They say that “hindsight is 20/20,” and as with some clichés, this one couldn’t be truer when it comes to some people’s attitude toward change, especially when it comes to doing something easier, better, or faster. Well, here are even ten more modern conveniences that most of us take for granted today that we couldn’t live, work, or play without.

These include conveniences that, when first proposed, some people “never got the memo on” or resisted in some other way since they’re such no-brainers now today. So keep reading to find out how amazing and outlandish the public’s attitude can be, not only today but also in the past, toward some of the most successful and important ideas, inventions, and innovations of all time.

Related: Top 10 Successful Inventions That Just Up And Died

10 Cold Start for Ice Cubes

Those residing in frigidly cold places could always get ice when needed during the winter months, so it wasn’t until the 19th century that ice became a global industry, taking much hard work and smart advertising to do it. An ice harvester, one Frederic Tudor, a New Englander, tried for decades to generate interest and buyers for his crops of ice he cut out of frozen lakes and ponds.

Thinking out of the box, he made a connection with people in the West Indies who might want his frozen product. When his friends and colleagues back in his hometown in Massachusetts heard, he was “laughed at by all his neighbors.” They thought it was ludicrous to try to ship ice all the way to a Caribbean island. Even the Boston Gazette got in on the act, saying, “We hope this will not prove to be a slippery speculation.”

When he did get to the Caribbean, with a 130-ton (117.9-tonne) load of fresh and frozen water in 1806, the natives of Martinique didn’t want the ice since they weren’t even sure what to do with it. To them, it was a novelty, and they were more amused with it than anything. With his valuable ice turning into worthless water, the resilient Mr. Tudor had to come up with something, so he did. He made as much ice cream as he could out of the water he had left. Although Tudor lost thousands on that initial attempt, he soon succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in an ice-delivery business with customers from Louisiana to India.

Frederic Tudor is well known today as the “King of Ice,” but we’ll call him the “King of Ices.” It has a better ring to it. Get it, king of hearts, king of spades, king of ices? ^[1]

9 The Skateboard Skates It to Stardom

In the 1960s, the recently developed pastime of skateboarding was just beginning to catch on with kids. But not with parents, as many declared the sport as just a fad—a possible fatal one—and they didn’t like it a bit. In 1965, according to the Pittsburgh Press, Harry H. Brainerd, Pennsylvania’s traffic safety commissioner, stated that skateboarding was just an “extremely hazardous fad” and asserted that parents “would be well advised not to permit the children to use skateboards until they have been instructed in and understand basic, common sense rules of safety for their use.”

He wasn’t the only one that thought kids couldn’t be trusted to ride early skateboards without killing themselves. A liberal political organization called the “Americans for Democratic Action” sent a petition to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1979 in an attempt to ban skateboards and skateboarding entirely. claiming, “The design of the skateboard itself cannot be improved in any way to make it safe.” Sorry, but the rest is history.^[2]

8 The Printing Press Prints Paper to Perfect Shame

A leading professor during the days of Columbus in 1492, the monk Johannes Trithemius, made a solemn prediction that the printing press would fail. In his essay, “In Praise of Scribes,” he asserted that writing by hand was morally superior to printing with a machine. Trithemius claimed, “The word written on parchment will last a thousand years… the printed word is on paper… The most you can expect a book of paper to survive is two hundred years.”

How wrong was Trithemius? The material used for the books monks scribed in was made from animal skins called parchment. The paper of the day was made from cellulose produced from different species of plant fiber. Today’s modern paper degrades due to it being made from wood fibers and high acid content, making it unstable. In Trithemius’s day, rag stock was used to make paper and was so stable it would last for centuries. In fact, several original printings of the Gutenberg Bible sre still around to prove it.

