For those who like to denigrate Edison by comparison, I challenge to read "Edison" by Josephson and maintain that opinion.
I.e. Tesla transformed AC power, Edison transformed multiple foundational industries.
Edison can be an asshole, without denigrating any of his brilliance, or suppressing any of Teslas.
It's interesting though - Edison was often the disruptor of industries - but he was not the man who turned Electrical Power, the Phonograph, or the Motion Picture industries into what they were - but he still invented the v1, and sometimes v2 version of these technologies.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/thomas-edison-histo...
When I was a kid I was taken to the local zoo, where lions were displayed in small, bare concrete cages. I felt sorry for them, and did not enjoy the trip. But that doesn't mean the zookeepers were bad people, people just thought differently about animals in those days.
Not so. Mainstream attitudes on whether animal are even capable of suffering, have changed radically.
> that the pain they were causing didn't satisfy some need, but some want
It seems more likely that the poor conditions were because of underfunding, than sadism.
In other words, as of now you and I both live and probably work in society, sacrificing our natural freedom and state in nature to enjoy comforts and safety of our technological civilization; and yes, to die in a hospital rather than in nature.
Anyways I'm not suggesting any answers, just juxtaposing the same ideas applied unequally, which suggests an implicit collective answer of 'yes'to your question; or at least a tolerance to that answer.
And it's unfortunately partially unworldly thinking about these social contracts anyways: in the real world, farms are still grossly mistreating animals, as does civilization to people, where outcomes stem too often from money and violence; not always from social contracts / commitments to morals--which brings us full circle to the life of Tesla and his struggles with bullying.
It's like thinking people from the 1800's were all grim because they look grim in photographs. But that was just an artifact of them having to hold still for the long exposure times.
I bet those people would think people of our time are horribly ill-mannered and rude.
Bear in mind, you can be an asshole and be an okay person - its not a value judgement, its a statement of fact.
The only thing Edison appears to have acted like an asshole in regards to, is some of his business dealings. Some of which is more attributable to the people that were actually operating the numerous business ventures (which he was not in most of the cases).
The case for Edison being like Jobs in terms of the asshole quality, is barely existent. It's mostly a modern myth popularized to attack Edison for Tesla's benefit.
He was a somewhat distant father, until his children were old enough to join him in the business - he was a good man - but generally contemptuous with convention, and conventional thinking (often seen in people regarded as 'visionaries') - in business dealings, he certainly was an asshole, but thats not unheard of in his time.
Tesla by modern standards was.. somewhat crazy - out of the two I consider Edison to have a greater vision, and to be a far more transformative figure - and honestly someone who left a larger lasting impact on the world.
I've been to Edisons home, and his final lab in West Orange NJ - I think very very highly of the man - but I also think he was an asshole.
Here’s an article, a few years ago and also from Smithsonian Magazine, telling of some of Tesla’s disturbing opinions.
For example, advocating forced eugenics to weed out ‘undesirables’ from the human race. He felt that the forced sterilisation of criminals and mentally ill in Nazi Germany didn’t go far enough.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nikola-tesla-the-euge...
I’d like to see it happen. The only thing that gives me pause is what if we accidentally make humans with critical genetic flaws we did not see coming, or low genetic diversity.
You can define better genes objectively by looking at genes of people that live the longest and with the least health issues. Natural selection is poor at selecting for traits that lead to longevity.
IMO there are all sorts of possible negative side effects that might emerge. Like a longer life making us more cautious, individualistic, and short sighted (not personally but on a species scale). You could argue this is already happening due to environmental comforts and medical advances. In fact dramatically tweaking a trait like longevity for a new generation would likely have a massive impact on their personality and culture... talk about a generation gap.
Right, but it does in practice.
What if we found that Japanese people lived the longest? Would we only allow Japanese to breed? Or bias towards them? How would you qualify how “Japanese” someone’s genes are?
Can you not see how this leads to a toxic culture of racism?
Taken GP's reasoning to the extreme, what do you think if the state prohibit someone from having children if (hypothetically) it is known at 100% certainty that their offsprings will inherit a horrible genetic diseases that causes pain and suffering their whole lives, and their life expectancy is 15 years?
We're not nearly competent enough yet to play god at this level. It's scary knowing there are egos chomping at the bit to do it.
https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/36/1/...
It took generations of education, whatever you want to call it, to change our collective minds.
As a kid really into science I was a little appaled when I learned how little Tesla was included in curriculum, despite his enormous impact on today's age.
The recent attention on Tesla barely existed 10-12 years ago. I remember reading random websites wondering why he wasn't better known.
Beginning to give him his due has nothing to do with Edison for me, only that Tesla easily has a place right next to Edison and anyone else, which he was denied at the cost of folks like Edison.
In the eyes of some, part of the smell test Edison didn't pass was Tesla appeared genuinely an order of magnitude higher in some cases in innovating entirely new areas and received very little long term recognition for it. Tesla's didn't just make AC, he invented radio, xrays, transmitting electricity wirelessly, and using the ionosphere in new ways. It was straight up mad science perhaps a little like Einstein or Da Vinci.
Edison was a great business man. He did appear to take a prolific spitball approach to innovation in the eyes of some.
Edisons treatment of his contemporaries, can't be explained away when it wasn't held against him ultimately. It's fine to defend one's self, if one is that talented.. why proactively trash others? It didn't seem the same about Tesla, maybe because he wasn't American?
I don't know how Edison's top 10 inventions might compare to Tesla's top 10 innovations.
This is about giving Tesla his due for a society that was focused instead on a cult of personality towards others instead of recognizing things on their merit.
e.g. It's not that Edison invented a light bulb - he created the first power grid. It's like inventing an internet client, and the internet.
Internet client?
Edison's light bulb was attacked on all fronts in patent court for years, and he beat them all.
He invented the light bulb.
Ironically for Elon Musk, early electric cars mostly used Edison batteries.
"Swan's carbon rod lamp and carbon filament lamp, while functional, were still relatively impractical due to low resistance (needing very expensive thick copper wiring) and short running life."
It also mentions the high current.
As I remarked, Edison's breakthrough was the thin-filament high voltage, low current lamp, which made it practical.
Light bulb and wiring - GE
phonograph - National Phonograph Company