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The tragedy of the commons is one of those sad realities, where so many things could be made better by being shared, but humans at the end of the day will be humans. It only takes a few selfish or stupid jerks to ruin some genuinely good ideas for the rest of us.
Someone asked “What genuinely useful thing has been ruined by stupid people?” and people shared their examples. From shared amenities to just good, old public spaces, get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own experiences and ideas in the comments section below.

#1

Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things State Parks, but more tainted than ruined. My husband and I hiked at two separate state parks this weekend and I was appalled. We saw dog poop, dirty diapers, water bottles, and food wrappers on almost every trail we walked. Also, for the love of God, NOBODY wants to listen to your music. Use headphones, you heathen.

MT0502 , Marco Report

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    #2

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things The internet’s potential for knowledge has been marred by misinformation.

    CrystalLark20 , Andrea Piacquadio Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Even worse, there are so many sites that represent themselves as "news" sites, but are little more than clickbait, ragebait, and telling people what they want to hear.

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    #3

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Every goddamed app on the planet wanting to have you turn on push notifications. No, I do not want my phone constantly going off at all hours of the day.

    The_Pastmaster , cottonbro studio Report

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    Sand Ers
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I’m baffled that people install aps at all. Corporate aps are spyware. Browsers being used to spy on me are already too intrusive. I don’t see the value of ramping that intrusion up to 11. If it needs an ap to do it, I don’t need it.

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    #4

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Airbnb.

    A cool, couch surfing idea that became a way to rent a spare room and save a little money on a hotel, got turned into a way to cut off housing supply and create a housing crisis, all by its own users.

    redsoxsteve9 , cottonbro studio Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's not so much that AirBnB was used to cut off housing and create a housing crisis so much as corporations creating an artificial housing shortage in order to raise property prices in a VERY dangerous game of economic musical chairs, and then using those properties as short-term rentals, Airbnb, etc. I feel personally it was not so much AirBnB misusing the system so much as financial institutions using AirBnB as a means to misuse the system.

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    #5

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Pain medication. People with health issues suffer in pain ignored by doctors because junkies use our qualify of live saving medication to get high.

    Ok_Priority_1120 , Polina Tankilevitch Report

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    brown eyed girl
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I have a neuromuscular disease and have been in increasing amount of pain in the last 20 years. I also own a pretty successful large business. Since the oxcycontin debacle and the rise of synthetic fentanyl I cannot get the needed pain meds to be able function like I used too. I appreciate the above post... this is big problem for chronic pain patients who DON'T abuse their medication.

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    #6

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Google search

    At the time, Google's algorithm was a breath of fresh air compared to the dog s**t Ask Jeeves.

    Now its results are just those who paid the most to Google followed by those that paid the most to SEO companies.

    inspectorgadget9999 , Caio Report

    #7

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things One genuinely useful thing that has been ruined by stupid people is the online review system. Originally intended to help consumers make informed decisions and businesses improve their services, it has been flooded with fake reviews, both positive and negative. Some people leave one-star reviews for trivial reasons, like a package arriving a day late, or worse, they weaponize reviews to unfairly attack businesses they have personal grudges against. This misuse undermines the credibility of the entire system, making it harder to distinguish between genuine feedback and malicious or frivolous comments.

    Distinct-Champion_ , Greta Hoffman Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I feel that the misuse by ordinary people pales in comparison to the misuse by corporations, who literally pay other corporations to leave reviews. I generally look for places on the internet (won't say where, since I don't want to the corporate bots to figure it out too quickly) where ordinary people talk about their experiences with various products.

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    #8

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things The environment. We should've been doing something about climate change ages ago. We've known since 1938.

    EpiphanyWar , Pixabay Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    When I was a kid, Saturday morning was filled with "Give a hoot, don't pollute" and "Only you can stop forest fires" and other commercials that were famous for my generation. In the 1960s, there was this huge movement to care about the Earth, but here we are, 80 years later, and we're still doing a lot of the same stupid stuff!

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    #9

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Voting

    Everyone who votes should pass a basic civics test. Stupidity is killing our democracy, as our elected representatives are increasingly manifestations of grievances and hatreds and not of our aspirations.