Trithemius would go on to write, “Printed books will never be the equivalent of handwritten codices, especially since printed books are often deficient in spelling and appearance.” Ironically, his ranting and raving with pen and paper was overtaken by the printing press that he wanted so badly to fail. That’ll teach Trithemius to refuse a printed copy of the memo.^[3]

7 The Cell Phone Calls on Reason

Jan David Jubon was a telecommunications consultant in 1981 and was leery of the claims of how well the new cell phone devices would sell. His attitude in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor goes so far as to reflect it by saying, “But who, today, will say I’m going to ditch the wires in my house and carry the phone around?”

Even the “father of the cell phone,” Marty Cooper, didn’t predict just how significant the cell phone might soon become. This is evident in a comment he made in an interview with a newspaper reporter, who included Cooper’s quote in his article, “Cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems,” Cooper states, “Even if you project it beyond our lifetimes, it won’t be cheap enough.” But Jan had no cellphone, so he never got the memo. Hmm? If only foresight wasn’t 20-20, right, Jan?^[4]

6 Sony’s Walkman Walks the Walk and Talks the Talk

This device completely changed how the world listened to music. Right from the start, when Sony released their first Walkman in 1979, not everyone was “all in” on Sony CEO Akio Morita’s baby. In his book Made in Japan, Morita recalls, “It seemed as though nobody liked the idea. At one of our product planning meetings, one of the engineers said, ‘It sounds like a good idea, but will people buy it if it doesn’t have a recording capability? I don’t think so.’”

After the Walkman was finished with development, Morita recalls, even “our marketing people were unenthusiastic… They said it wouldn’t sell.” But sell it did. The Daily News of Bowling Green, Kentucky, wrote in a 1982 article, It’s “now clear that the Walkman and its successors not only sell and sell from Anchorage to Ankara but also appear to have become a semi-permanent appendage to most of the world’s ears.”

The Walkman would get flak from a few city governments who were trying to get the device banned so people wouldn’t be walking the streets with headphones on, claiming they were a threat to public safety. Even today, there is a law still being enforced in Woodbridge, New Jersey, that comes with a $50 fine for being caught wearing Walkman headphones while crossing the street, regardless if they’re playing or not. Some things will never change.^[5]

5 People Didn’t Want to Hear about Car Radios

In 1992, a New York City magazine called Outlook, with an author breezily reminiscing in an intentional manner, writes, “This equipment, with which you can listen to the radio concerts while driving in your car, is said to be the very latest development of inventive genius for the amusement of the radio fan.”

Well, not everyone had such a positive outlook on the car radio in 1930, though. Quoting an anonymous source in the nation’s capital, the New York Times wrote an article pointing out the cons of car radio technology that said, “Music in the car might make him miss hearing the horn of an approaching automobile or fire or ambulance siren… Imagine fifty automobiles in a city street broadcasting a football game! Such a thing as this, I am sure, would not be tolerated by city traffic authorities.”

In a 1934 poll of members from the Automobile Club of New York, 56% said that car radios were distracting to drivers, a danger to others on the road, and just “more noise added to the present din” of the highway. If only they could hear the thumping of bass and see the glass shuddering with the deep bass beat in a young person’s car today, they’d be thunder-struck.^[6]

4 “Movies Don’t Need Sound!”

In the Roaring Twenties movie industry, the “talkie” was all the rage. But that opinion was far from universal for many consumers and professionals in the industry. Newspapers from coast-to-coast printed headlines like “Talking Films Try Movie Men’s Souls” or “Union’s Discount Talkies.” The public and even members of the movie industry were calling talkies names like “squeakies” or “moanies,” which aren’t terribly flattering, to say the least.

One of these disenchanted members of the movie industry was prominent film director Monte Bell. Bell had employed three other producers, who he instructed to write three different takes on silent films and talkies, using three different attitudes toward them. Bell wanted to “dip his toe in the water,” so to speak. So one producer claimed in his reviews that the silent film was dying, while another claimed the silent film still had plenty of legs left, and the third hailed talkies as the revolutionary advancement that would bring prosperity to the movie industry.

