Right off the top of my head, I’d have to say that weapons of war have probably done more harm than good in this world…but I’m sure some people would argue with me on that one…
What invention do you think has done more harm than good?
AskReddit users shared their thoughts.
1. You’ve seen it everywhere.
“Popcorn ceilings.
Some of the older ones have asbestos in them too!
So keep that in mind if you have a roof leak or ceiling damage.”
2. Wasting water.
“Those low flow toilets that result in you wasting more water because you have to flush it multiple times to get it to take a log down.
Best solution I’ve seen is a toilet with two buttons, one for a half flush, and one for a full flush.”
3. Agreed.
“The 24-hour news cycle.
At a certain point reporting facts stopped being the primary goal of such channels, instead they report whatever will keep viewers watching.
Works ok for a 30 min news segment, but with 24 hrs that ends up over sensationalizing every little story.”
4. What’s your score?
“Credit card scores.
“Hi yes can I purchase car?” “Do you have credit?” “Uh…no I’ve been using cash to buy things. ” “Then sorry, no. Must have credit. ” “Ok can I apply for some credit then?” “Sorry, we can’t give you credit because you have no history of credit.””
5. All mixed up.
“The polygraph test.
Even its inventor, John Larson, regretted it upon realizing how law enforcement would exploit the average citizen with it.”
6. Very annoying.
“Pop-up ads.
Think of all the malware and viruses that people have fallen victim to because of pop-up ads, plus they are just annoying.
Even the inventor of them apologized for creating them.”
7. Bad news.
“Individually packaged foods and snacks.
I work at a grocery store and it’s abhorrent to me how much c**p there is and how well it sells. I mean, Christ, yesterday I stocked “Nutella to go” packs that are… Nutella with pretzel sticks.
They’re tiny and come in small plastic tubs. Or those large bags of Reese’s cups that come individually wrapped, or these ridiculous 1oz bags of freeze dried fruit that we sell which are absurdly popular, especially for how relatively expensive they are at $3 a bag.
I get that plastic itself isn’t bad, but this is egregious to me, especially with how much my generation (I’m 34) has had overuse of landfills drilled into our skulls.”
8. ABA.
“Applied Behavior Analysis. Used a ton in kids with autism.
If I recall correctly, it’s almost like a dog training method where you have a behavior from a child and you reward the child when the behavior is exhibited.”
9. Everyone has an opinion…
“Twitter.
Despite little amount of the population using it, it still brought a toxic culture to the world.
We didn’t need to hear about every person’s opinions about everything.”
10. It’s ingrained in us.
“The 40 hour work week.
Who decided you need to work this much in order to make enough money to even be considered worthy of survival? I could understand that regularly having people commit to 40 hours of hard work thats equally distributed would hypothetically improve efficiency and push us toward a better future, but holy f**k is it not working.
Mental health issues, goverment dependency, and poverty shouldnt be an issue for the employed. The current wage disparity between minimum wage and livable wage is a joke.”
11. Done a lot of harm.
“‘The war on drugs’ and the opioid crisis.
Greatest pyramid scheme off all time.”
12. Hmmm…
“Social media, without a doubt.
Detrimental to mental development and leads to cognitive decline (especially Twitter, studies say), leads to a lack of diversity of opinion, produces insanely unrealistic and niche expectations that are harmful to young people especially.
And the list goes on.”
13. History lesson.
“There’s been really interesting discourse relating to the cotton gin.
Prior to the cotton gin, many farmers did not consider cotton to be a worthwhile crop to grow, as it was so tough to process due to the seeds in cotton that the amount of slaves it would take just to process a small amount by hand would cost more than the cotton they would produce.
With the invention of the cotton gin, a few number of slaves could process essentially as much cotton as you could produce. This skyrocketed demand for slaves in the Americas, and while slavery obviously had existed for quite some time in America, the invention of the cotton gin doubled the amount of slaves in 10 years, and multiplied fivefold by 1850.
This invention propelled the chattel slavery of the South to new heights, you could make the argument its invention profoundly compounded all racial issues in America since its inception.”
What invention do you think did more harm than good?
Let us know in the comments.
Thanks in advance!
