History Main / MisappliedPhlebotinum

** Significant lip service is paid to how indipensible the Z Fighters are to saving the Earth from disaster, and this lip service is not an unfair observation. All the same it's rather odd that Goku and his friends don't teach the citizens of Earth about how to use ki so they can apply supernatural martial arts themselves. Maybe you can't train every citizen on Earth to the level of a Z fighter, but perhaps having some basic understanding of ki manipulation would prevent the Earth from being a total push over. In the non-canon game Dragon Ball Online, Gohan actually takes this to and creates a martial art school to teach ordinary people how to use ki, and he even creates a series of text books to help people learn the science of ki. Long after Gohan is dead, citizens all around the world have some fighting ability thanks to his efforts.

** The ability to translate almost any physical object across the universe at comparatively instantaneous[[note]] FTL speeds may be slow or fast in the context of a given work, however compared to a contemporary, relativistic understanding of spacetme they are effectively instantaneous[[/note]] speeds can also raise questions as to how exactly this technology is being applied, namely why can the heroes not simply warp around behind the enemy vessel and light up their weak points like the Fourth of July, or even why does sublight propulsion need to exist in the first place.

** Instead, AG is (almost) exclusively used only to ensure the main characters have a comfortable sense of up and down, no matter how pressing other matters might be.[[note]] There are actually some very real health risks associated with extended exposure to microgravity, however the lengths to which in-universe shipbuilders will go to avoid this is nothing short of nonsensical. [[/note]] This extends even to active combat situations, where the AG will remain running at full capacity even while the rest of the spacecraft is currently in flames or even completely depressurized. [[SarcasmMode As we all know, militaries are always keen to put personnel comfort over their own offensive or defensive capability, and would never even think of requiring its soldiers to regularly exercize in order to be able to overcome the physical stresses of deployment abroad.]]
* '''{{Nanomachines}}''': While they may have more limits in real life, it'd be easier to list the things you couldn't do with nanomachines capable of the kinds of tasks they do in fiction than the things you can, yet they're frequently introduced as a plot-device for one specific thing and never used for anything else.

** Various spellcasters (which ones, exactly, depends on edition) can ''make water materialize out of thin air'' and ''purify huge amounts of existing water''. Rather than, you know, revolutionizing agriculture and sea travel, they primarily use this ability to reduce the amount of canteens parties of adventurers have to lug around.

* A particularly hilarious and [[LampshadeHanging acknowledged]] version of this occurs in a codex entry in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': before the creation of the Circle of Magi, the Chantry employed mages ''exclusively'' for lighting sacred candles and lamps in their churches. And occasionally sweeping up. Eventually, the mages of Val Royeux's cathedral snuffed out their lamps in protest and demanded that their services be put to better use; the [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Divine]] responded by ordering an Exalted March (i.e.: a crusade) on her own cathedral, which was only prevented by her Templars pointing out what a patently insane idea this was. Then again, the Chantry has historical reasons to avoid magic users, not the least of which being their penchant for DemonicPossession, so putting them to limited use is justified from the Divine's point of view.

* Mad inventor Riff (well, he's more of a [[TheStoic "Meh"]] inventor) in ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' has ended up playing this trope for laughs by using such things as his dimensional portal for cheap magic tricks, and generally using his prodigious intellect on ray guns and toaster cannons. Is it any wonder his CatchPhrase is "Let me check my notes"?

** Another case is the holodeck. One may assume there are people who have taken to just living permanent lives of leisure in a holodeck, but, again, they aren't shown on-screen because that would be boring. The recurring character Reginald Barclay's ongoing struggle with "holo-addiction" points out why you don't want that sort of thing going on when you're supposed to be busy exploring the galaxy and [[BoldlyComing making friends with aliens]].

** The Jedi are known as guardians of peace in the galaxy, but their application of the Force for combat against the forces of evil seems like a limited use of the Force's overall utility. Stock speculators would kill for the ability to read the future and would pay Jedi a fortune for an accurate prediction. Construction companies would love Jedi since they could lift heavy materials without the need for heavy machinery. A Jedi's lightsaber would be like a gift from God to a welder, given its ability to cut through basically anything. Companies would likely pay the Jedi a fortune for the use of their lightsabers for civilian purposes. Jedi would even be useful for doctors, because they would know ahead of time if patients are going to get sick and would be able to get them preventive care. Jedi would be of help to surgeons since they could sense where the injury is located, or perhaps even telekinetically remove it with the Force rather than needing to cut them open. Insofar as you want to acknowledge healing abilities, which are either mild or extremely esoteric (what Rey did to Kylo Ren, Darth Plagueis' ability to stop death) then Force users would be sought after for their miracle power to save lives. The Jedi using lightsabers and Force powers to stop Sith seems like only one small part of what they could be doing to help people.

* SantaClaus has, amongst other things, access to a vast manufacturing complex run by magical elves, a sack that can hold near limitless contents and still be carried, the power to make reindeer fly and some kind of time dilation ability (givne that he's able to visit every house in the world over the course of a single night, which would come to ''over 80,000 houses a second''). Best use in story: making illegal copies of copyrighted/trademarked/patented goods and giving them to children. For free. Better idea: Making copies of his {{Magitek}} to share with the world, enabling a post-scarcity society. (Or world domination, though he'd hardly like to put himself on the Naughty list.)

* This is actually {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in the Nicolas Cage film ''Film/{{Next}}''. Also justified since the psychic in question knows he's being hunted down by the government and thus keeps his gambling wins small to avoid attracting attention.