As things turned out, the debates that resulted from Bell’s small experiment strongly suggested that people wanted sound and/or dialogue in films. As usual, those who criticized the advent of sound in movies would eventually come around to their senses and embrace the technology just like everyone else has ever since. Can you even imagine “no sound” in a movie today?^[7]

3 New York Times on Smartwatches: “Wearable Tech Could Cause Cancer”

Can wearable technology cause cancer? According to an article in the New York Times in 2015 written by technology columnist Nick Bilton, it can. His article’s original headline had been, “Could wearable computers be as harmful as cigarettes?” It has since been changed to the less accusatory “The health concerns in wearable tech” (still online) due to the myriad of harsh criticism it received. Still, the problems the piece caused don’t quit there.

In the article, Bilton attempts to answer an important and interesting question: Do smartwatches increase the wearer’s risk of getting cancer? There have been decades of research done that could address this subject since the radiation taking the blame for all this emanates from everything that employs a screen or radio device, including smartphones, laptops, tablets, and flat-screen TVs. Instead of researching previous studies on the subject, Bilton dove right in by equating the dangers of using an Apple smartwatch to cigarette smoking. But recall that, apparently, there was a time when we were told smoking was good for us.

The problem is that Bilton’s only evidence was a 2011 report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer stating that it considered cell phones “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” Bilton also claims the IARC report is “the most definitive and arguably unbiased result in this area.” This is more than just misleading since the IARC simply looked over available research on the subject and decided not to rule the possibility out due to a lack of data and time constraints.

In other words, it’s not like the IARC spent years researching this; they simply considered it briefly and sided with caution. So, in the end, it’s basically a farce in the eyes of the science and news media communities. Just kidding, folks, so don’t worry; that smartphone stuck to your head won’t kill you after all.^[8]

9 Motion Picture Association of America Tried to Get VCRs Banned

The Motion Picture Association Of America (MPAA) led the way for the industry’s attempts to ban the Betamax player and tapes, along with VCRs and their tapes, through legislation. In 1982, the president of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, had this to say to Congress: “We are going to bleed and hemorrhage unless this Congress at least protects [our] industry against the [VCR]… [and] we cannot live in a marketplace… capable of devouring all that people had invested in.”

Sooner than later, the content industry made the decision to support legislation requiring licensing instead of a total ban on the products. But had it passed, the legislation would assuredly have driven up the cost of the devices so much that it would’ve ideally “banned” the devices anyway since the average consumer couldn’t afford one. Valenti continued in his address to Congress, “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”

He also insinuated that if Congress didn’t regulate VCRs, then movie producers might cut their production in half. Eventually, the debate made it to the courts, which ruled in favor of the VCR and related industries, and the ruling created a groundswell. It received overwhelming support from both the public and the media. By the late 1980s, the Sony Betamax and VCRs were flying off the shelves, with 2.3 million units being marketed worldwide.

With the content industry’s inability to regulate looking more and more like a foolish blunder, it conceded as well, as more and more Americans bought the technology. The problem was, and had always been, that Congress was always too quick to ban technologies that Americans don’t have access to yet. But not this time.^[9]

1 “Email Hurts the IQ More Than Pot”

According to a 2005 survey on the psychological effects of electronic communications media using alternate groups of five voluntary participants, the constant distraction of phone calls, text messages, and emails is a bigger threat to concentration and IQ scores than marijuana use. Participants reported suffering symptoms such as dizziness, inability to focus, and lethargy that rose to such heights during the survey. Some participants developed a drug-like addiction to their electronic habits, which seems odd.

Many of the participants reported that their minds were boggled as they faced new questions every time an email was delivered to their inboxes or a text popped into their phones. A psychologist from King’s College named Glenn Wilson, who had previously worked on 80 clinical trials for TNS research, stated that according to the survey results, the most damage had occurred due to a lack of discipline in the subjects’ mental handling of electronic communications. Ethical protocols were abandoned, with one in five participants leaving meals or social gatherings to write replies or answer the phone.

