Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

The Biggest Wastes Of Money In All Of Human History

UK folly tower in the middle of the forest
Marcus Woodbridge on Unsplash

Reddit user forty5v asked: 'What was the biggest waste of money in human history?'

The word folly has two meanings that are actually tangentially related.

The first meaning is "lacking good sense; foolishness." The second meaning is a "costly ornamental building with no practical purpose, especially a tower or mock-Gothic ruin built in a large garden or park."


Both can refer to a waste of time, money, or other resources.

There are several events in history that were labeled follies for the money spent versus the expected gain. However, over time, some supposed follies turned into triumphs.

The purchase of a large tract of North American land from the French in 1803 was originally seen as folly, as was "Seward's Folly"—the label given to the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.

However some seemingly wasteful blunders remain ill-conceived after decades or even centuries.

Reddit user forty5v asked:

"What was the biggest waste of money in human history?"

Children

"Me forgetting to turn off the lights, according to my dad."

~ Th3Giorgio

"Moving the thermostat from 68° to 69° will do that too."

~ america-inc

"One day, not long after I started living on my own, I was rushing out the door late for work. I realized later on that I forgot to turn off my light before leaving."

"I spent all day agonizing about how much power I had wasted and how much it would cost me."

"At the end of the month, my power bill had literally no change from that light. Turns out a single light is, in fact, really cheap to power."

~ ShiraCheshire

Acoustic Kitten

"The CIA putting a microphone into a cat to spy on Communists only for that cat to get hit by a car. I think it was like 6 million dollars and countless years of preparation and training only to be lost under some tires."

~ Democracystanman06

"With what I know about cats, it can’t be ruled out that the cat did it on purpose purely because it knew how much it would inconvenience the CIA agents."

~ evoke3

"What fascinated me about Acoustic Kitten—the name of the operation—is that anyone that has spent 3 minutes with a cat will know all of this was a very, very stupid idea."

"I can only explain it taking into account the amount of drugs—Project MKUltra—the CIA was using in that moment."

~ Snoo57830

Fitness

"I’d have to say that gym membership I didn’t cancel until 8 years after I moved away."

~ highfunctioninglazy

"My mate did this. Joined a gym in 2016...forgot."

"Joined a new gym in 2021 and realised he'd spent about £600 on a membership he'd literally used once."

"£600 ($730) for one hour of using a gym."

~ The96kHz

War—What The Hell's It Good For

"4 trillion dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban has gotta be up there."

~ names-r-hard1127

"This is what's most insane."

"Imagine everything else that could be done with FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS."

~ CIearMind

"That's about $12,000 for every single US resident today."

~ Jmersh

OOO

"$35,000,000,000 for the Metaverse."

~ nickthekiwi

" Mark Zuckerberg was REALLY inspired by Ready Player One."

~ Robcobes

The Other Great Wall

"The Great Wall of Gorgan, built by the ancient Sasanian Empire in modern-day Iran. The purpose was to protect themselves from Nomadic invadors."

"It was constructed with 100 million man-days of labor, which is equivalent to around 300,000 workers toiling for five years straight."

"Considering the average labor cost, material expenses, and other related expenditures, the total cost of the project could have reached an astronomical sum of approximately $130 billion in today's dollars!"

"Needless to say, that it failed its intended purpose as Huns devised techniques to overcome the wall without much hassle."

~ hobabaObama

The War To End All Wars

"World War One. Literally all of the world’s most wealthy nations completely financially ruining themselves and slaughtering a large proportion of their young men and all of the historical consequences that followed over essentially nothing and achieving nothing except for a massive geopolitical regression with costs which we are arguably still reeling from today."

~ MIKOLAJslippers

"It also caused WWII. With WWI being the root cause, it probably is the most expensive endeavor in all of human history."

~ OkHead3888

Laser Kiwi

"New Zealand spent about 25 million dollars (NZD) on a flag referendum. Before it started, the public were against it saying we would never change the flag."

"The government persisted anyway. Two years later, the public voted to keep our current flag."

"So we did. Massive waste of time and money for a result they should have been expecting from the very beginning."

~ mediocre_mediajoker

"It wasn't a complete waste of money—it produced Laser Kiwi!"

~ dexter311

Titanic Error

"Those guys who bought tickets on the DIY Titanic sub."

~ Yeet-Retreat1

"I mean, they did eventually reach the Titanic, so the ticket wasn't lying."

~ wildcatofthehills

"The ocean is a mighty trash compactor."

~ Shanghaipete

Imported Sand?

"Most of Dubai's artificial islands."

