To make our lives easier and more comfortable, people have always come up with new inventions and most of them have been really useful, like cutlery or medicine to treat illnesses that were once incurable. But there are inventions that benefit humans less and may even be dangerous.
We all probably have looked at something, couldn’t understand the purpose of it and thought that it was unnecessary to invent it. Redditor numbnerve wanted to know what people think is the invention we would be better off without and over 22k people joined the discussion with some serious answers.
Don’t forget to upvote the redditors’ answers you agree with the most and if there is something you think belongs in this list and wasn't mentioned, leave it in the comments!
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Beauty pageants for children.
Am I the only one that think these kids look absolutely hideous anyway? After all that ridiculous makeup is caked on they look more like Bride of Chucky than children.
So called influncers, I'm probably too old to understand them but I certainly don't want my 1 year old to aspire to be one
Reality TV. I swear it glamorized the worst kind of behavior, and we ate it up.
Any product that you pay for, and then have to pay a subscription to use.
Shark fin soup - Tens of millions of sharks are killed every year for their fins that offer little nutritional value and serve no purpose outside of being a status symbol
YouTube "endscreens" (or "endcards") that often block content at the end of the video you're watching.
For Profit Prisons.
And the fact that they are allowed to lobby for heavier person sentences and get it is just a pure slap in the face of the very idea of freedom.
Landmines. I'll tell you why:
They render large tracts of land completely unusable
They are expensive and difficult to remove safely because there is seldom documentation of where they are placed
They are cheap, plentiful, easy to place, and deadly
They kill/maim livestock and wild animals
They kill/maim innocent people decades after conflicts have ended. Many times the victims are children because they can't read or don't understand warning signs
"Smart" devices. No LG, i don't want to download an app to use my f*****g washing machine, i want to wash my clothes ffs
Adblock detectors. Your site forces me to disable adblock? Ill just go to another site.
Devices meant to break after a short period of time, and devices that purposely have parts you can't replace.
Just out of interest, what is your experience with iphones? Because I've actually found them both fairly hard-wearing and fixable.
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Manufacturing products to have an intentionally shortened life span is quite common for most products. With electronics being mostly comprised of non-recyclable components; designed to be intentionally unrepairable, it's also creating a large strain on the environment.
I think the EU recently voted a law that forces manufacturers to repair broken devices and produce spare parts.
I had a brilliant Brother printed which I could no longer use because they changed the 'drivers'? So it became obsolete. I was so peed off 😤
Upgradable computer hardware joke. By the time you need to upgrade, the hardware config is obsolete (the bus, the cpu speed, the graphics, storage)
We need to add Repairable to the other 4 Rs. We should not be throwing out stuff because a motor in a sealed steel box needs new brushes or bearings.
This always makes me so sad. Its ridiculous that they force you to throw away items that can be repaired. I have now a laptop with a cracked screen (that soon will stop working). Its a bit old but it works really well. Sadly buying a new screen to fix it its so expensive that its not worth repairing it.
Looking at you all phones where you can't replace the battery yourself.
Tivo did this. Back when they were offering 'lifetime' plans, I bought one. The tivo broke and I found out my 'lifetime' plan only applied to that particular tivo. The reps at tivo admitted their products are built to last no more than 5 years and that I should be glad it worked as long as it did. I actually still have the chat transcript from that, I think. Never bought another after that.
We can only blame ourselves, the consumers. Given a choice, most of us choose a thinner, lighter device over a heavier, bulkier one that can be repaired easily.
It's so stupid. We are constantly being told to not be so wasteful but when companies do this, then we don't have much choice. Consumers aren't the biggest problem, the companies are. Maybe they should be taxed more to pay for recycling or disposing of their products. Or better yet, don't make products like that in the first place. It can be done. Just look at the old fridges that lasted 30-50 years, now your lucky if they last 5-10years.
The ones that pop-off when it was dropped a few inches and broke some little tab on the cover... that meant the cover had to taped to phone?