Nine out of ten participants fully agreed that responding to emails or texts during office conferences or face-to-face meetings was rude. To others, it felt like it had become an acceptable practice” and seen as a sign of diligence and efficiency,” which is somewhat reminiscent of the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971. Yet all that these subjects were doing was using electronic communications. Strange indeed.^[10]

They say “hindsight is 20/20,” and as with some clichés this one couldn’t be more true when it comes to some people’s attitude towards change, especially when it comes to doing something easier, better, or faster. Well, here are 15 modern conveniences that most of us take for granted today, that we couldn’t live, work, or play without. Conveniences that when first proposed some people “never got the memo on,” since they’re such no-brainers now in hindsight, or resisted in some other way. Please keep reading to find out how amazing and outlandish the public’s attitude can not only be today, but was in the past, towards some of the most successful and important ideas, inventions, and innovations of all time.

Top 10 Most Gruesome Inventions And Innovations

10 Vaccinations Were, Well Vaccines

Online bullies call them anti-vaxxers but they were once dubbed “antivaccinationists,” and they’ve been around much longer than covid-19, and obviously, they’re people who oppose vaccinations and vaccines or simply believe “my body my choice” when it comes to vaccination. In spite of the fact that vaccinations are considered to be one of the top ten achievements in the area of public health in the 20th century, and have saved countless millions of lives, still people have opposed it for longer than it has officially been around. Even the process of pre-vaccination called variolation came under similar fire by the public. The public rejected vaccination for many reasons, ranging from opposition in the mid to late 1800s in the United States and England to the smallpox vaccine, and the anti-vaccination leagues that subsequently formed as a result, to the more recent vaccination controversies surrounding their safety. Much of it though, most likely has to do with fear of the unknown—and trust.

9 A Birthday Party Could Ruin A Kid’s Character

The following was taken directly from an online copy of a 1913 edition of Ladies’ Home Journal:

“… The children’s birthday party habit not only affects the moral nature of children in various ways, and sows dangerous seeds for the future in child character and habits, but it also threatens their happiness through the danger to health which such parties involve. Instead of wholesome tiny…sandwiches…such a mixture is set…that the whole physical system is frequently completely upset. …”

As we can see from this very short excerpt , from an exceedingly long rant that appeared in the Ladies’ Home Journal of 1913 , they weren’t too thrilled about birthday parties for kids. The part about the birthday party ‘habit’ not only damaging the ‘moral nature’ of kids, but also a kid’s character, is some pretty heavy stuff. I’m not sure I want to threaten any of my grandkids’ happiness by sowing ‘dangerous seeds,’ and risking their health by throwing them a birthday party, and making them sick in the process. Doesn’t sound like a good time to me, or to be honest, any birthday party I’ve ever been to. So I’m guessing that our family tradition of making a huge chocolate cake, with a lot of chocolate frosting, and giving the entire monstrosity to our one-year-olds, in a sort of competition to see who “destroys it the best and makes the biggest mess,” wouldn’t go over too well with these ladies.

8 The Bicycle Would Cripple You—Or Worse

Back in Victorian times, doctors were totally against people riding bicycles—especially women. So much so, they literally practiced a disturbing form of pseudoscience. Their fears were so misguided that they claimed that riding a bicycle disgraced a woman’s walk by causing it to turn into a “plunging kind of motion.” They also felt that the activity could actually wear a person’s body all the way down to the bones, causing conditions such as “bicycle foot,” and “bicycle hand,” which were very highly feared. These doctors also claimed that bicycle riding could even damage your face by the combination of the strong winds created by the momentum of the bicycle, added with the strain of the effort, causing “bicycle face”—which was allegedly a permanent condition! And as for the daintiness of women, the exertion would most certainly cause their slight frames to become far too masculine, providing they could survive the torture of course. Nope. These doctors never got the memo about the value of exercise.

7 A Refrigerator Cost A Fortune

An American wife in 1920: “Honey. Should we buy one of those new refrigerators, or one of those new automobiles?” He replied, “Well, if we buy a refrigerator we won’t have to take horse and wagon to the market so often, but if we get one of those Fords we can go and get what we need whenever we need it.” She replied, “We could just get both.” He says, “We could too.” Then Grandpa spoke up, “There’s a problem.” The husband asks, “What’s that Dad?” He explains, “That refrigerator you two want will cost you a lot more than the Ford!” He was right.

