, too.


SolRo - 2014-06-20

that does raise a question about if these are their "finest hotdogs", the shit they've been selling for decades was...?


EvilHomer - 2014-06-20

If that's the case, do you think that centuries from now, Americans will be extremely sensitive about depictions of the Internet, on the grounds that it increased demand for government and corporate surveillance, and was rumored to have been invented by hippie libertarians?

I don't think we should blame technology when the problems associated with said technology are societal and institutional. Give the Cotton Gin a chance!


John Holmes Motherfucker - 2014-06-20

I wonder if the younger generations have a different view of the cotton gin than my generation does. We used to learn about it in school, it was emblematic of American industry, like Thomas Edison and George Washington Carver, but I didn't find out about its role in maintaining slavery and causing the Civil War until years later, from Ken Burns. I wonder if they teach the whole story now.


SolRo - 2014-06-20

As long as Texas' crazy right wing schoolboard dictates what book printers can or cannot write in school textbooks that are sold nationally, fat chance history will be taught with anything other that rose tinted glasses.


memedumpster - 2014-06-20

The printing press is a genocidal maniac hellbent on human extinction by those standards.

Also, I prefer Hebrew National Jumbo hot dogs, does that make me a Zionist?


TeenerTot - 2014-06-20

I'll take cotton, and I'll take gin. But you can keep your cotton gin.


mon666ster - 2014-06-20

The cotton gin? Huh. I figured it was cuz the actor playing Benjamin Franklin had an abortion.


Prickly Pete - 2014-06-20

Oh, I feel dumb. I voted this up cause I thought it was just that they called electricity an invention when it is clearly a discovery! I mean if we're putting them all in the same category then I'd say oxygen is a greater invention than electricity!

In my defense, I went to Eli Whitney Middle School and needless to say I never knew that the cotton gin was evil until right now. Poetv: more educational than the public school system.


Binro the Heretic - 2014-06-20

And Franklin didn't discover electricity, he only proved lightning was an electrical discharge.


Callamon - 2014-06-20

Honestly I thought that Eli Whitney was black.


Binro the Heretic - 2014-06-20

Americans invented the assembly line, powered flight, alternating current, air conditioning and the mousetrap.

And the invention they decided to go with was a machine that brought back slavery, which had been in decline, and set the stage for the American Civil war.

Also, fuck their fake Colbert.


Cena_mark - 2014-06-20

I was figuring the same thing. So many inventions to pick. I would have gone with the Steam Ship.


EvilHomer - 2014-06-20

The assembly line set the stage for global warming, alternating current set the stage for energy monopolies, and powered flight set the stage for global thermonuclear warfare. Like I said, tech-shaming is a silly and pointless exercise, because it misses the real institutional problems and because any technology can be depicted as "evil" if we try hard enough.

Except for Pong. Since video games can't possibly be used for evil, I would have gone for Pong.


oddeye - 2014-06-20

"Assembly Line" was either a Chinese or a Venetian invention, bitch, for reals.

Make all your "Civilization" videogame jokes now.


Spaceman Africa - 2014-06-20

That assembly line pioneered by all-American jewhater Henry Ford.


Caminante Nocturno - 2014-06-20

Franklin was a vegetarian.


Killer Joe - 2014-06-20

Which is part of the reason electricity sucks so much cock. Pay attention to the subtext, man!


TheOtherCapnS - 2014-06-20

I thought it was because they were making a hot dog without sweet delicious nitrates.


Robin Kestrel - 2014-06-21

"Spirit of America" smoke shows only the CONUS?

Parent company is Mexican?

Something about the flag?


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