History Main / ReedRichardsIsUseless

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Magic can only be used to bring people back to life if they die by supernatural means. [[spoiler:So Buffy can be brought back after her death from leaping into and closing Glory's portal in Season 5, but Joyce and Tara have no such luck after an aneurysm and gunshot wound, respectively]]. The Urn of Osiris, which [[spoiler:resurrected Buffy]], was also the only true way of bringing someone back from the dead, body and soul intact. When Willow acquired it, she was lucky, because that was the very last one, and it was smashed and defiled, so if it had been pieced back together it still would have been useless.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Magic can (supposedly) only be used to bring people back to life if they die by supernatural means. [[spoiler:So Buffy can be brought back after her death from leaping into and closing Glory's portal in Season 5, but Joyce and Tara have no such luck after an aneurysm and gunshot wound, respectively]]. The Urn of Osiris, which [[spoiler:resurrected Buffy]], was also the only true way of bringing someone back from the dead, body and soul intact. When Willow acquired it, she was lucky, because that was the very last one, and it was smashed and defiled, so if it had been pieced back together it still would have been useless.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Magic can (supposedly) only be used to bring people back to life if they die by supernatural means. [[spoiler:So Buffy can be brought back after her death in Season 5, but Joyce and Tara have no such luck]]. The Urn of Osiris, that [[spoiler:resurrected Buffy]], was also the only true way of bringing someone back from the dead, body and soul intact. When Willow acquired it, she was lucky, because that was the very last one, and it was smashed and defiled, so if it had been pieced back together it still would have been useless.

** In the 12th and final season Sheldon and Amy develop a new physics theory "Super Asymmetry" and find themselves up for a Nobel Prize. Given the [[ShownTheirWork general accuracy]] of the math and science on the show, it ran straight into the problem of even a technical adviser not able to produce a genuinely award-worthy theory. The reactions of most physicists to questions about its validity have been at best a shrug.

* Deliberately invoked by Academy City in ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex''. They are estimated to be ''several decades'' ahead of the rest of the world in terms of technology, and some of the stuff they take for granted could easily revolutionize various sciences and solve a ton of problems. However, they also want to remain on top of the tech tree, so they refuse to share their technology until after they've made it obsolete. But even then it's still cutting-edge to the rest of the world.
* ''Anime/DeathNote'' features a {{Deconstruction}}. Light finds the titular book and initially thinks it should be exploited to kill criminals. As the series goes on, he goes through SanitySlippage to become a murderous KnightTemplar.

* Website/TheEditingRoom at times will point out this. For instance, both the SizeShifter technology of ''Film/AntMan'' and the [[TimeMaster time manipulation]] of ''Film/DoctorStrange2016'' are highlighted as potential fixes for world hunger.

** In "Treehouse of Horror XVII" a meteor with some living blob crashes into the Simpsons; back yard. Lisa says how humanity could possibly learn about interplanetary transportation from the creature. Homer decides that it is more important to eat it.

* Averting this is the whole point of ''Series/TheVisitor'', as the protagonist Adam fled back to Earth from the aliens, who had abducted him, in order to find inventors and help them spread their knowledge for the betterment of humankind. Unfortunately, not everyone is of the same mind, which includes his fellow abductees and the US military. For instance, the guy who invents [[ArtificialGravity anti-gravity]] is put in a secret military prison, as the military claims his discovery is too dangerous, as it can be used to make black holes. Meanwhile, a scientist-farmer attempting to produce AntiMatter instead figures out a way to grow crops incredibly quickly. Adam tells the man that he can single-handedly solve world hunger.

* Much like Reed Richards' translator, Creator/DouglasAdams stated that the reason every alien language can speak English is because everyone has a Babel Fish (from ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'') in their ear to translate it for us. Not only did the Babel Fish's creation cause God to disappear in a PuffOfLogic but it has caused bigger and bloodier wars than anything else in existence from its removal of all language barriers.