In the early 1920s a Ford Model-T cost around $260. A bit expensive considering people made about $2,000 a year, but affordable. On the other hand, a refrigerator, say a Frigidaire, would cost nearly twice as much at $450! So if our imaginary couple made the $2,000 a year, they’d need to spend 35% of a year’s income to buy both! And imagine today spending almost twice as much on a refrigerator as a car! Prior to this there were the ice harvesters, and businessmen in the industry, who opposed mechanical refrigeration at first. Their lost income notwithstanding, there can still be no doubt that they eventually had a refrigerator in their kitchens too, and many of those businessmen, such as Birds Eye, would soon become the frozen food giants of today.

6 Coffee Was Satan’s Drink

When one ponders coffee, lush tropical hills may come to mind, or the aroma of it brewing first thing in the morning. A 16th century pope may come to the minds of many historians and coffee aficionados though. He was Pope Clement VIII, and is said to be the party responsible for the popularity of the aromatic bean circumventing Europe and the rest of the globe. In the 16th century coffee was so popular throughout the Ottoman Empire, that Sultan Murad IV thought of chopping the heads off of anyone found drinking the brew, but even that horrific threat didn’t stop coffee lovers from indulging. Since the Islamic world drank coffee it was dubbed “Satan’s Drink” by Roman Catholics and Christians. Eventually though, coffee made it to Rome, and after a steaming cup was placed in the Pope’s hand he allegedly said after drinking it, “This Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.” He then gave it his blessing. So, the next time you enjoy a cup of Joe, you might want to say a prayer of thanks to Pope Clement VIII.

5 Taxis Were Deemed Necessary (By One Man)

Being resistant in a different sense, in 1907, a legend of life in the Big Apple was born, when a soon-to-be, world-renowned icon rolled onto the city streets—the first metered taxis—and they were green…and red. Since these colors were so hard to see they were soon painted their iconic garish yellow so they could be spotted from a distance, and so it wasn’t long at all before 700 New York City taxis could never be found when you really needed one. The legend of the New York City cab began after Harry N. Allen was slammed by a $5 fare (that’s 130 bucks today) for a quarter mile ride in a horse-drawn cab! Now that is rough. But soon after getting fleeced by the cab driver Harry resisted in spades by creating the New York Taxicab Company. Allen had 65 gas-powered, French cars shipped over, painted them green and red, put drivers in them, sent them out, and an icon was born. That’s giving it to them Harry!

4 The Umbrella Was Persecuted

The first English man to carry an umbrella, or “brolly,” was Jonas Hanway. The French invented the folding version in use today. There both sexes used umbrellas, but in Britain they were thought to be highly feminine, so when Jonas showed up on the streets of London with his umbrella the jeering and taunting soon began. Londoners were quickly laughing and yelling insults and names at him, calling him “effeminate” and worse, and some even called him “Frenchie,” the ultimate insult in 17th century England. This also upset the cab drivers who figured that a man with a “brolly” wouldn’t be wanting a ride in the incessant London rain, so maybe neither would anyone else if “brollies” caught on, so they took to throwing rotten fruit at the man. It got worse over the years, but Jonas held on, and the rest is history. He thought of the idea during his travels to Persia where they used huge parasols to get out of the hot sun. His thoughts were that they might work for rain as well. Who calls this guy, dry holding an umbrella, an “idiot,” while standing drenched in a downpour, right?

3 The Airplane Was A Toy

In 1911, a very influential person made the profound comment, “Airplanes are interesting scientific toys, but they are of no military value.” The strange thing about the resistance here is the pedigree of the person resisting. I mean the fact that a French general, who was also an Allied commander during World War I, would say something so naive seems mind boggling. That French general was none other than Ferdinand Foch. How could he not see the potential of a machine that flies for at least aerial reconnaissance is beyond this writer. The Wright Brothers had already been making headlines with successful flights for eight years, and only eight years after he made this this statement, a Curtiss seaplane made the first successful Atlantic crossing from Newfoundland to Portugal. I guess the General never got the memo.

