7
What do you think is the worst human invention?
(lemmy.world)
Advertising.
Some level of advertising is surely okay, right?
If I open a bakery and put a sign out front that says "Baked good for sale!" I don't think anyone would complain but that IS advertising.
This begs the question: What level of advertising is okay?
I can't specify a threshold, but it really comes down to the level of invasiveness.
The only correct answer in this thread.
It's the biggest industry in the world by a very large margin and the most destructive one on a global scale.
Cars are too prevalent in most countries, but they are undeniably very useful when used correctly. I would probably say the social media does more harm than cars, but idk if it's the worst invention. Lots of candidates.
What about the idea of burning oil products in general? Sure, that made powerful and light engines possible, and they have transformed economies, logistics, trade, and entire countries. However, if we hadn’t invented that, progress would have been a lot slower.
Nevertheless, I would argue that the past 200 years of industrial progress weren’t worth the climate crisis.
Social Media is too prevalent in most countries, but it is undeniably very useful when used correctly.
Completely disagree because social media has done little to nothing to advance society.
Cars can at least be linked to more people able to travel further distances. Social media? "But I can still talk to my friend in another country". I could too in the late 80s.
It's called a telephone.
I've been alive long enough to have become an adult before social media happened.
Social media is the correct answer.
I've never witnessed something have a more detrimental effect on society.
As an American, our discourse, especially political, went absolutely apeshit at the same time social media and smart phones started becoming a household thing. We absolutely would not be in the situation we currently find ourselves if not for social media.
There are simply too many ignorant humans for social media to be anything other than a total disaster.
Religion. So many of today's issues stem from the magical thinking inherent in religion.
It's easily disprovable, but even in the face of countless arguments against it, people still willingly throw themselves into it by the millions. They're too fearful of the unknown, they're fearful of belonging somewhere when we die and religion is the prime example of how easily controllable people are when they're fearful.
Shareholders.
It's likely LLMs in their current corporate circular funding form and cryptocurrency.
I think it has to be something that poses an existential threat to human life on this planet, so cars (and other inventions dependent on fossil fuels) is a pretty good pick for the top of the list, IMO. I saw someone in the comments pick animal agriculture, and that, too, contributes to the existential threat of a warming planet; so that, too, feels like a good pick for the top of the list.
For me, though, nuclear weapons has to be the worst thing we've ever invented. No other invention is capable of ending human life on this planet so quickly and so thoroughly.
Religion
Animal agriculture.
industrialization.
it's caused unfathomable damage to us, our planet, and the organisms we share our world with.
it's also saved just as many as it's harmed, but there is an upper limit when our planet dies and we all die with it.
Lead pipes.
Customer service. People have normalized that positions of power can be used to abuse others.
Capitalism.
A financial system that breeds billionaires
car alarms
It's a three way tie between:
-
Leaded Gas
-
Aerosols
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Nuclear bombs
Interesting fact, the same man, Thomas Midgely Jr, invented both tetraethyl-lead as a fuel additive and CFCs, almost killing everyone on earth twice over.
Karma got him in the end after he got tangled in one of his contraptions after he became bedridden with polio and died of strangulation.
I first read of him in Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything (fantastic book). It really shows how awful this man was.
I also love this quote from the wiki article on his legacy -
He "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history".
So far crypto currencies. So far they seem to expend a huge amount of electricity and used mostly for speculation.
Either leaded gasoline or pfas
Leaded gasoline is an Amazing answer. Fuck. Take my UpDoot.
Meta
nuclear weapons, too feckin dangerous to have
I'm in mixed mind about them because you're right, they're too destructive, but for the time being their existence has prevented conflicts from breaking out, and since wars are typically only waged with the promise of financing it afterwards via looting or expansion, nobody is really willing to render land unusable in the process of conquering it.
Cursive handwriting. Sorry, everything you wrote is useless because nobody, not even you, can read it.
Cursive handwriting is actually the standard in Brazil (and I guess a lot of other places), so here you would be the odd one out.
I work in a museum, the amount of data lost due to illegible cursive handwriting is staggering.
Greed
Greed isn't an invention, it's a personality defect
Civilization is pretty catastrophic from every perspective besides humans and their parasocial relationships.
Reject culture. Return to nature.
You're typing this on a small computer.
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
7 points (76.9% liked)
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