With technology and nearly everything around us developed in leaps and bounds nowadays, it’s clear that innovation has become one of the driving forces for change in our world. However, not all inventions or innovative solutions have resulted in positive change only, which is why some people would rather that they weren’t invented in the first place.
Members of the ‘ Ask Reddit ’ community recently discussed what things they would like to “dis-invent” if they had a chance. With answers ranging from cigarettes to social media, netizens provided some interesting perspectives, which you can find on the list below. Scroll down to view their answers and learn what inventions might not have changed our world for the better .
Influencers.
satanscough_ , Ivan Samkov / pexels Report
Child Beauty Pageants. They just seem really toxic and creepy.
evilprozac79 , TLC UK Report
Pop-up ads. ChefExcellent13: The creator of them even apologized for creating them.
AviatorShades_ , Pascale PirateChickan / flickr Report
Mandatory cookies to view websites.
Mandrake_m2 , BBC Report
Certain dog breeds, like all the brachycephalic (flat-nosed dogs such as frenchies and bull dogs).
tnderosa , Creative Workshop / pexels Report
The tipping option when I check out on those computers at the checkout counter. Euphoric_Wolf7227: Maybe tips in general. Just pay people for the work they do.
PotatoshavePockets , Furry-atack / reddit Report
Those nearly-blinding, unnecessarily bright car head lamps.
anonicrow , Ali Alcántara Report
Spam calls, robo calls, phishing emails.
Hungry-panda23 , Karolina Grabowska / pexels Report
Coffee Pods - they are disgustingly wasteful.
Anim8nFool , Karsten Seiferlin / flickr Report
Cars with screens on the dash. Give me back my buttons and dials goddamn it!!
bri_2498 , Jeremy Buckingham / flickr Report
Slavery.
RainbowsandCoffee966 , 60 minutes Report
Planned obsolescence. Jealous-Network1899: Here’s my go to planned obsolescence example. My mom bought her first microwave in 1984. It’s traveled to 3 houses and still works perfect. She redid her kitchen and got all new appliances EXCEPT for a microwave. I have lived out of the house for 23 years and have had at least 7 microwaves. They keep cr*pping out and I buy a new one. That is planned obsolescence in a nutshell.
w0rlds , cottonbro studio / pexels Report
Landmines. Seriously. They f**k up people long after wars are finished. Redshift_1: There’s an estimated 800,000 TONS of unexploded ordnance still in Vietnam, that would take hundreds of years to clear out. For context, the bomb dropped in Hiroshima had a yield of about 15,000 tons of TNT.
NaughtyDaisyDelight , HH58 / Wikipedia Report
The medical insurance industry. Perturabo_Iron_Lord: The problem with modern insurance is that it’s been completely corrupted with the drive for profit. In a pure form insurance has the potential to be incredibly beneficial to the people who use it, but the profit incentive causes companies to use every trick and loophole in the book to not give out what is owed.
PizzaPastaRigatoni , Pixabay / pexels Report
Our two-tiered justice system; One for the wealthy and politically connected, and one for the rest of us.
Daflehrer1 , Sora Shimazaki / pexels Report
That dumb paper sticker that gets put on stuff that is IMPOSSIBLE to remove cleanly.
BlankWallSpace , WikiHow Report
SwiftlyIntrestedFr , Anete Lusina / pexels Report
The concept of lobbying.
Phyose , Sora Shimazaki / pexels Report
Phones and computers in which you can’t easily replace the battery.
MostlySpiders , Fairphone / flickr Report
Cigarettes.
SageOfShadows54 , Revival Vape / flickr Report
Social media. DestinyInDanger: This! It was innocent in the MySpace days. Then Facebook came along and everything after that ruined it. I don’t see anything good that has come of it. Nothing but toxicity, hate, division and arguing.
Sarcastic_Fridge , Tracy Le Blanc / pexels Report
TikTok.
PurpDoesPixilart , cottonbro studio / pexels Report
Organized religion.
JayKay11 , Woody Hibbard / flickr Report
Nuclear bomb probably. Let’s put that back in Pandora’s box.
Anonymous_katniss , Federal government of the United States / Wikipedia Report
Patents for Insulin. lutz164: I’d say medicinal patents In general, let the prices fall, and the diabetics rejoice.
ApartmentCapital8880 , Mikhail Nilov / pexels Report
The packages they put scissors in… that you need scissor to open. Wtf?
AnxiousTelephone2997 , osseous / flickr Report
Household appliances that are tied to subscription services.
TheJH2M , tomemrich / flickr Report
Vapes. Tossed mine in the trash an hour ago, though.
whatataco , Lindsay Fox / flickr Report
The ad-based internet.
mohirl , BoredPanda Report
Corporate personhood.
