# What do you think is the most useless development/invention of the last 50 years? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 2, 2018, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888 "2018-11-02T14:05:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/121 "2018-11-04T18:18:53Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Jesus H. Christ. These kinds of posts can’t be sincere. > > Does someone here really need to post an essay explaining the usefulness of mobile phones and smart phones? Slightly hyperbolic, perhaps, but my disdain for smart phone addiction is definitely sincere. I even have one, but only because there was no non-smart-phone choice available from my provider, who gave me, as a long-time customer, a smart phone for free, no contract. I basically use it as an overly complicated, overly fragile, overly large dumb phone. I have a grandfathered voice-only plan, no data, and have mobile data turned off. It connects to data via my wireless at home, but the only thing I ever use it for that way is to tell me when I have email on my main account. 🙂 The other marvelous high-tech thing about smart phones that I’ll note in passing is the combination of all the functions they’re loaded with and their small size makes them so that – in my experience, at least – they are capable of doing a million different things and they do about 6 or 8 of them randomly almost every time one picks it up, because it’s impossible not to inadvertently touch the screen or a button somewhere. You’re either turning up the ringer, muting the ringer, inadvertently rearranging the icons, turning on the speakerphone, or running some stupid app you didn’t intend to activate. So I spend half my time with it trying to get it back to the way it was, rather than some state that it cleverly morphed itself into. My old dumb phone never did that, and it was half the size and practically indestructible. I had to retire it after many years only because my provider stopped supporting CDMA. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/122 "2018-11-04T20:22:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The chair was invented in the last 50 years? I was rounding down. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/123 "2018-11-04T21:13:41Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > I was rounding down. Rounding was invented in the last 50 years. Or so. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/124 "2018-11-04T21:22:16Z")
I’m not sure how widespread these are, but LA is now overrun by electric scooters, for hire by app. You find one, rent it, and just leave it at your destination. I hate them because they are dangerous–riders zipping down the sidewalk oblivious of pedestrians, listening to music or talking on the phone (or texting!) as they blithely cut in front of my car. However, I wouldn’t say they’re the most useless invention because they do have utility, it’s operator error that makes them bad. The point I wanted to make is that they use Segway tech in some way, so the Segway wasn’t a total dead end. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/125 "2018-11-04T21:30:32Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Slightly hyperbolic, perhaps, but my disdain for smart phone addiction is definitely sincere. Do you have “disdain” for addiction generally? I’m not sure why disdain is appropriate for smartphone addiction when the factors that make them addictive are functions of how the human physiology works, not the result of stupidity or moral failure on the part of addicts. The rest of your rant about how you don’t use any of the features of your phone has no relevance to overall question of whether it’s useful. > [@](#): > > The other marvelous high-tech thing about smart phones that I’ll note in passing is the combination of all the functions they’re loaded with and their small size makes them so that – in my experience, at least – they are capable of doing a million different things and they do about 6 or 8 of them randomly almost every time one picks it up, because it’s impossible not to inadvertently touch the screen or a button somewhere. This kind of thing rarely happens to me. My phone doesn’t start doing things merely because I have picked it up. > [@](#): > > You’re either turning up the ringer, muting the ringer, inadvertently rearranging the icons, turning on the speakerphone, or running some stupid app you didn’t intend to activate. So I spend half my time with it trying to get it back to the way it was, rather than some state that it cleverly morphed itself into. It seems to me that it’s you who is doing this. It’s not the phone doing it by itself. Either that or you have a phone that very badly designed compared to the usual iPhone or Samsung. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/126 "2018-11-04T23:09:15Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > You’re seriously are unaware of how vastly that accomplishment changed the world? So, how?? ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/127 "2018-11-04T23:18:02Z")
You can start here: > **[Apollo 11 moon landing: top 15 Nasa inventions](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/5893387/Apollo-11-moon-landing-top-15-Nasa-inventions.html)** > > Nasa scientists have pioneered more than 6,300 technologies during their bid to understand space that are now routinely used in day-to-day living. and here: > **[80660main\_ApolloFS.pdf](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS.pdf)** > > 385.79 KB ---
**Author:** ![bizerta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@bizerta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizerta)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/128 "2018-11-04T23:55:50Z")
Thigh master. Olestra ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/129 "2018-11-05T00:20:52Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > I understand these machines create a legitimate risk of hostile actors being able to forge votes. If only John Wilkes Booth had access to a touch screen voting machine, he could have thrown the 1864 election to George McClellan. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/130 "2018-11-05T00:26:18Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > I’m not sure how widespread these are, but LA is now overrun by electric scooters, for hire by app. You find one, rent it, and just leave it at your destination. I hate them because they are dangerous–riders zipping down the sidewalk oblivious of pedestrians, listening to music or talking on the phone (or texting!) as they blithely cut in front of my car. However, I wouldn’t say they’re the most useless invention because they do have utility, it’s operator error that makes them bad. The point I wanted to make is that they use Segway tech in some way, so the Segway wasn’t a total dead end. [It was a dead end for one of the company’s owners.