I recently read a short story by Neil
Gaiman about a man who travels back in time, “uninventing” products that have
done more harm than good. He decides
that having spaceships that can travel to distant galaxies is bad for mankind, so
he goes back in time and ensures that they were never invented. He is annoyed by the constant traffic jams in
the sky caused by flying cars so numerous that pedestrians can not see the sky. So he gets rid of them.
The story made me wonder what past human
inventions it would be better to uninvent.
What things have made life worse, not better? What past inventors should be erased from
history?
A good case can be made for American inventor
Thomas Midgley, who was born in 1889. In
the 1920s he had the idea of adding lead to petrol and other products. Unfortunately, lead is extremely poisonous,
causing brain damage, cancer and death in anyone who is exposed to too much of
it. The company Midgley helped to create
ignored or denied evidence of lead’s terrible effects on the environment and
human beings for years, producing huge amounts of leaded petrol, and releasing
it into the environment. They even added
lead to toothpaste tubes.
In the 1930s, Midgley’s next invention was
just as bad. As Bill Bryson describes in
one of his books, “With an instinct for the regrettable that was almost
uncanny, he invented [CFCs].” CFCs are the gasses that, it was noticed fifty years later, are producing a huge hole in the
Earth’s ozone layer.
So if a time-travelling uninventor comes
back to help us get rid of products we would be better off without, Midgley’s
inventions will get a vote from me. I’ll
also suggest smartphones, skateboards, drones, and alarm clocks. Have I forgotten anything?
Vocabulary:
a traffic jam – a state when the roads are
blocked and vehicles cannot move forward
to be erased – to be completely removed
regrettable – undesirable or unwelcome
uncanny – strange or mysterious, especially
in an unsettling way
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