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Oh - you are talking about "Planned Obsolescence." Capitalism at its finest. They can't make something too good or long lasting because you need to come back and buy another one!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_right_to_repair: "The right to repair electronics refers to proposed state or federal government legislation that would provide the practical means for equipment owners to repair their devices, and not a new legal right. Advocates observe that while repair is legal under copyright law and patent law, owners are often prohibited from making their own repairs or hire technicians they trust to help by manufacturer limitations on access to repair materials such as parts, tools, diagnostics, documentation and firmware.[1]"
I have 3 ipads at home of varying ages. They still work fine and would be great but the apps I like to use no longer work on them as Apple no longer provide updates for older models.
5 years is the expiration of gadgets, based on my experience.. if you still have that phone within 5 years, best case scenario is, half of it is functional.
i read that, i guess it was samsung wants to be super inovative and sell phones with this suuuper new feature where you can replace the batterie...*ironie off.. i mean come on... it's not like they didn#t have that already
I've had a Iphone 6s for nearly 6 years, it's still working totally fine. Had the same HP laptop for 10 years, works as fast as it did when I got it. It's how you look after things as well.
Engineering has ALWAYS been about making things good enough for the purpose, but not excessively so. When you are designing a car engine computer that needs to last 10+ years, you'd design it very differently from a phone that only gets used for a couple of years. You'd even use different parts; just look it up on digikey - automotive grade parts are much more expensive than equivalent consumer-grade parts.
The term wanted here is planned obsolescence, which covers these, plus devices designed so that only shops with approved, proprietary tools can repair them, and devices sold on the basis of having replacement parts that are redesigned a few years on so none of the -new- parts fit.
All cell phone manufactures do this. Not just Apple (but they absolutely do). They constantly release updates that make your phone objectively worse and will not allow you to use the phone without them. Otherwise the smart phones from 5 years ago can't do a whole lot more than the current gen.
Lithium batteries were meant to last 20 years, introduced when people planned to keep their phones for years. Now they are intentionally meant to last less than 2.
What something was originally thought could be done... and what reality dictates it can functionally do in the real world are often at odds.
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Seafloor trawling...
It destroys the habitant of fish just so we can squeeze every bit of a fish from an area...
Robocalls
The UK doesn't have so much trouble with these thanks to the Telephone Preference Service, which allows people to opt-out of sales calls. This works for legitimate companies, but unfortunately the scammers don't abide by the rules. I have a Raspberry Pi with a Fax Modem that monitors incoming calls on my landline and answers as a fax machine to unknown numbers or numbers I have blocked. Really we should be beyond this, but the telecommunications industry doesn't seem to want to fix it.
Pesticides.
They’ve ruined the environment by killing off the pollinators. I swear, they will be the reason for more food shortages just as swiftly as climate change will affect us all.
Cookie pop-ups. How come we still don't have a more efficient way to manage our browsing privacy.
Some sites are better than others, but it is starting to get annoying, as when you decline cookies on a site, it can't set a cookie to say that you declined cookies, so it asks you every ruddy time you visit it! Not all cookies are evil and some are needed to make sites work, such as remembering preferences and logins, but tracking cookies can go and do one!
I’ve gone through a ton and haven’t seen this one. Slavery.
Fast fashion. I can’t imagine the amount of cheap, tacky clothes just mountains in landfills.
Auto play videos, especially in non video streaming websites. NOBODY asked for them, yet so much work is getting put into making it a web standard. Just f*****g stop
AGREED!!! Drives me crazy when a video just starts playing on a non video streaming site!
Drug commercials. F**k me, your average joe, making drug recommendations TO MY DOCTOR - who spent 10+ years studying and working to be in the position.
Ads on streaming services that I F*****G pay for. You don’t need revenue, Hulu, that’s what my subscription is!
Pop up ads. Not only are they so annoying but can either scam or install malware on the devices of unsuspecting people
Fun Fact: The inventor of PopUps officially apologized for inventing them.
Social media. Addictive, dehumanizing, causes depression, promotes terrible behavior, actively reduces our capacity to have real human connections.
The Polygraph machine. Super innaccurate and I believe even the inventor curses its existance.
Always found it so strange the weight that seems to be put on polygraph tests in the USA, in both fiction and real life crime cases. Its so unreliable, but the results seem to have such a big impact on how suspects are viewed
The New generation of Every basic machine. Like refrigerators that requires internet to work, It only have one job to do
They have smart toasters. Let me just repeat that because the idea is do stupid it defies belief. Smart. Toasters.