# Related to the above, the lack of reasonable infrastructure needed to mass-produce the items, techniques, etc. It's likely many of the wondrous inventions and/or technology require large amounts of complicated parts and pieces that need to be assembled and handled in certain and specialized methods for it to be built and functioned properly; all of which requires a lot of time, finances, material, equipment, skilled labor and logistics for, something that humanity (or whatever race) lack the economic and or technological infrastructure in regards to mass production/maintenance. Sure you can have a design for an awesome spaceship, but the amount of raw materials, processing equipment, skilled workers and logistics to create one would be a a massive undertaking that only a global superpower (nation or [[NGOSuperpower otherwise]]) could even try with a reasonable chance of success. For an entire fleet, it would be a project that only a PlanetaryNation or OneWorldOrder could do so on a practical level and reasonable chance of success than a MulticulturalAlienPlanet of varying powers with different goals, agendas and alliances.

** In "Treehouse of Horror XVII" a meteor with some living blob crashes into the Simpsons back yard. Lisa says how humanity could possibly learn about interplanetary transportation from the creature. Homer decides that it is more important to eat it.

* ''Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'': Willy Wonka can make a meal come out of gum, an ice cream that stays cold and doesn't melt in the sun, build a chocolate palace without a metal framework, teleport things into TV screens, and has anti-gravity technology--yet he only applies his know-how to candy. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Mike Teavee in the 2005 movie: "Don't you realize what you've invented? It's a teleporter! It's the most important invention in the world! And all you think about is ''chocolate''!" That movie at least has the justification that Willy Wonka hated adults and seeing as teleporters would belong in the hands of adults, he wouldn't have wanted to share. Of course, given what happens to Mike after he tries to prove he's right, you can't really blame Wonka for not using it to teleport people. In the book the "meal from gum" candy actually ''was'' intended to end hunger, but Wonka says he hasn't perfected it yet. Given that it turns anyone who eats it into a blueberry, he's right not to market it yet. Of course, the entire premise is that Wonka has become a recluse and refuses to allow others to see how his factory works as rival companies sent in spies to steal his recipes. He created the Golden Ticket tour to find a worthy heir, who can presumably change the company for the better as he finally allowed people to see his factory.

** Justified and discussed in ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}''. Justified when it is stated that Wakanda doesn't send its tech to the world as they think it will cause war. [[spoiler:This is proven right when Killmonger gets control and starts sending weapons to war dogs in other countries.]] However, many characters think that Wakanda would be able to provide aid and technology on an unprecedented scale, [[spoiler:which is what it starts doing at the end of the film]].

*** In fact, he takes a world-changing power source that was formerly used to keep himself alive and ''throws it in the ocean'' for catharsis (assuming he didn't remove the actual vital parts first and throw away the case). That's leaving aside that every single technology that goes into his armor is a world-changing technology, from its potential for advanced prosthetics to his insanely advanced AI ''butler.''

** One guy's saliva could cause weight loss. Companies sought him out to potentially market a revolutionary weight-loss drug. But it turns out that [[spoiler:the saliva doesn't stop working and eventually the people who were under its effects become emaciated]].

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' could have changed the world with the [=SCPs=]... [[JustifiedTrope if they weren't so dangerous]] and most of those that aren't are mostly used to help containing other [=SCPs=]. And the Serpent's Hand still consider the Foundation enemies, because they do not want to improve the world with [=SCPs=]. And they don't want it to fall into the hands of the Chaos Insurgency.

* The ''Literature/TheBelgariad'', and related expansions explain away why sorcerers, who can do literally anything, don't just fix everything: Just about anything they do [[ForWantOfANail Butterfly Effects]] EVERYTHING. Minor changes here or there generally do not result in anything horrendous. Creating a thunderstorm to scare two armies into silence so you can badmouth them for an hour about how stupid their war is results in four other sorcerers spending years trying to get the weather patterns fixed proper. They could literally end wars with their power, but the methods might destroy the planet.

