A Brief History of Historical Inventions That Are Destroying the World
If you’re blessed with a once-in-a-generation kind of intelligence, I need you to listen to me: stop tinkering. Erase all those fancy little equations. Forget about science altogether, and come up with, like, an unbeatable soccer strategy or something. I guarantee you’ll regret completing that flux capacitor you’ve been toiling over. After all, every invention in history has come back to haunt the human race.
Tools
The first stone tools were made around 3.3 million years ago. Not only are tools now the bars of your capitalist prison — pencils and notebooks in school, keyboards and mice in the white-collar world — but “contact with equipment” is the third-leading cause of workplace deaths. More than 735 workers died by tool in 2022. Thanks a lot, Australopithecus.
Fire
Controlled cooking fires started about 2.3 million years ago. They now account for over 500 deaths per year in the U.S. alone, and over $1 billion in property damage. Way to go, Homo habilis.
Fast Fashion
400,000 years ago: Homo heidelbergensis creates pigments. 170,000 years ago: humans begin to wear clothing. 16th century AD: India invents printed clothing designs. 2024: Temu is pumping out wasteful fast-fashion trends quicker than they can deliver them, and teens are making fun of me for wearing ankle socks.
Counting Systems
44,000 years ago, some bozo carved bone “tally sticks” to keep track of numbers and quantities. Now you have to go through the humiliating ordeal of opening up Excel and writing down every last trip you took to Chipotle when you flew to Denver for work.
Surgery
31,000 years ago, the ancients performed the first medically necessary amputations. The first rhinoplasty occurred in Egypt 5,000 years ago. Thanks to those trailblazers, we have the Kardashians, Matt Gaetz and Kimberly Guilfoyle, not to mention an epidemic of body dysmorphia.
Ceramics
The first direct evidence of ceramic pottery comes from 28,000 years ago, and researchers have discovered an intact ceramic sculpture from just 4,000 years after that. Fast-forward 24,000 years, and we have Seth Rogen’s terracotta army of bong/tea kettle hybrids or whatever.
Rowing
Around 5,000 BC, some enterprising jetsetter invented rowing oars in China. In the late ‘90s, the Winklevoss twins co-founded their prep school’s crew team, which helped them get into Harvard, setting them on a collision course with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who would go on to create the largest social network on the planet and tepidly endorse Donald Trump by calling him a “badass.”
Pictures
In 400 BC, the first camera obscura was described by a Chinese scholar. In 1822, the first photographic process, heliography, was invented. In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram, which is where your worst high school classmates found out about right-wing militias and the word “cuck.”
Puppets
Around 2500 BC, some weirdo in the Indus Valley invented puppets. Thanks to him, we have Jeff Dunham and TikTok conservatives unironically adding “America, Fuck Yeah” to their selfies from the RNC. Sure, for a little while there we had Jim Henson and Mister Rogers. But they’re both dead now, which is really sad.
College Loans
In the 8th century BC, a braintrust in modern-day Pakistan invented the first university. In the 9th century AD, Morocco created the first degree-granting university. Around the 5th century BC, some absolute jagaloon in Upanishadic India created loan deeds. Put ‘em all together, and you’ve got $1.73 trillion in student loan debt, and Sallie Mae threatening to break my kneecaps with a ball-peen hammer.
News Bulletins
Julius Caesar’s reign saw the first-ever news bulletin, and the Han dynasty created the earliest newspaper. Thanks to those pioneering dipshits, we have the 24-hour news cycle and a plague of sprained thumbs from doomscrolling through the Trump years.
The Wheel
The earliest evidence of the wheel dates back to around 4000 BC, and was found in Ukraine, Poland and Germany. Charles Goodyear perfected it with vulcanized rubber in 1839. In 1769, a steam-powered people-mover was invented by some jerk named Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot. I hope he’s happy, because he signed humankind up for a gruesome bargain: 1.33 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. It’s estimated that cars have killed between 60 and 80 million people in total.
Audio Recording
French know-it-all do-gooder Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville invented the phonoautograph in 1857. You have him to thank every time Imagine Dragons comes on in CVS.
Plastic
Alexander Parkes thought he was pretty darn smart when he invented parkesine, aka celluloid, in 1856. And now there are microplastics in every testicle on Earth.
