Be Gone Nuisance!

I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of blog posts about nuclear weapons. However, I’ve seen The Man in the High Castle. It’s not pretty. It’s not pretty what happened with the nuclear bomb. Mankind is not pretty. Overall, we’re a pretty ugly species. From nuclear weapons, the immediate fatalities are estimated to be between 129,000 and 226,000. There are hundreds of thousands of fatalities annually from firearms. When all is said and done, if we didn’t invent these things, we would have invented other things to kill or maim other people. We’ve been doing it since we existed. Before guns, it was arrows. Before arrows, it was rocks.

No, there has to be something that could be un-invented that is much more poetic to un-invent. If I could, I would eradicate something like single-use plastics or asbestos. Un-inventing those would save a lot of lives. But there are things that we don’t even think are problematic and wreak havoc on our society.

Take, for example, social media algorithms that are designed to increase engagement. While social media has many benefits, the algorithms designed to maximize user engagement have been criticized for promoting addiction, mental health issues, the spread of misinformation, and creating echo chambers that exacerbate societal divisions. These algorithms prioritize content that elicits strong emotional reactions, often at the expense of well-being and societal harmony.

Synthetic opioids are another good one to un-invent. Including drugs like fentanyl, synthetic opioids are extremely potent and have contributed significantly to the opioid crisis. They are responsible for a high number of overdose deaths due to their potency and the ease with which they can be misused. While they have medical uses, their widespread availability and misuse have led to a public health crisis

Otherwise, what about payday loans? Have you fallen victim to them as well? These are short-term, high-interest loans that are often targeted at low-income individuals. Payday loans can trap people in cycles of debt due to their exorbitant interest rates and fees, exacerbating financial instability and poverty.

Each of these inventions or practices has had far-reaching and often devastating consequences, affecting health, the environment, and societal structures. Their un-invention would imply a world potentially less fraught with these specific challenges.