Dec 11, 2008

Invention Makes Necessity (Seungbae LEE)

"Invention is the mother of necessity."

-----by Thorstein Veblen

I agree with this phrase. I think invention really gives birth to necessity.

In the old days, if people need a light, they made a fire with wood or gas. But, the fire with wood or gas was dark and cannot endure for a long time. They thought they need something to make the light durable for a longtime. Later, they invented a bulb which can endured for a long time. This example can build up the formula just like "Necessity is the Mother of Invention."

Actually, however, I think the most of invention is the mother of necessity. I want to take the phone as the case. We used the paper mail or message for long-distance communication. Later, we use a telephone. Then, we wanted to use a phone without line, later invented wireless phone. Then, we started to feel needs for internet on the cell phone. Later, we loaded internet on the cell phone, then feel it's very slow. People in the cell phone company are trying to make the internet faster and faster. Then, people wants more slim and light cell phone. Now, we are making them slimmer, lighter and faster and faster. Invention doesn't have its limitation.

Extremely speaking, if we didn't invent a telephone, we wouldn't feel we need to make the communication fast! The telephone made the need for the cell phone. The cell phone made the need for faster cell phone. Invention never stops the increase of necessity. We need to control the increase of invention and take a break. We should be satisfied with convenience of the present facility.

2 comments:

Leslie said...

I agree with your opinion. invention is the mother of necessity. I think that all of the incentions are comes from necessity. during our life time, we need a lot of convenient things on our life. That means, we have to invent something for convenience. So, if people leck of something can be given to invent to us.

heekyung.CHO

Leslie said...

invention for me can be defined as copying. Of course, invention ifself is creative and the item is unexpected, however, if someone invented, he or she must copied from other piece of items.
for example, telephone. telephone itself is the item nobody expected. but there muct be the item similar to telephone, so the person who made telephone copied piece of item from other place, and from the another place, that's why he invented telephone.

jake yoon