It seemed like a good idea at the time ...

[Axtremus]

Thomas Midgley, Jr., inventor credited with not one, but two world changing inventions that seemed like very good ideas at the time:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/24/world/thomas-midgley-jr-leaded-gas-freon-scn/index.html

In the early 1920s, Midgley came up with the idea of adding a lead compound called tetraethyl lead ("Ethyl") to gasoline to solve the "engine knocking" problem at the time.

A few years later, Midgley came up with Freon, a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) refrigerant used in refrigerators and air conditioners to make them safer.

[Jolly]

They were very good ideas.

[taiwan_girl]

@Jolly said in It seemed like a good idea at the time ...:

They were very good ideas.

Agree. At the time, "you dont know what you dont know"

[Mik]

The tag line of my younger life.

[jon-nyc]

It probably wasn’t reasonably foreseeable what problems would arise from leaded gasoline and CFCs.

[taiwan_girl]

@Mik 555