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
It's not like the corn industry would suffer if it stopped producing HFCS. Products made from corn are used in dozens of industries: corn starch, ethanol, flavonoids extracted from corn, corn oil, etc.
Scam calls! We get them on our house phone all the time and it’s so annoying
Just answer and either say fraud department, or city morgue you stab em we slab em that has gotten a lot of these calls to stop for me and my family
Twitter
Edit: Because Twitter is mainly a cesspool of hypocrisy and politics. I've honestly never seen so many "non descriminatory self appointed puritains" be so incredibly hateful due to someone not having the exact same opinion as them
LED advertising They're too f*****g bright and now they're putting mini screens on trucks that drive around town and it pisses me off. There's already enough distraction on the road.
I miss the billboards that had the rotating panels. Those were cool
There are some in my city that are eye level with the road and are so bright it is so distracting at night!
The food pyramid brought to you by general mills, the dairy industry, and countless other big corporations whose goal was profit over the health of others
"The food pyramid" hasn't been in official use since at least the Obama admin maybe even earlier.
Deepfake. Any time i see a video with it all i'm left feeling is fear for the future.
It is so creepy to see they can mimic a person so well that it is so hard to tell if it is really them or artificially produced! Same feeling I have when I have seen them....fear of the future!
Standardized testing
"These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned" -Horace mann the inventor of standardized testing on the subject of standardized testing
If everyone should be taught to AT LEAST *this* level, then a standardised test to ensure that is happening makes perfect sense. The problem with education is trying to teach every child the same way, and treating them the same, when some naturally struggle and some naturally excel. The whole world is obsessed with "everyone is the same", except (let me say this loudly for the woke with their airpods in) WE ARE NOT ALL THE SAME
Anyone ever seen that “as seen on TV” ad of the golf club you p**s in? I feel like that’d be a good contender for this
Political parties. We should have listened to Washington…
War. I know this one is generic, but the entire concept is a bunch of poor people murdering each other because to rich spoiled old men couldn't stand not getting their way. How about this. If you are one of the leaders pushing for a war you have to go to the front line to fight it or your opinion is thrown out. If you aren't willing to die for your beliefs I sure as hell aren't going to.
#51 - Autotune used as a vocal instrument. The inventor of autotune created it to correct micro-pitch variations on vocal tracks in the studio, for use by the recording engineer, NOT to make you sound like a faulty robot.
Definitely. Most if not all promote hate and discrimination because they were made in past times. Not all religious people is bad but imo most if not all religions are.
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Websites that jump down as they load, but load text/pics/vids/ads all at different speeds, so just as you go to click on one links something else suddenly opens higher up and the whole page hops down in response, sending you to the completely wrong link. It's a small annoyance that culminates as you keep hopping back and falling for it again, and absolutely the sort of small clue culminating in realizing you're not actually in the Good Place.
Fake accounts and spambots. Whoever invented those or uses those should be shot
This came up in our quizz last week, and I just googled it- we waste approximately 500 years a day deciphering captcha phrases (Cloudflare study, based on 32 seconds per captcha, and 4.6 billikn internet users).
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I am relieved to see these answers. I always wondered if I was alone in this. I knew I wasn't but I rarely heard this sort of feedback.
Ads in games. Like when it says that you can only do a particular thing if you watch an ad. It's so irritating and I have zero desire to get a game because of a stupid 30 second ad.
https://comfortablelife4u.blogspot.com/2023/02/building-smart-home-a-to-z-guide.html
Cable, satellite tv. Just one big racket. The station gets paid from the cable/sat company for their channels. Then advertisers pay for commercials on those channels. They get paid twice and then we pay the provider for those channels. Like a big pyramid scheme.
The 50 people in this online group were definitely tree huggers who are "health conscious" that believe in gluten free this and vegetarian/vegan that. I wouldn't be surprised if they made this list up to 75 things and they would add on deodorant because they believe crystals would do the job better without all the "nasty" chemicals.
I think many of the things mentioned above are really up to people not controlling their own behavior. Not taking personal responsibility for their actions and choices. Cigarettes, alcohol, bad tv, gambling, etc. Are all ok in small doses once in a while. But if you choose to let yourself get lost in these activities then that is on you.
