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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: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 06 2015, @02:38PM
While you're on the subject of urban living, how about drastically changing lawn care? How ever did we allow ourselves to be suckered into spending so much time and money on lawns? It's nuts. We have powered lawn mowers, riding lawn mowers, edgers, weed whackers, weed killers, leaf blowers, fertilizers, insecticides, and automatic sprinkler systems. Is your lawn Roundup Ready? All that crap could go. The lawn care industrial complex tries to smear most native plants as weeds, and a few dozen exotic, non-native, high maintenance plants as desirable.
We have crazily gone as far as enshrining lawn care in law. We have insane city ordinances about it that have even lead to people being jailed for not mowing their lawns enough.
And yes, our love affair with the car has gone too far. I'd like to see some of that highway money spent on pedestrians and cyclists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2015, @09:22PM
A great many cities also have restrictions on how high your "lawn" can be and strictly enforce that.
As such, you can't use that land to grow food.
I really hate waste and this stuff figures prominently on my list.
...and 1 lawnmower per household when 1 per neighborhood would last most of a lifetime is also poor use of resources.
One of my un-invent-it technologies is the leaf blower.
It doesn't actually clean anything (as was done with rakes and brooms in previous generations).
It just makes the mess someone else's problem.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2015, @09:50PM
"One of my un-invent-it technologies is the leaf blower.
It doesn't actually clean anything (as was done with rakes and brooms in previous generations).
It just makes the mess someone else's problem."
Yes and yes....
Leaves in the drainage system just clog it up. When they get to the rivers it turns to tea. Then in the gulf, bays, oceans; it becomes an algae bloom. Kills all the good fish.
Down with leaf blowers. Make then vacuum and then process the leafs for something good.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday November 07 2015, @03:16AM
In that case, someone should cut down all the trees along the riverbanks...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.