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Hearing from the leaders of the tech world is always revealing, and very often surprising. In our second annual Silicon Valley Insiders Poll, a panel of 101 executives, innovators, and thinkers weigh in on some of the biggest technological, political, and cultural questions of the moment.
So when we ran an unscientific poll of leaders and thinkers in tech, we had to ask: Which technology do you wish you could un-invent? What innovation do you think should go "back in the box" and be banished forever?
The two winning responses were: selfie sticks and nuclear weapons.
But let's go through some runners-up first.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/what-would-you-un-invent/413818/
Which inventions would Soylentils like to un-invent?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2015, @09:53AM
The iron. If the iron went away then the obsession with having flat clothes would disappear too, and everybody would be happy with creased clothes, and we could all save hours of our lives not pointlessly flattening clothes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2015, @12:54PM
ironing was initially useful as a sterilization technique (in particular for linen).
not that I don't disagree that the obsession with smooth clothes is stupid.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 06 2015, @02:18PM
Lose the powered clothes dryer. What does a dryer do, really? Mostly, make clothes dry faster. Clothes dry perfectly well without one. Yes, lines and racks work even in fairly humid climates. The downsides are dryers run up your energy bill, they wear out your clothes faster, and they don't save much on labor. You have to move clothes from the washer to the dryer, then from dryer to storage. Why can't racks be set up so they are both drying and storage, then you'd only have to move clothes from washer direct to storage.
What I find incredible is the resistance I get, especially from women. People love the stupid things. They claim that dryers also soften the clothes, which somehow is very, very important. Actually, they do only a little softening, unless a softener is used. Lot of those softener sheets are incredibly toxic, full of phthalates and other nasty chemicals. Softening really isn't needed, one minute of wear softens stiff clothes up quite well.
Is it that the dryer has become enshrined as another means of showing off your wealth by wasting energy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2015, @08:49PM
Wow, when you go running off the rails, you go all the way, don't you?
(Score: 2) by ese002 on Friday November 06 2015, @10:21PM
Lose the powered clothes dryer. What does a dryer do, really? Mostly, make clothes dry faster. Clothes dry perfectly well without one. Yes, lines and racks work even in fairly humid climates.
Actually no, they don't work well in humid climates. They word adequately providing only light weight clothing is needed and it does not rain. They also require a lot of room. Generally too much to dry inside. Then you get into situation I ran into in Borneo some years ago:
No dryers available. So I wash my clothes and put them on the line. After several hours of overcast skys, my lightweight clothing is almost dry. Then it rains.
OK. I leave my clothes on the line. Again, after several hours my clothes are almost dry and it rains again.
I gave up. I took them to a them to a laundry service. But they don't have dryers either. After a couple more days I collect my still moist but basically wearable clothes. They smell a little moldy.
And that is with lightweight, mostly thin polyester travel clothing. If would have been much worse with the heavier cotton clothing, especially jeans, that I wear here.
Granted, it does not rain as often here but it is also much colder in winter time and that retards drying too. Where I grew up it was grey skies, humid, and freezing for weeks on end in Winter time and you don't want to go outside in wet clothing in that environment.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday November 06 2015, @11:48PM
I dry indoors on a rack which is more compact than a line. So I don't have to worry about rain or bird shit. The only possible problem is slow drying in high humidity which promotes mildew. But that only happens when you have too many clothes close together or they are hung over a line. I use a hanger to hang them which promotes air to move around the inside of the clothing to allow for better drying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:44AM
You couldn't find any dryers in Borneo (even the laundry service), but in Borneo you could not dry your clothes without one?
The locals must love walking around in wet clothes all the time...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday November 06 2015, @02:34PM
Who the heck still irons clothes?
The only time I have to do that is when I put on my interview suit.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday November 06 2015, @03:05PM
Seriously...I don't even own one of the damn things.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2015, @04:11PM
You don't own clothes? :-)
(Score: 1) by J053 on Friday November 06 2015, @09:52PM
(Score: 2) by Snow on Friday November 06 2015, @08:51PM
I iron my shirt every morning before I put it on for work.
I don't fold my laundry the second that it comes out of the dryer, so it's always wrinkled. I iron it before I put it on so I don't look like a bum. It only takes 30 seconds, and then I have a warm shirt to put on.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Friday November 06 2015, @10:47PM
Who the heck still irons clothes?
Everyone in Brazil who doesn't want nasty parasitic infestations in their clothes owns an iron and uses it religiously. Every household I visited there had an iron that puts to shame anything you'd buy in the U.S.; something like this [appliancesonlineblog.com.au] was typical. Literally everything got ironed, including underwear, denim jeans, and t-shirts. Steam ironing is effective at killing bugs that like to live in cloth and feed on humans, so it's a pretty serious quality of life issue. Be glad to live somewhere temperate where you have the option to skip out on ironing.
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