Everyone involved in the production and subsequent advertising of Baby Shark should be shot at dawn. Psychological warfare isn't cool.
Companies not putting basic contact information, such as a telephone number or email on their websites. Try contacting any of the big social media companies about a problem! Which brings me to the over use of FAQ sections instead of contact details. When you are trying to talk to them about retrieving a business account password and you are given options like "I am trying to retrieve my account because my hamster now has diabetes"
Soap Operas eg Eastenders always negative and miserable why does anyone enjoy watching this pointless negative garbage?
Answers here vary wildly... 'ads', 'social media', 'war'. And then in the comments, two replies in a row say: 'racism', 'sprouts!'. I have to admit, the juxtaposition really made me laugh. If anyone is organising a march or protest against both racism and sprouts, please let me know asap.
Do you mean brussel sprouts? If so, I'm with Auntriarch, more for me! Especially if they're drenched with cheese sauce!!!
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War. I know this one is generic, but the entire concept is a bunch of poor people murdering each other because to rich spoiled old men couldn't stand not getting their way. How about this. If you are one of the leaders pushing for a war you have to go to the front line to fight it or your opinion is thrown out. If you aren't willing to die for your beliefs I sure as hell aren't going to.
#51 - Autotune used as a vocal instrument. The inventor of autotune created it to correct micro-pitch variations on vocal tracks in the studio, for use by the recording engineer, NOT to make you sound like a faulty robot.
Definitely. Most if not all promote hate and discrimination because they were made in past times. Not all religious people is bad but imo most if not all religions are.
Load More Replies... Websites that jump down as they load, but load text/pics/vids/ads all at different speeds, so just as you go to click on one links something else suddenly opens higher up and the whole page hops down in response, sending you to the completely wrong link. It's a small annoyance that culminates as you keep hopping back and falling for it again, and absolutely the sort of small clue culminating in realizing you're not actually in the Good Place.
Fake accounts and spambots. Whoever invented those or uses those should be shot
This came up in our quizz last week, and I just googled it- we waste approximately 500 years a day deciphering captcha phrases (Cloudflare study, based on 32 seconds per captcha, and 4.6 billikn internet users).
Load More Replies... I am relieved to see these answers. I always wondered if I was alone in this. I knew I wasn't but I rarely heard this sort of feedback.
Ads in games. Like when it says that you can only do a particular thing if you watch an ad. It's so irritating and I have zero desire to get a game because of a stupid 30 second ad.
https://comfortablelife4u.blogspot.com/2023/02/building-smart-home-a-to-z-guide.html
Cable, satellite tv. Just one big racket. The station gets paid from the cable/sat company for their channels. Then advertisers pay for commercials on those channels. They get paid twice and then we pay the provider for those channels. Like a big pyramid scheme.
The 50 people in this online group were definitely tree huggers who are "health conscious" that believe in gluten free this and vegetarian/vegan that. I wouldn't be surprised if they made this list up to 75 things and they would add on deodorant because they believe crystals would do the job better without all the "nasty" chemicals.
I think many of the things mentioned above are really up to people not controlling their own behavior. Not taking personal responsibility for their actions and choices. Cigarettes, alcohol, bad tv, gambling, etc. Are all ok in small doses once in a while. But if you choose to let yourself get lost in these activities then that is on you.
Everyone involved in the production and subsequent advertising of Baby Shark should be shot at dawn. Psychological warfare isn't cool.
Companies not putting basic contact information, such as a telephone number or email on their websites. Try contacting any of the big social media companies about a problem! Which brings me to the over use of FAQ sections instead of contact details. When you are trying to talk to them about retrieving a business account password and you are given options like "I am trying to retrieve my account because my hamster now has diabetes"
Soap Operas eg Eastenders always negative and miserable why does anyone enjoy watching this pointless negative garbage?
Answers here vary wildly... 'ads', 'social media', 'war'. And then in the comments, two replies in a row say: 'racism', 'sprouts!'. I have to admit, the juxtaposition really made me laugh. If anyone is organising a march or protest against both racism and sprouts, please let me know asap.
Do you mean brussel sprouts? If so, I'm with Auntriarch, more for me! Especially if they're drenched with cheese sauce!!!
Load More Replies...