** However, one should keep in mind that this installment of the Bond franchise (which constantly runs all over the SlidingScaleOfContinuity) does not even appear to be set in the real world of TheEighties. Rather it is set in some AlternateReality, is set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, or at least takes HUGE [[ArtisticLicense artistic liberties]], (or possibly combines all three concepts) since the governments' armed forces in this world also display advanced space technologies and weapons equal to those of Drax. So it appears that these technologies have already been developed and used by other people.They just have not been used to start the TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* ''Fanfic/{{Raise}} features a type 8 in Jaune. He does want to help people as much as possible, but he has a limit to how many resurrections he can handle at a time. This is seen best in chapter 5, where he pushes past his limits to resurrect one last child for the event and he collapses from the strain. It is noted that there were still more families hoping for his help that will not receive it because Jaune genuinely can't give anymore. His Semblance is renewable but limited and there will always be people who never receive his help because of that.

* Zigzagged with ''TabletopGame/WildTalents''. The designers created it to be a superhero game that also makes use of alternate histories, placing emphasis on the ability of people with superpowers to shape the world around them, including the creation of fantastic technology. This is detailed in various pregenerated worlds, but not all of them follow the model. Worlds such as ''Godlike'' and ''This Favored Land'' both enforce this trope in different ways, resulting in histories that are the same as ours just weirder. ''The World Gone Mad'', ''The Kerberos Club'', and ''Progenitor'', on the other hand, all [[AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome avert this trope to the fullest]], creating wildly different histories from our own.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'', the [[{{Cult}} Flame Keeper's Circle]] wants to avert this by using alien technology to bring Earth into a golden age. Ben and the other Plumbers ''enforce'' this since introducing alien technology to a world that isn't ready for it is just a recipe for disaster. Julie tries to call out Ben (who uses a piece of powerful alien technology to make the universe a better place as a superhero) on the hypocrisy of this policy, but Ben points out that recklessly accelerating a planet's development via alien technology will usually lead to the planet's doom. Later episodes confirms it by revealing [[spoiler:the Ascallon Sword, one of Azmuth's previous inventions, was once used by someone in an attempt to unify his planet ravaged by civil war... and ended up destroying said planet]].

** Discussed in ''Film/IronMan1''. Tony Stark's power cell is stated as being able to generate 3 gigajoules per second of energy -- which is 3 gigawatts of power generation. This is about as much power as produced by the largest man-made nuclear reactor and about 15 times the power of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Tony is adamant that the technology stays in his hands and ''his alone'' so that it doesn't fall into "the wrong hands", and part of ''Film/IronMan2'''s plot revolves around Tony's attempts to prevent his technology being forcibly acquired by the US government or other outside parties; it's also show that whilst various other nations (as well as his business rival Justin Hammer) have attempted to duplicate the Iron Man tech for themselves, none have so far succeeded... until Ivan Vanko shows up.

* This trope is {{deconstructed|Trope}} in the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' series. The Andalites, a race of {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s, have developed amazing technologies including hyper-realistic holograms, faster-than-light travel through "Z space" (warping into another dimension), and--of course--the ability to [[VoluntaryShapeshifting morph into animals]]. While their refusal to conquer the universe with their inventions can be chalked up to their generally peaceful lifestyle, the question as to why they didn't freely share their tech went unanswered for the first few books in the series. Ax eventually admitted the truth: an Andalite named Seerow came across a primitive race of aliens that was barely thriving. Seerow took pity on that race and taught them all kinds of scientific secrets to help them advance...unfortunately, he was inadvertently helping the Yeerks, a group of [[PuppeteerParasite mind-controlling slugs]] who immediately set out to conquer and destroy every planet in existence, which sparked a galactic war. This tragedy, known as "Seerow's Kindness," is the [[OldShame greatest shame in Andalite history]], and led them to adopt a strict and permanent AlienNonInterferenceClause.