    Angry_butnotenough , Mikhail Nilov Report

    #10

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Plastic. Incredibly useful material.

    Totally ruined by selfish people discarding it without a thought, corporations for prioritising profits over the environment, cosmetic companies for creating micro plastics, and governments for not doing anything about it!

    badmother , Catherine Sheila Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I'm just glad that there are so many different projects now that are doing research into alternative AND solutions. I believe that if these are pursued, we might actually live in a world without plastic someday.

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    #11

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Emotional Support Animals and Service Animals. Contrary to popular belief, they are not the same thing at all and stupid people getting fake ESA’s has bled into it harming people with service animals. Only a medical professional can prescribe an ESA, not a website or “registry” and an ESA is not allowed in public spaces like a service animal. It just allows the animal to live with you in places that usually wouldn’t allow animals or pets.

    WhyY_196 , Brian Wangenheim Report

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    Snazzy Smurf
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    ESA are making life a little difficult for Service Animals. Service Animals do a job such as guide the blind, predict changes in blood sugar or pressure, assist with POTS, help those with seizures, aid the hearing impaired, assist those with autism, help with mobility problems, and aid in certain types of mental health settings and PTSD. Service animals work to keep their owners alive or in stable/good health. Most importantly service animals are legally considered trained medical equipment. A trained dog starts at $10K depending on need. An owner can only be asked 1. Is the dog a service dog? 2. What job or tasks has the dog been trained to performed? ESAs are legally considered untrained pets that provide comfort to their owner but do not actually perform a job. To qualify for an ESA a letter from a legit health care professional is needed. I know I went overboard but there is sometimes confusion between the two.

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    #12

    Conversations.

    People don’t understand that information isn’t just found on FB, Insta and other social media platforms

    They repeat ridiculous things they see posted by someone they don’t know and state it as fact because “I read it”.

    Common sense is gone. Critical thinking. Gone. People liking things doesn’t make it true. And this whole “ I feel like it’s true” BS has to stop already. Facts aren’t what you feel.

    lookn4knks10 Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My feeling is that clickbait and ragebait are, like spam emails, deliberately designed to bypass people's logic by causing them to feel a strong emotion. They shock us with titles that cause worry, fear, anxiety, anger because these strong emotions tend to inhibit rational logical thought. Instead of reading and thinking, people just react to the headline, and then what's in the article doesn't really matter. People will only see what they want to see. And why do they do it? Not to help anyone, that's for sure. It's because they want people to like, subscribe and share because all of that gets them ad revenue. Money is the end-all, be-all of the whole shebang.

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    #13

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Social Media. Spreading fake news, they are not thinking before clicking.

    Vixen_LoveMeDaddy , Tracy Le Blanc Report

    #14

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things The media.

    Great journalists doing impressive, balanced analysis of the issues of the day that informed people was what we had.

    Today, with idiots at the helm and solely being driven by advertising rather than content we get total BS that is dividing countries by being aligned to a certain political movement.

    CreepySquirrel6 , Brett Sayles Report

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    #15

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Antibiotics. Great for dealing with bacterial infections, not so good at dealing with viruses, and now we have antibiotic resistant bacteria because of overuse.

    Caelreth1 , JESHOOTS.com Report

    #16

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Online recipe blogs.

    I understand the value of sharing experiences and the personal touch, but scrolling through pages of life stories and reflections on the changing seasons just to find the temperature for baking chicken thighs can be maddening. The recipe gets snowed under an avalanche of context and anecdotes. It's especially tedious on mobile, where your battery life ebbs away as you swipe past the tales of childhood and pictures of someone's dog wearing a chef's hat.

    What started as a wholesome platform to share kitchen wisdom has become a test of patience, where we're forced to dig like culinary archaeologists to find the treasure trove: the actual list of ingredients and instructions. We've taken the concept of passing down recipes and wrapped it in the literary equivalent of a thick wool sweater — heartwarming, but not when you're in a hurry.

    CrystalCutie2 , KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA Report

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    #17

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things The general idea of home owners' associations.

