Today’s writing prompt asks “if you could un-invent something, what would it be?”.
I’m not sure I would want to “un-invent” anything. I’m pretty sure that the butterfly effect would come into play pretty swiftly - that any change would manifest and multiply into all manner of unanticipated outcomes.
Un-invention implies disregarding the nature of what makes sentient creatures sentient - the curiosity, discovery, knowledge, wisdom, and experience that lead to invention in the first place.
Creation and invention go hand-in-hand unless you’re a creationist, I suppose, in which case nothing was ever invented. It will be interesting to see how people with a strong faith respond to this prompt - if they forget the underlying principles they claim to live their lives by. Surely un-inventing anything is meddling in the design they have been given?
I invariably find myself wincing when anybody volunteers the opinion that “it was better in my day”. The world evolves. The world changes. It’s not better or worse - it’s different. Better or worse are subjective - entirely dependent on perspective.
It’s far better to wonder what might be than to pick apart what was, or to instruct what is.