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
I am asking a dumb question - do we have any technology that can see metal in shallow plane of land from above? Is it just no one want to spend the time/money in these areas?
Land mines are designed to not be detectible by metal detectors, otherwise it would be too easy for the enemy to remove them. The most efficient method is to clear them with heavy equipment (flails, bulldozers, etc), but that requires significant capital investment, and isn't practical in all terrain.
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At the end of last year they cleared the last remaining landmine from the Falklands. They had been placed there in the war almost 40 years previously. One benefit though, some of the beaches were unusable for humans as we didn't know 'exactly' where they were but that they were around these areas and so you find the most spectacularly beautiful, untouched by humans for 4 decades, full of wildlife and penguins rearing their young.
The element I find most disturbing is that there are many people who spend their entire working lives endeavouring ways to kill more people more efficiently. For example, mines that will spring up to 3 feet and explode in a horizontal plane. Or the cluster bombs that will leave mines on damaged roads/runways so that the driver of the bulldozer will effectively target himself as he levels the ground. There are far too many other examines to list here, each more vile.
EVERYTHING can be turned into a weapon. EVERYTHING. Saying that we should ban all weapons [I mean who would disagree] means you are going to ban a LOT of tech, from wires to gasoline to salt. And, yes, I agree. But like a former POW told me, the point of war is to kill them so that they don't kill you.
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In El Salvador, during the civil war, the guerrilla set rudimentary "pipe bombs" made with PVC pipes, bolts, and powder on the plantations of rich families. This tactic caused the death and thousands of farmworkers' mutilations, which didn't have any alternative.
Unless they had pressure triggers not the same. People still put IEDs all over, but a land mine is worse as there is no one setting it off it just sits there for years or decades waiting for something to trigger it.
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- It is estimated that there are 110 million land mines in the ground right now. An equal amount is in stockpiles waiting to be planted or destroyed. - Mines cost between $3 and $30, but the cost of removing them is $300 to $1000. - The cost of removing all existing mines would be $50- to $100-billion. - According to the 'International Campaign to Ban Landmines network', more than 4,200 people, of whom 42% are children, have been falling victim to landmines annually in many of the countries affected by war or in post-conflict situations around the world. http://www.landminefree.org/2017/index.php/support/facts-about-landmines
One line says they're expensive then the very next says they are cheap..?
Land mines ARE horrible and this isn't in anyway meant to make it sound like it is but I recently ran across this online and thought I should share this. A great example of human ingenuity. Mine-Kafon...9951a6.jpg 
https://cranemarket.com/blog/komatsu-demining-machine-completes-disposal-of-landmines-in-angola/
But U.S.A. refuses in 1997 to sign the ban of these deadly weapons..... Ottawa Treat, 1997.
All munitions, you can find grenades, mortar rounds, bombs, tank shells etc etc But those are unstable and its chance it might be inert and safe its super risky. While land mine has a proxy device on it of some kind, and there is no "well it might be inert car ran over it didn't blow up." Were as people go "well it hit ground hard never went off, so might be a dude." With a mine you just always assume its live, old munitions its amazing how many just assume its a dud
Load More Replies... During WWII the Soviets used to send children, holding hands, across an area that might have been mined. Witnessed by Americans at the Poltava Air Base. The Germans used to fly over at night and drop mines around the runways. The Soviet commander would order children from the school to walk down the runways to "clear" them. The American Commander of the planes complained as did all the Americans and the Soviets told them that if they didn't "like it" they could leave.
This is one of those things you hear and go "insane" and you go i know right, I heard it, its like ok so no proof at all. Sounds like cold propaganda. Prably was german POWs or something still horrible but saying kids from local school sounds better, the prisoners on death row, or something else. I mean after the first kid exploded that school wouldn't have kids returning again, and no kid would go back out there. Now if its people at gun point the US can't stop them from pointing guns at, that I would believe.
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Does this mean landmines as in foot mines, or the bigger ones? What a dumb question. I just realised I answered it myself...
Yeah because firstworlders who flock to this click bait never got worry about landmines lol So yeah I find them bad, but I am more concerned about coyote stealing my new puppy out of the back yard lol
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"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.
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...