2 The Laptop Would Die

“Laptops Are Dead—Or Will Die,” could’ve been a headline in the New York Times back around 1985. At least that’s what the tech writers were saying in the paper about that new trend in personal computing. Quite often, those who write about new technology, never get the memo, and don’t see which direction it may be heading, because according to the tech experts of the time, at the Times, laptops would eventually bite the dust for a couple reasons; one was they’d be too expensive to build, and the other was that nobody would want a portable computer in the first place. They were predicting that “…no matter how inexpensive the machines become…[they just couldn’t] imagine the average user taking one along when going fishing.” In other words, if you were fishing, you wouldn’t want a computer, because you were outdoors. In their defense, there is the fact that the World Wide Web, Internet, and WiFi didn’t exist then, so our digital world wasn’t even near their radar. The irony of this is the fact that Nikola Tesla had already invented cellular technology more than a half of a century earlier. Hmm?

1 The Light Bulb Was Unworthy

In 1878, the British Parliament had a jolly bright idea when they formed what was apparently a scientific committee charged with creating a report on Thomas Edison’s idea for the incandescent lamp. The committee’s final determination, was that what was to become famous world-wide as the “light bulb,” was “good enough for our Transatlantic friends, but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men.” Would that be “English scientific men?” Seeing how the incandescent lamp in question was on the other side of the Atlantic, maybe they should’ve tried it? Or if they did, given it a bit more of a chance maybe, or something. Then possibly the British could’ve seen the future in somewhat of a “better light. ”

Top 10 American Inventions You Can’t Live Without

They say “hindsight is 20/20.” As with some clichés, this one couldn’t be more true when it comes to some people’s attitude towards change in the past, especially when it comes to something made easier, better, or faster. Well, here are ten more modern conveniences that most of us take for granted today, that we couldn’t live, work, or play without. When first proposed, some people must have never gotten the memo on some of these since they’re such no-brainers in hindsight, while others are just flukes that had to wait for technology to catch up. However, all the attitudes toward them are outrageous at best.

Please keep reading to find out just how amazing and outlandish the public’s attitude can be today—and was in the past—toward ten more of the most successful and important ideas, inventions, and innovations we still use today.

Related: Top 10 Modern Conveniences That Met With Sick Resistance

10 We Only Needed 5 Computers…on the Planet

Yesterday it was said nobody wanted them; today, we can’t live without them. And tomorrow, we might watch them build themselves. But in 1943, Thomas Watson, the one-and-only chairman of the giant computer magnate IBM, made the very unlikely and even more unprophetic statement, “I think there’s a world market for maybe five computers.” (Silence.) Maybe? Five? Really now?

That thing that you, the reader, are staring at. Yeah, that lightning-fast extension of your gray matter has already altered the history of humankind in more ways than the discovery of fire could ever have. Yet, the guy that chaired IBM at one time said that we could use “maybe” five? Well, if someone reading this added up all the computers they own now, they’d be absolutely amazed since they’d have to count their desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, smartwatches, smart TVs, game systems, cars, calculators, microwaves, clocks, MP3 players, etc. You name it; it has a computer in it. So sorry, Tom, but you were just a tad low. No memo for you today.^[1]

9 Trains Would Rip Women’s Uteruses Out

Some earlier opponents of the fire-breathing, steam-hissing, smoke-belching monstrosities they called locomotives (“loco” being the operative word since they were kind of crazy-looking) were apparently quite scared of those modern contraptions. It seems they were of the opinion that the female physique couldn’t withstand lightning speeds of up to fifty miles per hour. In fact, they feared that the women’s uteruses would be ripped bloodily from their bodies by the sheer acceleration and raw power of the fanatical beasts. Apparently, these people had never seen the beast in action.