    24benson , Hert Niks Report

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    Sand Ers
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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    HOAs have become a form of collusion between developers and local jurisdictions. Instead of the City or County maintaining public infrastructure, the developers form an HOA and dump that responsibility onto it. Cities are happy because they can collect property taxes, but don’t have to supply any services in return. Developers are happy because when their shoddy shìt starts to fail a few years down the line, they’re effectively untouchable (they had the HOA sign a contract absolving them of responsibility). They people that live there are screwed.

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    #18

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things I’ll go first: essential oils. They smell brilliant, reduce stress & anxiety and help treat fungal infections, but all the anti-vax & ‘crunchy’ moms have decided they’re a magical solution to everything that is wrong with the world.

    QuantumLinhenykus , Laryssa Suaid Report

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    Zelda McLink
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There are some specialists in aromatherapy that use it as complimentary treatment. They are aware that oils aren't going to cure autism or cancer, but know that making patients more comfortable and peaceful will promote healing and lead to better patient outcomes.

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    #19

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things At least in my area, “Pick your own” farms. It used to be a way to get seasonal produce in bulk for a low cost because you supplied the labor of picking it. Then it became trendy to do. Now it is full of people and kids making a mess, damaging plants, picking unripe items or deciding what they picked isn’t “perfect” and throwing it on the ground, and eating huge amounts instead of buying. Farms have been forced to massively raise prices to compensate for the losses caused by people who have no business being in the field.

    DeaddyRuxpin , ROMAN ODINTSOV Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Recently, there's been a trend to massively inflate the prices of food, and I've seen a LOT of different things being used to justify it. However, it's just a profit scam. Someone finally dropped the last of their morals and said "What do people absolutely need? Food? Water? Shelter? Health care? Education? Let's massively inflate all of these!"

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    #20

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Public parks have been ruined by littering and vandalism.

    EmberMist21 , Pixabay Report

    #21

    All the "something" sharing, car sharing/ Uber , room sharing/ airbnb, etc. A simple idea with huge potential to have a big impact in the way people use resources, all ruined by greedy people.

    Long-Opposite-5889 Report

    #22

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Phone/mail/email
    Used to be great ways of communicating.  Now there's so much spam and scam communications that it's pretty miserable.

    bluecaliope , Torsten Dettlaff Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Gotta use those filters. Keep defining stuff as junk. I've learned on my email not to open the email, not to even click on it. Just "empty junkmail folder". Reduced a lot of junkmail. Apparently, they know it's been opened.

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    #23

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things In my city there was this bike sharing project. Amazing for students and young people. Within 3 days (3!!!) all of the bikes (F*****G ALL OF THEM) got either stolen or badly damaged.

    love-unite-rebuild , Anna Tukhfatullina Food Photographer/Stylist Report

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    2 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's really sad! One solution might be to require an ID check to borrow a bike. Bikes are free, but you're responsible for loss or damage.

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    #24

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Reddit. Pretty much any online forum tbh. I just want to chat about jigsaws and guitars please stop calling me names.

    Rgeneb1 , Brett Jordan Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I agree. It's so easy for people to do that in the secure anonymity of the internet. Even on BP, there's a tendency that once a person starts to get upvoted or downvoted, the trend continues. People who see a downvote are more likely to downvote that post. While most people on BP are awesome, there are a few who do namecall and get very rude.

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    #25

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Capitalism. You have a third or fourth generation of f*****g morons inheriting the company daddy built, suppressing competition and automating or outsourcing all the jobs. Then increasing prices to get an 8th consecutive quarter of record profits. Then they go get their government “loan”.

    AlwaysSaysRepost , Chloe Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's a fact that the more money you have, the easier it is to get more money.

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    #26

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Driving. Arguably far from ruined but has the potential to be so much safer and better for all if it wasn't for the recklessness and stupidity of dangerous drivers.

    Biggyzoom , Hassan OUAJBIR Report

    #27

    The NHS. Deliberately wrecked by successive governments (mainly Conservative), who have destroyed our greatest source of national pride.

    anon Report

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    Pandarosa
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Aussie public health is suffering too, services being slashed particularly after the budget blow-out during covid. I'd hate to work in health right now.

