"If you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why?" Nuclear weapons? Land mines? Internal combustion engine?
There are 42 reader comments
• May 17 2006 • 12:12PM
Blogs.
• May 17 2006 • 12:13PM
PowerPoint. Because just because a bullet point can fly in while rotating 360 degrees and changing colour doesn't mean it should.
• May 17 2006 • 12:19PM
Spam. And I don't mean the meaty kind.
• May 17 2006 • 12:24PM
Vibrator
• May 17 2006 • 12:26PM
Leninist Communism
• May 17 2006 • 12:32PM
Snark.
• May 17 2006 • 12:32PM
Car alarms
• May 17 2006 • 12:33PM
The modern suburb. I'd wish Levittown into the cornfield.
• May 17 2006 • 12:34PM
Internet
• May 17 2006 • 12:35PM
To be a bit snarky, NT would prevent the vibrator? Why? It is because NT is so addicted to their own vibrator and can no longer acceptably socialize, or is it because NY feels they are out-classed by vibrators in terms of bedroom and conversational skills?
Personally, I think Suzanne Sommers was a bad idea to begin with. Anyone who claims they got pregnant by osmosis and then takes part in the creation/promotion of the Thighmaster must be evil. Humanity will suffer none if she and all her wickedness is gone.
• May 17 2006 • 12:44PM
All this free thought and knowledge of god and evil that Eve brought about hasn't really done much for us. Plus if that was never invented we would all be blogging about this while laying around naked in a garden.
• May 17 2006 • 12:56PM
Enterprise software
• May 17 2006 • 12:59PM
Reality Show?
• May 17 2006 • 1:14PM
Le Corbusier
• May 17 2006 • 1:15PM
IM
• May 17 2006 • 1:19PM
Boaz took my first choice, so I'll go with cellphones.
• May 17 2006 • 1:23PM
Car alarms.
• May 17 2006 • 1:30PM
Partially hydrogenated oils. Or high fructose corn syrup. Look at the state of people's health nowadays.
• May 17 2006 • 1:33PM
Note: This post is rambly. Skip to the last sentence if you're the impatient type.
Jason, I think that you took the best answers right off the bat, (or at least the most obvious ones.)
I suppose that I could name people, but that seems a bit off-topic. Funny - maybe - but off-topic all the same.
This leaves me reaching for answers - e.g.: television, narcotics, processed foods, etc.
However, these answers seem to ignore positive implications of the inventions such as spin-off inventions.
Actually, when I think about it, even the answers that Kottke listed can have very important positive uses. A nuclear bomb could some day avert some disaster on an interplanetary scale.
It seems to me that most of the problems with inventions are a matter of irresponsible use. I would guess that when inventions are used in the right way negative results can be eliminated or minimized, and there can be plenty of positive outcome. (e.g.: Small amounts of internal combustion engine wouldn't be very bad for the environment, and it can have plenty of positive effects such as spin-off inventions.)
I acknowledge that there are some answers such as "crack cocaine" that don't seem to have redeeming values to balance out their negative effects (various drugs are all that I can really think of now.) However, in these situations, I feel that there would likely be some other invention to fill the gap created.
I don't know, I guess that invention has made the world the way that it is today, and I don't mind the world that much as is. Some things suck, but all in all, I'm not eager risk losing some of what humanity has built.
P.S. - Don't take away the Internet, please. I like it.
• May 17 2006 • 1:49PM
"Science cannot be stopped. Man will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences -- and we cannot predict what they will be. Science will go on -- whether we are pessimistic, or are optimistic, as I am. I know that great, interesting, and valuable discoveries can be made and will be made… But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe — and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm."
• May 17 2006 • 1:55PM
The modern day Liberal
• May 17 2006 • 1:55PM
The chainsaw. Perhaps more rainforests would be intact without it.
• May 17 2006 • 2:04PM
I agree, and additionally, my top ten is:
1. Nuclear Weapons
2. Spyware
3. Spam Advertising
4. Call waiting -- I hate when people say, "hold on, I have to take this!" and make me wait 10 minutes for their "more important" conversation.
5. Cell phones -- I hate that they make you available every waking moment. On the other hand, I like their mobility and text messaging or the ability to dial 911 wherever I am.
6. Build-a-bear. This idea is just stupid.
7. Those plastic bins to store your stuff in. Great idea gone bad. At this point, it's just an excuse for me not to buy furniture.
8. Doggy diapers. That's just gross.
9. Non-military use Hummer. It says, "I'm compensating and I will run you over b/c I'm pissed my life turned out this way."
10. Figurines. Of any sort. Who the hell cares? I don't even like the word.
Runners up: Car alarms, any reality show after Survivor (this means you, you addictive American Idol!), dot-matrix printers (what's with the unnecessary noise?), "Christian science."
• May 17 2006 • 2:41PM
buses covered in clothes
• May 17 2006 • 4:11PM
crocs
• May 17 2006 • 4:26PM
Lunchables.
• May 17 2006 • 4:28PM
The mp3 player. Hands down.
• May 17 2006 • 4:32PM
And obviously I am need to go to the Derek Zoolander school for people who don't read good. So I'd have to go with nuclear weapons
• May 17 2006 • 4:46PM
Nothing. While there are plenty of things I may dislike (e.g. spam, reality shows) I'm of the opinion that advancement is always good even when something stupid or dangerous is developed.
Then again, the ability to get rid of all religious fundamentalists (or, for that matter, anyone who wants to make someone else follow their religious beliefs) in one fell swoop is pretty damn tempting.
• May 17 2006 • 5:56PM
Macs
• May 17 2006 • 6:20PM
Microsoft Word
• May 17 2006 • 6:36PM
Technology is never the problem.
People (and their uneducated educators) are the problem.
I constantly wonder, as people become more and more of the problem, if people will realize that people are the problem, as they try, with all manner of sound, fury, and ever-increasing futility, to solve problems through technology and not education.
• May 17 2006 • 11:27PM
Silicon or saline breast implants . . . what matters is probably not artificial.
• May 18 2006 • 12:34AM
Nipple Clamps hurt more than the disclaimer claimed. So disclaimers.
• May 18 2006 • 6:06AM
The land mine is a good one.
Reality T.V. another.
• May 18 2006 • 7:50AM
I don't mind reality tv, you can choose not to watch, after all.
Nuclear weapons, however... I'm afraid the world is stuck with them forever now they've been invented, which is bad. So they have to win.
• May 18 2006 • 10:59AM
Instead of preventing one invention I'd like to kill two birds by going back in time and stopping Mr. Thomas Midgley, Jr. from inventing 1) gasoline lead additives and 2) CFC's.
Way to go, Tom!
• May 18 2006 • 11:26AM
Riding Lawnmowers
Cable Television
24-hour Strip Clubs
• May 18 2006 • 11:46AM
Why limit ourselves to the last 100 years?
I would go with God/Allah/Yahweh and Bible/Koran/Torah
In fact, this invention has/will kill many multiples more than nuclear bombs have or will...
• May 18 2006 • 4:46PM
While I agree, in spirit, with the late Mr. Pauling (above), I must say that cell phones solved a problem I enjoyed having.
• May 19 2006 • 2:18AM
Digital audio.
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.
Jake • May 17 2006 • 12:11PM
Myspace.