~ indywizard08

"They require constant and neverending upkeep to even continue existing. No one bought most of the private ones, either."

"So it's already a massive loss to begin with, but it also just keeps on bleeding money and resources for no gain at all."

"But hey, they're attractive to suckers who read travel magazines and watch hustle grindset TikToks, so who can really say whether they're good or bad?"

~ _tyjsph_

EU Doesn't Miss You

"Brexit. Tanking the economy to own the libs."

~ gw-green

"Brexit cost 800 billion."

"Chernobyl cost 600 billion."

"Brexit is officially a worse disaster than Chernobyl."

~ Anal_bleed

NFTs

"Got to be that person who bought the first ever tweet as an NFT, purchased for $2.9 million, now worth about $4."

~ Qabbalah

"That was a weird few months when a nontrivial number of people were trying to convince me a JPEG of a poorly drawn monkey was somehow worth more than a car."

~ breakermw

The Vasa

"The Swedish ship Vasa. The Vasa was built in the 1620s to take advantage of the very newest in warship technology, a second row of guns."

"It was to be a symbol of Sweden's might, and thus was decorated with beautiful statues and carvings. This ship took three years to build and cost roughly 5% of Sweden's GDP."

"Unfortunately, the effect of a second row of cannons on seaworthiness was poorly understood.

"With great fanfare, the ship set off, experienced its first breeze, and still within full view of the city of Stockholm, capsized and sank."

~ thosearesomewords

Darien Scheme

"The Darien scheme. For those who don’t know it was Scotland’s attempt to set up a colony in Panama and link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans."

"About 20% of Scotland’s wealth was thrown at it, and it completely failed in just 2 years."

~ Firm-Engineering2175

"Turns out Scottish people do not survive long in the sun in the tropics. It's like the Wicked Witch of the West getting splashed with water."

~ FartingBob

"To be fair, almost no one survives well in the Darien Gap, even today."

"However, the fact that the Company of Scotland felt it was really important to pack their luggage full of hats and bibles definitely didn't help."

~ Ugolino

What historical waste of resources would you add to the list?

More from Trending

A person cooking with a mis en place
person slicing green vegetable in front of round ceramic plates with assorted sliced vegetables during daytime

Chefs Break Down The Best Cooking 'Hacks' Everyone Should Know

While some people find cooking soothing and therapeutic, others might break into hives at the very thought of it.

Mainly owing to the fact that they don't always find the journey quite worth the payoff of a perfectly cooked roast chicken, or a spongy and creamy cake.

Keep ReadingShow less
Gavin Newsom; Screenshot of Donald Trump
Mario Tama/Getty Images; @atrupar/X

Gavin Newsom Hilariously Trolls Trump For Struggling To Stay Awake During Antifa Roundtable

California Governor Gavin Newsom mocked President Donald Trump for appearing to fall asleep during a White House roundtable about Antifa, which the administration recently designated a "domestic terror organization" even though it's not an organization at all.

Antifa is a loose network of anti-fascist activists with no central structure, no funding, no membership roster, and no offices or leadership hierarchy for prosecutors to target.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @timleesblee's TikTok video
@timleesblee/TikTok

Remote Worker Speaks Out After Job Uses 'Dystopian' Software To Track His Productivity

There are a few vital truths to every office-based job. First, there are going to be "busy work" moments, from meetings to admin tasks to minor side-quest-style projects that add to the company in some small way but otherwise feel like a waste of time.

Second, as human beings, we all need breaks to restore our mental focus, so a person who occasionally scrolls through their personal email, sends a few texts to a friend, or even scrolls Instagram for a few minutes, will likely be more productive than those who attempt to lock in and do nothing but their job throughout their entire shift.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot from @skylr.m's TikTok video
@skylr.m/TikTok

Texas Mechanic Speaks Out After Noticing How The Price Of Services Skyrocketed Within The Past Year

A mechanic in Texas turned heads with his observations about how dramatically prices have gone up in the past year.

TikToker @skylr.m from San Antonio, Texas, admitted that he doesn't know anything "about politics" but felt the price jumps he's been witnessing in real time are "pretty crazy."

Keep ReadingShow less
Tweet and photos from @ZONEofTECH's  Twitter (X) account
@ZONEofTECH/Twitter (X)

Man Hospitalized After Samsung Galaxy Smart Ring Swells On His Finger Before Flight

Most of us have worn a ring at some point in time. If the ring felt a little snug and struggled to pass the knuckle, we might have experienced that irrational fear that the ring might not ever come off again!

But for Twitter (X) user, Daniel, that became a valid concern while wearing his Samsung Galaxy Ring.

Keep ReadingShow less