nevermind

[UngainlyTitan]

Ok, fine, bye.

 

[trappedslider]

I think it is a great topic because one has to decide at which point in time do the negatives (addiction, loss of work, ease of killing/destruction, pollution...etc) outweigh the positives (advances in medical field/transport/space exploration and everyday utilitarianism etc).
Given the previous century it is tough to argue that one accept the technology utilised to slaughter wholesale of peoples, although that has been going on for centuries - but the ease at which one could do it was devastating.
On the flip side SO many inventions were created around the same time that helped humanity, not least of which was the sanitary pad, so helping like 50% of the world's population.

It's not meant to be a deep dive, it's not meant to be some grand discussion about technology or social media. It's just "If you could freeze any technology or an aspect of technology to stay at a given time frame or period when would it be" nothing more than that.

 

[sevenbastard]

THAC0

It's not really a good system but it's fun to say and it made you feel special once you could use it.

 

[Umbran]

For me, I'd have to only go back to about 2007 or so and stop social media from going beyond the everyone plays Farmville on Facebook.

The issue you have here is that "social media" overall isn't a technology. It is a social phenomena.

There are technologies underlying much of modern social media that you could limit: the algorithms that boost or depress some posts over others, for example. Or user tracking that makes social media so attractive for advertisers.

 

[Distracted DM]

My choice would be smart phones. They killed my book-reading hobby and make access to social media waaay more convenient, rather than just on a desktop etc. Question is: would I have to kill tablets too? I guess they could only be inconveniently-sized

Edit: I guess the further question is: am I dooming a lot of other positive things because of my smart phone wish?

 

[trappedslider]

 

[Umbran]

Sorry, but when you ask a bunch of geeks a geeky question, they are going to geek the heck out of it.

Also - you ask a bunch of D&D rules lawyers about the operation of wishes. What else did you expect?

 

[Clint_L]

I'm not gonna overthink it. Nuclear weapons. In my wish, humanity understands the implications of nuclear power for weaponry, but has a natural aversion to the potential catastrophic consequences and intentionally ignores ever pursuing them. No exceptions.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I'm not gonna overthink it. Nuclear weapons. In my wish, humanity understands the implications of nuclear power for weaponry, but has a natural aversion to the potential catastrophic consequences and intentionally ignores ever pursuing them. No exceptions.

So for you, the effectiveness of nuclear deterrance is a net negative? I am afraid the two superpowers would have come to fight each other without it, and it didn't take nuclear weapons to raze Germany. Old school pointy sticks are very effective.

 

[BookTenTiger]

No beer, wine, definitely no spirits and eventually no books

Honestly a large part of me wonders if we are any better now than we were as hunter gatherers. Sure, the individual life lasts longer and we don't die of simple infections. But look at the proportion of humanity living in poverty, without access to water and food. We've made summers hotter and winter weather more extreme. Sure now we have AI Art and Penicillin, but overall are we really much happier as an entire species than we were back then? I think we probably led lives that were much shorter but also more satisfying.