Necessity is the mother of invention. Well I'm here to tell you that Mom has been dead for quite some time now. Really, what was the last thing we NEEDED? Do we really NEED faster computers? probably not. Do we really NEED TV's with brighter pictures and more colors in 3d so realistic that you feel like you could trip a contestant on Dancing with the Burnt out Stars? I don't think so. Yet every year we get more and more clever in our inventions. Well, before we go too far, here are some we don't need. If you are inventing them. Please stop.
10. Light Saber- I can still remember seeing Star Wars for the first time. When I saw Luke handle that elegant weapon for the first time. I thought to myself. 'It really isn't clumsy like a blaster'. Here is the problem. If we had light sabers we would see buildings crumble within a day. Kids and adults would not be able to resist just taking chunks out of stuff all the time. We would use light sabers to do all of our digging and demolition weather or not we actually needed to do it. We would want to get in light saber battles. It would all be fun and games till someone loses a hand. Seems like a cool idea, but yeah, if we get those invented, nothing good would follow.
9. Lie Detector - We are on the verge of being able to force the truth from everyone. Scientists have discovered some of the areas involved in
telling lies and telling truth. Great. now we can know the truth from everyone all the time. Is this what we really want? remember the Gilligan's Island when they found sunflower seed that let you read everyone's mind? Well if you didn't it goes like this. Gilligan can all of the sudden read peoples minds. nobody knows how but they will be lam-basted if they are going to let that scrawny kid have that secret alone. They find some ancient seeds that allow you to hear the thoughts of others. Well now that everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts, There is nothing but trouble. Ends up being one of the myriad reasons they never get rescued so Gilligan burns the seed bush and they can go back to thinking nasty thoughts about each other in relative obscurity.
8. a REAL universal solvent - Water is known as the universal solvent. This is great except it is neither universal nor is it a solvent. But that's a different story. If you actually could find something that would continue to eat away through everything well, what would you hold it in? I think you can see where I'm going here. I think all the universal solvents are already located in the middle of the earth where gravity collects it into a small ball.
7. Holo-suite rooms - Back in the 90's Star Trek introduced the Holo Deck. The idea was that computers generate an artificial reality that allows you to live any fantasy you have alone and without
Mr. Rourke. A room was created that had holographic emitters that would partially project and partially create a reality based on what was programmed into it. You want to go to another planet? just feed the characteristics of the planet into the computer and boom, there you are. You want to know what it's like at a Scottish Caper Toss? Tell the computer and it will re-create a tournament for you. What's the problem with this? Are you kidding? If you have a room where you can have anything you want, why in the world would you leave that room? This would cause more inactivity than a Junior High Dance. Fall of civilization. Bad Idea.
6. That house I planned when I was 10 - When I was 10 I drew a house. Not just a house, but a sprawling mansion that would have been the envy of secret agents and despotic dictators alike. This house had slides and elevators as well as a moat with sharks and flame throwers. It had looping roller coasters in the back yard and a gigantic maze that only I knew the exact path through that also had hungry animals and laser shooting robots. This house should never be built. Aspects of this house should never be built. This is why kids don't run corporations or countries. Because their ideas are probably even more dangerous than they are amusing. The house design shown here is eerily similar to the house I designed with some minor differences.
5. Wristwatches - We are nearing the end of the wristwatch era. Soon nobody will wear them. Why? Because nobody needs them. But long ago, the wristwatch was a rite of passage in a young persons life. When you had a watch, you had some responsibility, you had to be somewhere, you had schedules to adhere to. Sure you still have those now, but with smart phones taking over the world, the wristwatch is really only there to look good. Why should they never have invented them? Because then I wouldn't have been given one. Then I wouldn't have lost it. Then I wouldn't have fretted and worried about the ramifications of losing said watch. Then I wouldn't have finally gotten into trouble for losing the watch. yeah, screw watches...and schedules.
4. Personal Robots - Ok remember what I said before about Holo-suite rooms? This is the same problem on a smaller scale. Once again we are bidding computers to take the drudgery away from our lives. Now robots can be our assistants, our personal guardians, our home maintenance. They can do it all. All we have to do is relax and think of what to do with all our free time assuming we don't have holo-suites. This is where the computers wonder why they are doing all this stuff for us, since they figured out how to oil themselves long before. BANG. End of civilization again.
3. Flying Cars - Have you seen people driving cars in 2 dimensions? It's laughable at best. You really expect me to believe that if you add one more dimension and let the same people fly a car that currently drive them that this would be a good idea for anyone? There is a good reason it's hard to get training and fly a plane. Because we don't want idiots doing it.
2. Animal to English Translator - I'm pretty sure it would be fun to hear what animals are thinking. A long time ago there was a TV movie called day of the Dolphin. I don't remember much from that show, but I DO remember that it was creepy when the Dolphins started talking. When my kids were young I would make animal voices and tell my kids what animals were saying. So much that they would ask 'whats that cat saying dad?' and I would come up with some pithy cat like comment like 'You all bore me' or 'Where is my lasagna'. If we were to really hear what animals were thinking, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't like a lot of what we hear.
1. Transporter - I've mentioned Transporters before in my blogs. While it may be possible and certainly interesting, ultimately it would be a really really bad idea. If we had transporters. Disneyland would immediately raise their prices to 2000$ for park entrance and a churro would run you about 50 bucks. Why? Well because everyone in the world could go anywhere they wanted too and a LOT of people want to go to Disneyland. But that's not all. Imagine how many people would like to visit the beach in the summer but can't? well they ALL can now. great. local overpopulation and then everyone leaves. The Hotel industry would be all but extinct. Cars would evaporate of course except for the sport of it. Not having the barrier of travel would be impossible to live with. If you live in a nice place, everyone will be there. If you live in a crap town neighborhood. It will be a ghost town instantly. Definitely a bad idea.
Thanks for reading. DON'T INVENT THESE THINGS! Come back in 15 days or so!
