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What do you think is the worst human invention?
(lemmy.world)
Leaded gasoline
Slavery
imperialism, facism, slavery, torturing, ... can't pick one
Advertising & Marketing.
AKA "crystallising public opinion" & "public relations" (propaganda & psyops).
Especially as from Ed Bernays (who inspired Hitler, Anslinger & Hearst).
if we are not talking concepts or ways of doing things or such and stick to just actually physically made products that are mass produced and widely bought. I thought I was going somewhere but so much stuff is concepts. If you don't have gunpowder there are all sorts of other explosives and not have cars does not necessarily mention not having engines and if you do an engine type then you just have it all under a different engine type. Going to one specific thing I think would not really do anything but make a kind of knowledge hole because something that is ultimately going to be obvious is just not done for some magical reason. Honestly it all comes down to regulation and laws and such. I mean the amish don't have to deal with cars and smartphones even though they exist. Its really on us to use things or not use them responsibly.
Capitalism and religion. Or the other way round, couldn't pick one.
Capitalism.
Internal combustion engines.
If we only had the electric motor public transport would've been the norm rather than cars.
We'd be in way better shape now.
Clickbait.
And the most annoying type of clickbait is, I'm not sure what their official names are, but I'll call them smudge dots.
It's those little red dots Android/iOS puts on apps whose function is to get you to click on their apps so that you must use the apps the way they want you to, just so that you can remove the smudge off your phone which they'll add back anyway.
It's what prevented me from returning to these OSes at all cost.
[tortures you]
I absolutely hate those, I feel such a strong need to clear them even if I know that I'll waste my time by clicking them. They are useful when there's something you actually want to read behind those notifications, but it's ridiculously abused by all mainstream software.
CGNAT, easily
religion
Good one. Mass religion with priests and offerings et cetera is responsible for a while lot of shit.
private property
That's not really an invention.
Since the first of our evolutionary ancestors played with a leaf private property had existed.
I'd say nukes, as they are the only human invention so far that can end all of life as we know it in an instant. I still can't blame the countries who built them as a response to the US wanting to use them to become world ruler, which they absolutely would have done if the other countries didn't also build nukes. But simply as an invention leaving politics aside, fuck nukes.
The "as we know it" is doing a lot of work.
In a nuclear war loads of people wouldn't die but would love unhappily ever after.
In a nuclear war loads of people wouldn't die but would love unhappily ever after.
I think it'd be hard to get into the mood at all tbh.
Noep nukes are good for world peace actually we are having a confrontation between the US and Russia and the nukes are closing off higher conventional escalation options. Everybody needs a nuke
Everybody needs a nuke
and yet, my campaign slogan "a gun in every pocket and a nuke in every bedroom" didn't really seem to resonate with the voters.
Still, there have been really close calls historically which were only avoided because of some good decisions by individuals (e.g. Vasily Arkhipov. These could happen again with less wise decisions made. Not saying that any countries having them today could be getting rid of them realistically without the US waiting outside their door, but one day when we will hopefully be living in more peaceful times without imperialists, we should be putting them in the time capsule of history along with the system that made them necessary in the first place.
one day when we will hopefully be living in more peaceful times without imperialists
You don't read much history? Humans have never lived in widespread peace for any length of time. We have evidence of violence between groups of humans well back into the Stone Age. We are not a species prone to peace.
Not sure why you have a snarky tone about it, but there definitely have been times in human history that were not using war as a means of carving out resources and spheres of influence. Comparing tribes fighting to today's reasons for war is pretty pointless, and so is defining a immutable "human nature". If anything, the nature of humans is to change their nature.
Ads.
Cross posting
The nuclear bomb, easily.
.....Proprietary software is a very distant second place.
Portable speakers
The mc rib
Donald tr*mps spraytan
Portable speakers?? So you'd rather have it blasting off their phone with the awful tinny bass?
I'd rather they use headphones. Or take up cliff diving.
You take that back about the McRib right now
money
Money is fine. Financialization is not.
Money isn't really a thing that was invented.
As soon as you assign a value to something then money exists. Notes or coins are just a convenient way to represent that value.
Not exactly. If you’re interested in the history of money and how it works, you should check out Finding The Money
Reminds me of this video (0:55) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RygikaUoRU4
The references in that video contradict its own content.
There is no evidence, historical or contemporary, of a society in which barter is the main mode of exchange;[27][26] instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy and debt.[25][24] When barter did in fact occur, it was usually between either complete strangers or potential enemies.[29]
The documentary “Finding The Money” has a takedown of this exact myth (Link to timestamp)
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
13 points (81.0% liked)
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