This could be fear of the unknown, or better phrased, fear of the “new-fangled,” a phenomenon brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the rapid advancement in technology. What was not understood was often feared, especially if it seemed it might injure women and children. So how did the scientists of that time explain the mindboggling feats of engineering that early peoples accomplished? Nothing concrete; they mostly only gave rudimentary excuses for how they did these things.

So what were people to think when they first saw this great machine, a toxic, fire-breathing, steam-hissing, smoke-belching monstrosity? Not being sure, they believed the worst. It’s no wonder people are sometimes leery of things, right?^[2]

8 Plato Didn’t Approve of Writing or Books

During the Classical period in Ancient Greece—the 5th and 4th centuries BC—was born the great and famous Athenian philosopher Plato. He is considered to be one of the world’s most influential people. Plato started the Academy, the first institution of higher learning known in the Western world, and the Platonist School of Thought. Yet, his views on writing and books are downright weird.

This is because, well, to put it bluntly, he bashes the invention of writing “literally” in writing, and no, please do not excuse the pun because it was intended. Plato wrote a dialogue he had between himself, Socrates, and an interlocutor, or literary middleman, named Phaedrus, whom the work is named after. In this dialogue, he attacks the invention of writing and the books it’s written in. It seems as though he felt that if people simply just wrote everything down and had books, they’d just forget everything they’d written and read and continuously need to refer back to the books to refresh their memories. Speaking of the invention of writing, Plato said, “What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder.”

Well, yes, isn’t that the general principle here, Plato? Oh, and Plato, we mustn’t forget learning, since books can travel, allowing others to read them. But in all fairness to the great man, to him, it was simple: Writing was not as effective as talking face-to-face. He implies just that when speaking on the invention of writing again, he says, “And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them, you will make them seem to know much while for the most part, they know nothing.” An old Chinese proverb goes, “Tell me, and I’ll forget; show me, and I may remember; involve me, and I’ll understand.” Apparently, Plato got that memo instead.^[3]

7 Computers Caused Miscarriages

A common fear provoked questions such as this one in the 1980s and 1990s: “I’m pregnant and work on a computer all day, so is it true that computer monitors emit radiation and can hurt my baby?” Many people back then believed this, and maybe still do today since computers using CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors could still be in use. They mistakenly thought that these devices were emitting dangerous levels of radiation, and although CRT monitors do emit low levels of radiation, the electromagnetic field (EM) that produces it is weak.

So there is no danger whatsoever to unborn children, or to those who used them, or who may still be using them today. They can, though, cause other problems not related to their technology, such as eye strain and back pain, and can worsen varicose veins. This is why you should always give your eyes a break, and stretch out your legs occasionally throughout the day, no matter what type of display or device you use or how long ago it was made.^[4]

6 The Answering Machine Was “Worthless”

Can you believe it? At one time, AT&T, of all companies, stated publicly, “There is no need for answering machines.” It sounds like some sort of strange mantra, right? Well, the history behind the machine is sort of strange too. For starters, it was actually quasi-illegal to own them in the late 1960s and early 1970s since they could supposedly be dangerous to telephone repairmen, leading to some telephone companies banning their use altogether.

It was in the 1950s, though, when AT&T went out on a skinny limb and made their bold statement about there never being a need for answering machines in the future. However, their use was eventually permitted by the FCC in 1975, and by 1983, a good consumer model was available on the market. “Nope, we’ll pass on that. No need for voice mail.” Too bad, since AT&T may have gotten that memo on their answering machine.^[5]

5 Telephones Were “Instruments of the Devil”

The telephone took Sweden by storm. By 1885, no other country on the planet had as many phones connected as they did, so news obviously spread fast. Not everybody was so excited about the new-fangled thing, though. For many, it was met with skepticism, superstition, and even fear. It seems there was something entrancing about sounds emanating from a tiny wire, which some thought could somehow “spill out” of it if it was broken.

