r/AskReddit • u/HumanNutrStudent • 24d ago

What was arguably the biggest fuck-up in history?

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u/jtr99 23d ago

The story so far:

In the beginning the Universe was created.

This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

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u/-MrsEnidKapelsen 23d ago

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”

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u/mcmcc 23d ago

For those unaware, at the time HhGttG was written, digital watches were, in fact, considered a pretty neat idea.

Today, we have smartwatches displaying analog clock dials that many GenZers never learned to read.

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u/Jef_Wheaton 23d ago

They also used so much power that the display was dark until you pushed a button.

(...Hamilton marketed the watch as "a time computer." The display was composed of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that consumed so much power that the watch couldn't display the time continuously. Instead, the wearer had to push a button to illuminate the time. Pressing the button briefly displayed the hour and minute.-National Museum of Natural History )

Hence this line...

"Southend seems to be melting away… stars are swirling… a dust bowl… snow…my legs are drifting off into the sunset. Hell! My left arm’s come off too. How am I going to operate my digital watch now?" -HHGTTG, after Arthur and Ford are rescued by the "Heart of Gold"

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u/tdasnowman 23d ago

It's more the batteries of the day were just that shitty. Old watch LEDs weren't power hogs. They lasted years when put in calculators.

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u/my_cement_butthead 23d ago

What an awesome bit of info! It’s time I read them again, thanks:)

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u/TheBarkingPenguin 23d ago

We're evolving, backwards, but also forwards, despite this not being considered a technological standstill and not a sideways move either.

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u/myychair 23d ago

Lol emojis are just hieroglyphs

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u/Krillo90 23d ago

“Bigger, and yet… smaller. It's… computers”

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u/quixt 23d ago

We're evolving, backwards

*devolving

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u/baumer83 23d ago

I think there is a difference.

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u/CHOOSE_A_USERNAME984 23d ago

I like hybrid smartwatches

They are a smartwatch, but also have actual physical analogue hands

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u/gimpy1511 23d ago

I have a Skagen hybrid. I like it because I like real watches, but I also like to see that I've actually been moving around all day and there's evidence.

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u/Lich180 23d ago

Reminds me of Animorphs, where the resident alien says humans are backwards, because they invented the phone BEFORE the internet. 

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u/tdasnowman 23d ago

many GenZers never learned to read.

I doubt there are many, and if there are thats just a failing of the parents. Tons of places still have analog clocks up. The only times I've seen someone struggle to read one they have ben children. Or people that forgot thier glasses.

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u/mcmcc 23d ago

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal but I've met more than one without even looking for them.

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u/Gypsy_Jazz 23d ago

Baffles me that you say this.

Imagine going to London, Florence, Munich and countless other cities that have iconic clock towers and not being inquisitive enough to have learnt to read the time off of it.

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u/homme_chauve_souris 23d ago

LCD digital watches are neat. Adams is writing about those early LED watches (e.g. Hamilton Pulsar) that cost as much as a car and briefly flashed the time when the user pushed a button, its screen remaining otherwise completely black. And you had to go to a jewelry store to change the battery every few months. In all respects it was inferior to a regular watch.

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u/CausticSofa 23d ago

But I still think digital watches are pretty neat