The fact of having had a ‘eureka!’ moment doesn’t necessarily mean that, in the future, one will keep the satisfaction of having found the solution to a determined situation. There are many inventors who, after having poured their creativity into great solutions, eventually regretted their inventions due to the use that was made of them. These are five creators who ended up regretting their works and the eventual damage they caused to humanity.
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Robert Oppenheimer – The Atomic Bomb
The invention of the atomic bomb is often attributed to the great Albert Einstein; however, this is very much out of context. It is true that without him the creation of the bomb would not have been possible, since his equation E=mc2 describes how to obtain large amounts of energy, but Einstein did not imagine that it would be used to create one of the most destructive weapons in history, much less that it would be actually used.
The true creator of the atomic bomb is Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. In the beginning, the physicist had no doubts about its creation and the way it was used, he was even grateful for the opportunity to participate in the laboratory. But years later he changed his mind:
“I have no regrets about the making of the bomb… As to how we used it, I understand why it happened, and I appreciate how nobly those men I had worked with made their decision. But I don’t have the feeling that that was done well. The ultimatum to Japan was full of pious platitudes… our government should have acted with more foresight and clarity in telling the world and Japan what the bomb meant.”
Mikhail Kalashnikov – AK-47
Another weapon that emerged during World War II was the rifle we know today as the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947). Kalashnikov belonged to the Russian army and during his battles, he saw numerous casualties among his comrades and friends, even he was injured on several occasions due to clashes with the German army.
Amid the war and desperate for a more effective way to defend himself, he designed a simple automatic rifle that would fit the mass production methods of the time and also had a low cost of creation. The result was the weapon that describes the name of its creator and the date when its last version was created.
However, Kalashnikov did not imagine that his rifle would not only claim the lives of combatants in war battles but also become the most widely used assault weapon in the world. In a letter to the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2010, Mikhail said: “I keep coming back to the same questions. If my rifle took people’s lives, can it be that I…, an Orthodox believer, am to blame for their deaths, even if they are my enemies?”
Kamran Loghman – Pepper Spray
Loghman worked for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation during the 1980s. During his collaboration with the FBI, he helped to use a chemical known as pepper spray as a weapon. He also wrote a comprehensive guide for police departments explaining how to use it. Since then, the spray has been used countless times as a control device by police.
He created a little commentary on his invention until 2011 when, after an incident at the University of California, police pepper-sprayed a group of peaceful protesters. Loghman said then that he had “never seen such an improper and inappropriate use of chemical agents.”
Bob Propst – The office cubicle
In the 1960s, Propst introduced an invention for reconfiguring office spaces during his tenure as a consultant for Herman Miller, a furniture company. He intended to provide workers with a more flexible environment outside the maze of separate ‘caves’ in personal offices. Thus, he introduced the concept of a large office organized with cubicles.
However, companies saw the cubicle as an opportunity to save money on office construction and eliminated individual offices altogether. For this reason, Propst later regretted his invention, “the securitization of people in modern corporations is monolithic madness,” he said.
Ethan Zuckerman – The Pop-Up Ad
Pop-up ads are a real nuisance when surfing the web, but there’s a name responsible for your searches being suddenly interrupted with advertising that blocks the full content of pages. Ethan Zuckerman worked as an employee of the website builder company Tripod.
Ethan explains that, at the time, Tripod offered free websites even though they had been trying to generate revenue in some form or another for five years. They eventually found funding in advertising and, along the way, created “one of the most hated tools: the pop-up ad,” Zuckerman says in an essay named ‘The Internet’s Original Sin’ that he wrote for The Atlantic. “I’m sorry. Our intentions were good,” he culminates.
Text courtesy of Ecoosfera