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    #28

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Food delivery. Tried to hand my buddy cash and told him I’d pay for pizza. He couldn’t find anywhere to order from without paying first through an app. People are stupid for accepting this as the new norm. Tipping before you receive the service? Delivery drivers seeing the tip before they take a delivery is ridiculous.

    cornerdweler , Norma Mortenson Report

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    StumblingThroughLife
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    So far, I've had one (Just Eat app) restaurant ask me to add a tip. Cheeky sods, I haven't used that take out place since. We have a decent mandatory min wage in the UK, and we don't really have that kind of tip-pressure-culture, and if I ever want to give a tip to the driver (for being quick, for e.g.), I'll hand him cash on delivery.

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    #29

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Gas cans. I promise more gas is spilled today than was ever wasted in the past with normal cans that just had a spout.

    Part of the problem is how the new cans are designed. They build them for a car and they work okish for that purpose. But who uses a gas can on their car? People want to fill motorcycles, or lawn mowers, or leaf blowers, and countless other small engines with small tanks where you can't shove a weird foreskin activated 4 inch long gas spout into a tank 2 inches deep and expect it to work properly.

    OutlyingPlasma , JOHN LLOYD Report

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    BrunoVI
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    OMG, YES!!!! What f*****g IDIOT lawmaker thought gas cans are used mostly for cars?

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    #30

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Nature. Forest. The oceans.

    Nateddog21 , Marta Wave Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    In a global sense, yeah, I guess humans have done quite a lot of individual and collective damage there.

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    #31

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Higher education.


    Parents in the 1960s saw that a degree guarantees you a cushy and respected job with a corner office, company car, and hot secretary, so they made their kids ashamed of blue collar jobs, and pushed them into higher education.


    Now the western (and probably most of the eastern) world we have overeducated population, with only so many "elite" jobs to go around, so many are underemployed.

    Life_Of_Vadim3 , Sơn Ngọc Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Trades are underappreciated. So many people think they need a "college diploma" and don't realize that a trade school can sometimes give them a better career for less educational investment. Not everybody needs college.

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    #32

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Youtube. It used to be fun and a great place to get information and entertainment.

    Moon_Jewel90 , cottonbro studio Report

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    Luis Hernandez Dauajare
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Still is. You just have to dig deeper. And if ads bother you, get a VPN or a good adblocker.

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    #33

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Bike paths, traffic calming, and pedestrian friendly design.

    Us little people figured all this was a great idea and it was intuitively obvious where they’d do the most good.

    Political hacks see the opportunity for glory projects, skip the obvious opportunities and areas of need, ignore local input, and blow though piles of money on reinventing the wheel (which they call “innovative” in the press release) and boondoggles in areas where there was no realistic demand or need for such amenities.

    For the tiny few who do find the new construction helpful, maintenance will be neglected as the politicos set more money on fire chasing another shiny thing.

    knockatize , Tanya Leona Report

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    Anonymous
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Bike infrastructure suffers the network effect: one bike lane is worthless. A bunch is okay. If they are everywhere they work awesome. But you can't afford to change everything all at once, so change what you can when you can afford it and grow the bike network just as we grew the car network. You hardly ever see horses any more.

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    #34

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Digital media in general.


    TV, Internet, Video Games - other than the latter one these media can be super useful.


    But practically speaking screens have just become executive dysfunction induction machines that people use as an escape to never truly start living.


    Screens have stolen so many years of my life it's crazy.

    Aggressive_Formal_50 , Ksenia Chernaya Report

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    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I see the point, but I feel the escape into the screens is not the fault of the screens, nor even the media. It's a symptom of other problems. Why are we all trying to escape? People keep trying to focus us on the problem of TV addiction, internet addiction, phone addiction, when our TVs and phones aren't the problem. We have unresolved social problems that are the cause, not the effect.

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    #35

    Stupid People Managed To Ruin These 35 Once Genuinely Useful Things Roundabouts. Great idea, but people can't seem to understand them. I don't know what to expect, though, when most drivers don't know what the red octagon sign means.

    __________________73 , Kelly Report

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    StumblingThroughLife
    Community Member
    2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We've been using them for decades, so they're not an issue, re: confusion over here (UK). It's in with the rest of learning to drive Theory/Practical. Do they just put them in and expect drivers to know without instruction? If so, I can understand your antipathy.

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    Note: this post originally had 40 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.