What is Digg?56 Comments
- Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31If I remember correctly, wasn't one of his goals the invention of a weapon so horrific in its ability to kill that it would end warfare?
How sad it is that every time someone thinks along this line, they underestimate the depths of human depravity. - thatsmyaibo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19that's just like blaming Einstein for the Hiroshima. He was a genius, it was the a-holes that took this scientific knowledge, and used it the wrong way.
- shertzerj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12The atomic bomb's horrific ability to kill ended a war... it's a shame that the nuclear bomb seems to be bringing us closer to it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+19Everyday we are reminded of this wonderful invention when we see a floating body in a canal, HOORAY HIRAM!
- Gizza, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10"that's just like blaming Einstein for the Hiroshima. He was a genius, it was the a-holes that took this scientific knowledge, and used it the wrong way"
Theres a difference between coming up with scientific knowledge that can be used the wrong way, and making a weapon specifically designed to kill as many ppl in the shortest amount of time. - soogy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7TNT for candles.
- idandfei, on 10/12/2007, -13/+20Hey, guns don't kill people, People ki... Ah forget it, yeah guns kill people.
- Moebaca, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9gotta pay my respects to the man
- benjpw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6That and the genocide of the entire Native America race...
- Rikushix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4No, that would be Thomas Crapper. No joke.
- oOLiquidNightOo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5yeah, i'm pretty sure this isn't what he had in mind at the time.
http://blog.juliaallison.com/Images/Julia%20with%20machine%20gun.jpg - NSResponder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think it was Gatling who said that, not Maxim.
-jcr - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4that was dumb as *****
- S4MF1SHER, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5With great power comes great responsibility.
- Gizza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Ok, all you anti-gun types. Would you say there was less violence before we had guns? Fewer massacres? Less crime? Fewer wars?"
more ppl died last century through war than in any other century in history. Probably even more than the rest of the entire last millennium. - marinist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I can appreciate his invention because I never experienced its effect.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Ok, all you anti-gun types. Would you say there was less violence before we had guns? Fewer massacres? Less crime? Fewer wars?
And speaking of Eistein, the atomic bomb just may be what stops WW3.
Or kills us all.
It's up to you, the genie is already out of the bottle, there is no turning back. Not for atomic weapons or for guns. - QuantumLo0p, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@RyeBrye
I agree but I have to admire the huge barrage of foot pounds that a simple blow back design such as a Uzi or Mac put out. All those Secret Service and body guards can't be wrong.
Since autos are used in committing crimes should we try to ban them too? Quite possibly. I have heard Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my gun.
Aye. Last post for me, people. G'night everyone. - Ramtech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i wonder what his cake was like :)..
- Rikushix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I bet you he fronted the magazine "Jugs and Ammo" as well.
- RobotGigante, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6@thatsmyaibo
"that's just like blaming Einstein for the Hiroshima"
No it's not. Einstein didn't design a weapon, Hiram Maxim did. - Harboggles, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7Happy birthday to all the people mowed down by Machine guns.
- GiggleStick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I guess none of you are familiar with the letter that Leo Szilard wrote and Einstein *signed* urging Roosevelt to pursue the Atom Bomb. He was right to do it too, because if the Nazis had gotten it, the world might as well have been destroyed.
http://www.dannen.com/ae-fdr.html - datastorageguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Practically handed africa to the west."
It was just one of the numerous reasons. - ebcreasoner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Guns don't kill people - postal workers do.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4My Friends and I went out in the Arizona Desert this weekend to honor Mr. Maxim. Guns aren't only for killing ya know.
- CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Practically handed africa to the west.
- theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@OBKenobi - I dugg you up not because you're right, but because you're so damn wrong it's funny. Do you even know what war meant before WW1?
- RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Recoil machine guns are inferior to gas-operated machine guns. In 1895, those were invented by John Browning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browning (of Browning Automatic Rifle" fame)
- DrScott, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Maximgun.jpg
And look at that, he also patented a flying machine!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Maxim.gif
We salute you, Mr. Hiram Maxim. - TechLaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sadly, he believed that his design would prove the futility of war, and men would act more civilly when resolving conflicts.
- theghoul, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Thanks for making the world a safer place Hiram! You hit the target!
- kagelump, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Nevermind, it was the other dude that invented the gatling gun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jordan_Gatling
U.S. Patent 668,853 -- Flushing Apparatus for Water Closets, February 26, 1901 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ Kenobi - And all of you moron types - As a matter of fact machine guns are absolutely unlike any killing device before them. Out of date tactics and ruthlessly efficient machine guns mowed down more people in WWI than were killed in all other previous wars combined. So what was your point again? Pretty much destroys your argument right?
