OpenDepth.com: Tesla, Ford and Today's World

As announced on OpenDepth.com, Henry Ford's, 'My Life And Works' has been Wikified - you can take a look at it here. It proved to be more of a challenge than I expected, but it was a lot more fun than I expected as well.

I chose to work on Henry Ford's book because he's of the same era as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, two other people who helped shape the world as we know it. Thomas Edison employed both Tesla and Ford for a time, and while I am well read on the 'War of the Currents', I hadn't really followed Henry Ford - admittedly, I was biased toward electricity, and understanding the history of it. That Thomas Edison, in one biography I read, supposedly said he never owned a car because it 'made the air smell funny' always stuck in my head. That in that same biography, Henry Ford was mentioned also stuck in my head - that Edison did encourage him to work on what has revolutionized the world and created some of the largest industries known to man so far, and made the largest industries now possible.

But between Tesla and Ford, it's interesting how some things that still need to be addressed were on their minds back then. Henry Ford mentions hydroelectric power in Chapter 13 of his book - in the context of the Mississippi River. Granted, he never mentions Tesla in his book, but Tesla is the one who made hydroelectric power possible with the assistance of George Westinghouse. Free Energy. I sit here in a house with those words still painted on the wall in front, referencing my late father's business, The Solar Company. Of course, the energy isn't 'free as in beer'; it's free as in no fuel has to be burned to generate it. The cost of the equipment for renewable energy has remained steady while the cost of living has increased. I wonder, at what point will solar energy and other forms of energy be taken seriously? Nikola Tesla focused a lot on that, take a look.

Some other things cropped up - such as updating some details in the Wikipedia related to Lord Milner, who apparently was instrumental in sending the message to Henry Ford, which got the Fordson tractor used first in England after World War I. And then there are a pile of interesting things that Ford wrote about philanthropy, poverty, trade...

...A large proportion of our foreign trade is based on the backwardness of our foreign customers. Selfishness is a motive that would preserve that backwardness. Humanity is a motive that would help the backward nations to a self-supporting basis. Take Mexico, for example. We have heard a great deal about the "development" of Mexico. Exploitation is the word that ought instead to be used. When its rich natural resources are exploited for the increase of the private fortunes of foreign capitalists, that is not development, it is ravishment. You can never develop Mexico until you develop the Mexican. And yet how much of the "development" of Mexico by foreign exploiters ever took account of the development of its people? The Mexican peon has been regarded as mere fuel for the foreign money-makers. Foreign trade has been his degradation...

Odd that he would have written that in 1922. And then there is a thought on education:

...The object of education is not to fill a man's mind with facts; it is to teach him how to use his mind in thinking. And it often happens that a man can think better if he is not hampered by the knowledge of the past...

Experts...

...If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice that I could be sure they would do little work...

Business and consumer relations...

...Does the manufacturer exist for the consumer or does the consumer exist for the manufacturer? If the consumer will not--says he cannot--buy what the manufacturer has to offer, is that the fault of the manufacturer or the consumer? Or is nobody at fault? If nobody is at fault then the manufacturer must go out of business...

All in all, it was fun, and it was interesting digging into some of the tidbits of the automotive industry and the main person who shaped it. It was also a lot of work, which I suppose doesn't show too much in this particular Wikization, but... it was rewarding in it's own way, and will add more to future works on OpenDepth.com.

Personally, I'm tired and I can't believe it's 4:28 a.m. Obviously, I underestimated how long it would take to work on this one. :-) Nap time.