LordPenvelton Report
Pyramid schemes
Mandrake_m2 , Rene Asmussen / pexels Report
A lot of inventions mentioned here that have had positive outcomes alongside of negative ones. HOA’s however may look good on paper, but hath wrought no good to this world.
Dreambourne Report
Glitter. I seriously consider it to be the worst human invention.
Wayard_1 , cottonbro studio / pexels Report
CAPTCHA. That’s not a motorcycle, that’s a moped. And I still don’t think the rider should count as part of the motorcycle.
themightyfoxtwo Report
AI. OftheGates: AI for practical purposes like medicine is great. But generative AI in the way we’re mostly seeing it applied has the dual effect of putting us in an information dark age by making anything able to be fabricated, while also ruining industries based on art. Hands down my choice for what needs to be disinvented.
MooPixelArt , Djordje Petrovic / pexels Report
Advertising. The primary goal of advertising is to manufacture desire, and the Buddhists are on to something with the claim that desire is the root of all suffering. It’s the enemy of being content and satisfied with your life. It’s an omnipresent lie that’s repeated over and over that says this or that product will finally make you happy when it never will. It’s contributed to the worst parts of consumer capitalism. Cigarettes, the obesity epidemic, and more generally the mass overconsumption that has led to the rapid degradation of our planet.
lonepotatochip Report
Earphonejack-less iPhone.
ConsistentBroccoli97 Report
Plastic. Kozakyw: A gift, and a curse.
cyper_1 , Gabriel White / pexels Report
Agent orange, the chemical not the band.
punsarelazyhumor Report
The algorithms used by real-estate moguls to buy up new homes the moment they’re listed on the market.
NaiveMastermind Report
House remodels with materials so cheap they instantly need replacing.
davemchine Report
Everything that Thomas Midgley Jr invented - specifically leaded gasoline and CFCs (the things that destroyed the ozone layer). He is the person in history who can be directly attributed to the most environmental damage done by the inventions of a single person.
HappiHappiHappi , Skitterphoto / pexels Report
Autocorrect. It’s like that well-meaning friend who jumps into your conversations with totally off-base corrections. You’re trying to type something heartfelt or important, and it’s over there like, “Did you mean ‘duck’? No, Autocorrect, I did not mean to tell my boss I’ll have the report done ‘ducking soon.
negativediscord , Laura Brunow Miner / flickr Report
Micro-transactions and live-service games have completely ruined the videogame industry and I don’t see it ever recovering.
Phoenix6995 , RDNE Stock project / pexels Report
The modern credit system. It rewards bad habits that are simply good for companies.
benhereford Report
Software as a Service. Just release a full new build every few years like they used to. The concept of the Day One patch. Fix your damn software before shipping!
Sky_Katrona Report
Sticky traps. There are more humane ways. I remember crying my eyes out as a child when I found a lizard on the one my parents had under our computer desk for fleas. I tried saving him and ripped his legs off
riverandthecats Report
Single-knob showers.Those damn things can be turned like 360* around but everyone knows that there’s only a single molecule of that distance that doesn’t make the water blazing hot or frigidly cold. Two knobs. Give me my choices back.
Certain_Shine636 Report
I don’t know if I could de-invent it but I’d sure like to ban it 24-hour news cycle there was a time when people could read a paper or watch 26 minutes of news in the evening and share what they felt and saw with each other. Now everybody has to have a riot a movement lawyers it’s gone insane a lot of these people act like their babies on fire.
WolfThick Report
Those persistent forever chemicals.
AlphaCygnus6944 Report
Microsoft outlook’s search function.
Tellmeirule Report
Weapons.
Smart_Chocolate3185 , Wes Dickinson / flickr Report
VX Nerve agent.
FantasticPear Report
Speed bumps (and no,not because I speed. I don’t.).
jacyerickson Report
The smart phone. The Internet is great, and cell phones are great. Being able to so easily share your opinion and emotions has been detrimental to our society as a whole.
Aruaz821 Report
Fireworks.
Sharp_Following5753 Report
Stupid grey vinyl flooring.
marpelle Report
Personal automobile. Cars in general are fine, fire trucks and ambulances for instance. But America’s cities are designed around cars and made for them instead of people. If the automobile industry hadn’t lobbied city officials in the early twentieth century to design city’s in such a way that you need a car to live in them, then we could have cities with safe and efficient public transportation. We could have residential areas designed in such a way that you wouldn’t need a car, and we could have high speed rail between cities. Cars are expensive, polluting, inefficient, and worst of all, dangerous.
TheWanderingPrince Report
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