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Heselden) ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/131 "2018-11-05T00:45:27Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > You can start here: > [Apollo 11 moon landing: top 15 Nasa inventions](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/5893387/Apollo-11-moon-landing-top-15-Nasa-inventions.html) > > and here: > [https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main\_ApolloFS.pdf](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS.pdf) So, there never would have been freeze-dried food or home insulation had _ **$600 billion** _ of taxpayer money not been sunk into NASA? ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/132 "2018-11-05T01:32:59Z")
In my opinion, the tablet. There’s nothing it can do that a laptop can’t; it doesn’t have a real keyboard; and it’s too big to fit in a pocket like a smartphone. For the life of me I cannot understand why tablets are a thing. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/133 "2018-11-05T01:42:14Z")
My iPad weighs less than my laptop and has a way longer battery life. It also has a mucher larger screen than my phone. It’s perfectly balanced for media consumption. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/134 "2018-11-05T01:45:03Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > In my opinion, the tablet. There’s nothing it can do that a laptop can’t; it doesn’t have a real keyboard; and it’s too big to fit in a pocket like a smartphone. For the life of me I cannot understand why tablets are a thing. Almost all the “cash registers” I see now are tablet computers. So they seem to be useful for something. I also see a lot of people sitting in coffee shops writing in tablets with a portable keyboard. They don’t like carrying around laptops. If anything. I suspect that tablet will eat in to a huge proportion of the laptop market. When my wife and I were buying a house five years ago, the fact that my wife had an iPad and could access real estate documents on them. The iPhone was too small to do it comfortably. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/135 "2018-11-05T01:50:02Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > So, there never would have been freeze-dried food or home insulation had _ **$600 billion** _ of taxpayer money not been sunk into NASA? How about these? > [@](#): > > 1. CAT scanner: this cancer-detecting technology was first used to find imperfections in space components. > > 2. Computer microchip: modern microchips descend from integrated circuits used in the Apollo Guidance Computer. > > Nasa scientists have pioneered more than 6,300 technologies during their bid to understand space that are now routinely used in day-to-day living. [NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/techtransfer) > [@](#): > > NASA’s Technology Transfer Program, managed by STMD, ensures that technologies developed for missions in exploration and discovery are broadly available to the public, maximizing the benefit to the Nation. Learn more by visiting the Technology Transfer Portal. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/136 "2018-11-05T02:15:36Z")
To be fair, the idea of basic research leading to other applications and one invention leading to another really seems to me to be beside the point of this kind of question. I think it’s fair to ask about the usefulness of the Saturn V rocket by itself for this kind of exercise rather than the usefulness of other inventions that are somehow related to the development process of the rocket. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/137 "2018-11-05T02:25:42Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > To be fair, the idea of basic research leading to other applications and one invention leading to another really seems to me to be beside the point of this kind of question. > > I think it’s fair to ask about the usefulness of the Saturn V rocket by itself for this kind of exercise rather than the usefulness of other inventions that are somehow related to the development process of the rocket. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/138 "2018-11-05T02:27:52Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Almost all the “cash registers” I see now are tablet computers. So they seem to be useful for something. > > I also see a lot of people sitting in coffee shops writing in tablets with a portable keyboard. They don’t like carrying around laptops. If anything. I suspect that tablet will eat in to a huge proportion of the laptop market. > > When my wife and I were buying a house five years ago, the fact that my wife had an iPad and could access real estate documents on them. The iPhone was too small to do it comfortably. I agree tablets are useful. But I’m dubious of the technical distinction between “mobile” devices and laptops / desktops and their capabilities. Is there a reason to believe this divide in functionality is necessary, and not a marketing strategy to ensure we buy more than one kind of device? Is there a reason a tablet can’t have the exact same capability of desktop computer? There are laptop / tablet hybrids, but there seems to be some technical gymnastics necessary to make them work that way. Why can’t I have a tablet that is a essentially a desktop computer, with all the associated functionality? I suspect “they” don’t want us to have that. If true, I’ll nominate it for one of our bad developments or inventions. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/139 "2018-11-05T02:28:13Z")
Every 7 minutes, someone shits out a Javascript framework that is more useless than the one that preceded it. I feel like that’s got to add up pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888/140 "2018-11-05T02:49:34Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > There are laptop / tablet hybrids, but there seems to be some technical gymnastics necessary to make them work that way. Why can’t I have a tablet that is a essentially a desktop computer, with all the associated functionality? I suspect “they” don’t want us to have that. Does the Surface not meet this requirement? I’s a tablet that’s a fully functional computer that you can attach a keyboard to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-useless-development-invention-of-the-last-50-years/823888.md?page=8)