People were also legitimately afraid of being shocked by them, too, and for a good reason, considering the susceptibility of telephone lines to lightning strikes. Superstition took hold when people started thinking that evil spirits could enter their lives through the fragile wires. Many clergymen considered the telephone to be an instrument of the devil himself. In the real world, landowners such as farmers did not want the lines intruding on their property, and many even resorted to sabotage by destroying them. In the end, the truth was apparently phoned in, and Sweden embraced the technology with open arms along with the rest of the globe.^[6]

4 Cheeseburgers Were “Weird”

At times, don’t people just love to poke fun at the press. I sure do, and this time is no exception. In an article printed in The New York Times in October 1938, the cheeseburger was first mentioned in the paper. It was included in a list containing flippant statements about the “whimsy” of California restaurants (I hear you—it could still be true today).

The Times stuck their foot in it again nine years later, in May 1947, when they said, “At first, the combination of beef with cheese and tomatoes, which sometimes are used, may seem bizarre.” Luckily for them, their savvy journalist on the scene could see the forest despite the trees when he reported, “If you reflect a bit, you’ll understand the combination is sound gastronomically.” Today, over 80 years later, you can not only drop $300 on a gourmet cheeseburger, with your choice of gourmet cheese of course, but they now also have their own holiday. National Cheeseburger Day is celebrated every September 18th.^[7]

3 Fingernail Polish Was “Just A Fad”

The closest thing to modern fingernail polish was invented by Cutex in 1917, but it took quite a while for it to take off into the huge industry it is today. In 1926, Viola Paris, writing for Vogue magazine, said there “seemed to be doubt” about its safety and quality. A year later, The New York Times called it a “London fad.” In questioning how long the “fad” would hang around, the Atlanta Daily World, on March 31, 1932, exclaimed, “Dame fashion, whimsical and wayward as the wind,” as they ironically scoffed about its rising popularity.

Well, we’re quickly nearing a century later since that article was written, and this “whimsical and wayward fad” is doing a lot more than just hanging around. It’s now a staple in a global industry with almost ten billion dollars worth of sales in 2019. And with enormous advances in manufacturing techniques, advances in mass marketing, and countless advantages over the antiquated pastes and powders of old, it’s hard to imagine the global fingernail polish market crashing anytime soon. You’d think the media would’ve gotten the memo on this “fad,” written in pretty colors of fingernail polish.^[8]

2 The Car Was “Impractical”

Again, our friends at The New York Times are up to their old tricks again, this time calling the automobile “impractical” back in 1902. Talk about sticking your foot in it. One critic of the car likened the automobile’s future to the “demise” of the bicycle “as a sport and an industry [that] will be followed by a collapse as complete and as disastrous as was that of the cycling boom” not long before. In 1902, The Times chimed in by complaining that the price of automobiles would never be low enough to make them even as popular as bicycles were—which in their minds, they weren’t.

Early farfetched ideas such as an auto-centric transportation system and the steel highway system that the Steel Roads Committee of the Automobile Club of America was lobbying for didn’t help matters much either. These further drained the public’s confidence in the invention. So it was hard to believe that cars would ever succeed, but succeed, they did. In a short time, Henry Ford learned how to mass-produce them, and the rest is history.^[9]

1 Teddy Bears Would “Cause Race Suicide”

This one is complex, as you can imagine. But in short: In a 1907 Press Democrat editorial, an opinion was revealed in answer to the atrocious claim of a Michigan clergyman that if little girls didn’t play with dolls that looked like babies, then they’d lose their desire to become mothers. His name was Father Esper, and he pleaded with all the parents in America to encourage their girls to play with dolls and throw away their little teddy bears—forever.

The “race suicide” angle comes in from then-President Teddy Roosevelt, who inspired the invention of the teddy bear five years earlier. It was named after Teddy Roosevelt due to his hunting prowess and became extremely popular. The preacher saw the toys as a threat to the continuation of the human race, stating, “The very instincts of motherhood in a growing girl are blunted and oftentimes destroyed if the child is allowed to lavish upon an unnatural toy of this character the loving care which is so beautiful when bestowed upon a doll representing a helpless infant.” Too bad the good Father didn’t get that memo since it may have saved the hearts of some little girls who had their beloved teddy bears thrown away—forever.^[10]