- CrazyWolf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ahh, the weapon that made warfare horrific enough for those of us who aren't getting shot at not to give a damn.
Happy birthday. - puttly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1no dude.. bullets kill people
- xetniesgurlx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0umm...okay first of all ppl who are using Wikipedia as a back up for there statements are stupid. Wikipedia is an online FREE encyclopedia that can be EDITED by people. That means anyone can go in there and make WWI in 1998. My teacher actually goes on and changes everything we are studying so we don't cheat and use that.
Second, the machine gun wasn't really invented to kill lots of people. First off this was being built during WWI by a person in America. during that time America was neutral. America's economy was booming because we were making tons of money trading with this war-torn countries. Maxim found this an opportunity to sell his invention for a ton of money. The countries bought it and used it. the machine gun was meant for money. I'm not a fan of guns but what are you gonna do. They have there positives and negatives. - exzantia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This guy also invented an amusement park ride, the "Captive Flying Machine". The last remaining example of this ride is Blackpool Pleasure Beach's 101 year old 'Flying Machines'.
http://theblackpoolpleasurebeachguide.moonfruit.com/ - johnlang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hiram tried to sell it to the Brits, who needed it everywhere they were putting down rebellious colonials. They did trials while Hiram waited in the Savoy Hotel. After a few weeks they told him it was a no-go. Reason? The Maxim Gun used too much ammunition.
- mikeymondavi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My gun has killed less people than Ted Kennedy's car..
- benenglish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Most people don't realize that the machine gun caused societal changes far beyond what happens on the battlefield. Here's a good read:
http://www.amazon.com/Social-History-Machine-Gun/dp/0801833582/sr=1-1/qid=1170768383/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7833968-3111857?ie=UTF8&s=books - CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@datastorageguy
It's what made it easy. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Honoring this man is about as lame as giving the nobel prize to the german guy who invented chemical warfare. World War I. That is all I have to say.
- brdsofprey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@Gizza
"more ppl died last century through war than in any other century in history. Probably even more than the rest of the entire last millennium."
This was a stupid response to that question. I'm not denying that it's probably accurate but you're sensationalizing the topic. The point OBKenobi was making was that the machine gun was just one invention in a long line of military inventions. Ever since man started to fight there have been "advances" in warfare. From chariots, swords, Seige weapons, the Long bow, the phalanx, trench warfare, barbed wire, gun powder, biologicals (black plague), ect.
The invention of the machine gun didn't create death and warfare. Mankind did. If it wasn't the machine gun it would have been another invention.
Secondly, how many of the deaths you mention in your comment were because of the machine gun, and not artillery, bombs, gas, starvation, nuclear weapons, ect. Not to say it may be a significant number, you can't place blame on the machine gun.
Thirdly, saying flat out that more people have died in the past century through war than any previous century is accurate but misleading. At what other point in time was the population of the earth what it has been in the past century? You should have made a point to say the ratio of population to deaths through war.
My overall point is that for all of you that poo poo even the mention of the machine gun and personify it as evil need to come to grips that it's not the objects that are bad but the people that use them. You can't make an argument that all those deaths are due to the machine gun, because if Archduke Ferdinand hadn't of been killed (along with some other things) World War one would never have happened and subsequently Hitler wouldn't have had such a following. It's people that lead to deaths. The tools will change whether or not we like it..
On the flip side, for a couple thousand years our weapons have become more and more efficient at killing more and more people. One good area is that fighting has become more and more targeted, with the invention of smart bombs, radar guided arty, and revised tactics and strategies. We have ironically become more humane in the way we fight. Now we just need to use the tools the right way and against the people that require that type of force in order to do the most good. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1nvm.
- H3LLSL337, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I say you are wrong, the framers of our constitution say you are wrong.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
-The Declaration of Independence - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Happy Birthday, from everyone in Iraq. Thanks for saving us from George W. Bush!
(Also thanks to Mikhail Kalashnikov and Alfred Nobel) - PINGKING666, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Perfectly said Quantum.
- kagelump, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0wasn't he also the inventor of the flushing toilet?
or was that someone else? - johnry07, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2hoorah! lets celebrate the machine gun, a tool designed with the explicit purpose of killing human beings. :] It is true that the mg defintely kept the people behind it safe and helped win battles, but still, the purpose of this tool is killing human beings. I am not anti-gun at all, but i don't really care to glorify the creation of the mg, except from maybe an engineering standpoint (how it worked and so forth).
Oh, and @berkana: you are tlaking about the original inventor of the machine gun, the one with a hand crank. This guy just modded it out and made it so you dont have to use hand-power. so, they're not the same people, but yes, he would probably be rolling over in his grave right now. -
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