Chindōgu is the curious Japanese art form of inventing gadgets that seem to a clever solutions to problems, but which end up causing more problems than they solve. You may have seen examples like:
toilet paper dispenser hats: you never run out of tissue when you have to sneeze
baby mops: a baby outfit that also mops the floor
umbrella ties
many more .. search the Internet
To keep the art form pure you're not supposed to make money - almost guaranteed as the public will see the gadget as useless and won't buy it. (there was a tragic mistake - the selfie stick started as chindōgu) I know of an engineering professor who taught a course on creative engineering using it as a vehicle for student projects.
For a few years I've found it useful to extend the term to cover technical and social technical inventions that are seen as solving problems by the maker, but are clearly clueless. A few examples from the past month:
Flat panel displays in cars are a bit of automotive chindōgu.
Blockchains are an example of computational chindōgu.
Meta's Horizon Worlds is pure techno-social chindōgu.
Perhaps you might find hunting for this kind of chindōgu useful. I find it to be a nice way of thinking about what might represent meaningful and useful longterm change. And of course sometimes you label things incorrectly and have to come back and rethink. That may be even more useful.
And then there are potlatches.. the destruction of wealth to impress and gain status. Fully autonomous (class five) vehicles, NFTs, Facebook's version of the meta verse, hydrogen powered cars ...
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.