* Buffy Summers from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' acquires the ability to read minds in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E18Earshot Earshot]]". Giles suggests using it for gathering intelligence against her enemies... but Buffy's response is "Way better than that", and she uses it to give the right answers in class investigate the petty personal questions of how people think about her. Of course, like most magic in Sunnydale, it goes horribly wrong. It ends up being a moot point anyway, since she can't control it and vampires are immune.

* Buffy Summers from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' acquires the ability to read minds in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E18Earshot Earshot]]". Giles suggests using it for gathering intelligence against her enemies... but Buffy's response is "Way better than that", and she uses it to investigate the petty personal questions of how people think about her. Of course, like most magic in Sunnydale, it goes horribly wrong. It ends up being a moot point anyway, since she can't control it and vampires are immune.

** Laser guns across the series are every bit as powerful as you would expect such weapons to be. Lasers hit instantly (moving realistically at the speed of light), are generally light weight, have low recoil, and the ammo catridges for them are small, portable nuclear fusion cells that power the laser beams. Laser guns however are rarely seen in common parlence with major settlements, on account of the factions with the know how and capital to supply and maintain them being secretive and isolationist.

** SCP-914. A large clockwork device covering 18 square meters. Items put into a slot are altered according to one of five parameters set: Rough, Coarse, 1:1, Fine and Very Fine. The Rough and Coarse settings tend to destroy items or reduce them to their base material components, the 1:1 returns a different object of equivalent worth and purpose, but the Fine and Very Fine return significantly better items of greater quality or complexity. A gun put into the machine, with the Fine or Very Fine setting, would return an even better gun, possibly even stuff beyond SCP's current tech level. The main problem with the above is that SCP-914 itself is sentient and tends to troll people on a regular basis, producing actively harmful end results, and even if it's feeling co-operative that day and because it was apparently created as something that could produce novel new things instead of something that's primarily intended to disassemble or improve items placed in it, you never know if the weapon you feed into it on Fine or Very Fine setting will produce a better weapon of the same type, a technically better but ludicrously difficult-to-operate variant of the weapon or an aggressive KillerRobot roughly based on the weapon's design that then proceeds to kill everyone in the room. However, even the 1:1 setting is fairly useful, as it could potentially provide translations of writings in an unknown language, which they have done some experiments on in the past.

** The Room of Requirement is even guiltier since you can't even give the "it's too dangerous" excuse. A room that can respond to your request by changing itself, providing all the necessary equipment and information. Even if it cannot create things that don't already exist (like a map that marks all V's [[SoulJar Horcruxes]]), the possibilities are still staggering. You could probably request a room full of gold, or lost artifacts, or weapons, or hell, maybe the cures to cancer and AIDS, while you're at it (one could argue that it does exist, we just haven't been able to put it together)! The characters spend most of the series using it as a gym, a supply closet or a storeroom, only even ''beginning'' to explore its true potential in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'', when LaResistance in Hogwarts is using it as their base.

** ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E03TheDeadTalkBack The Dead Talk Back]]'' has an entire sketch parodying this trope. The film features a scientist who claims to be working on a radio that can talk to the dead. Crow and Servo manage to get a working version together, and immediately use it for a sports talk radio show. Mike spends the entire sketch flabbergasted as UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln and UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill call in from beyond the grave; despite his attempts to ask them more important questions, not even ''they're'' interested in anything besides who'll win the Super Bowl that year.

** In the episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead Planet of the Dead]]", with a psychic woman who repeatedly wins small amounts on the lottery, because she's happy enough with her life as it is and doesn't want the changes a big win would create.

** Partly [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] by the action/comedy film Film/{{Fatman}}, Where Santa is funded by the various governments of the world to function as an conomic stimulus, an the U.S. Government at one point contracts him to also help build weapon parts.

** Clerics can ''make water materialize out of thin air'' and ''purify huge amounts of existing water''. Rather than, you know, revolutionizing agriculture and sea travel, they primarily use this ability to reduce the amount of canteens parties of adventurers have to lug around.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheTwelveWorksOfAsterix'' has Iris, an Egyptina hypnotizer. He can hypnotize people into being anything. The thing is, when he has hypnotized someone into believing he is a bird, he ''really starts to fly''. Just imagine the potential if he hypnotized the Roman army into "believing" they're as strong as the Gauls, for instance. But no, Cesar only has him try to hypnotize Asterix into being a wild boar.

** Luke's robot hand is covered in advanced synthetic skin, that looks indistinguishable from human flesh at a glance. This would indicate that cybernetics should be capable of making other body parts look realistically organic. Whether it's Vader, Grevious, or the non-canon robotic Starkiller, cybernetics that cover the whole body seem to be a crude mish-mash of machinery and flesh. Vader is covered in bulky armor. Grevious is basically a skeletal metal frame with some organs inside his chest and head cavity. Starkiller'S DLC costume is a robot with some decaying flesh exposed. Even the dark side ending Starkiller repeats the trend of Vader esque armor. You would think something akin to the realistic skin tone cybernetics of Cyberpunk 2077, or the synthetics from Fallout 4 should be possible if you gave someone a full body conversion, but instead it looks bulky and clunky. One could hand wave that these cybernetics were focused more on power/function over beauty, but it does seem odd that they're not capable of achieving that result.

** The Jedi are known as guardians of peace in the galaxy, but their application of the Force for combat against the forces of evil seems like a limited use of the Force's overall utility. Stock speculators would kill for the ability to read the future and would pay Jedi a fortune for an accurate prediction. Construction companies would love Jedi since they could lift heavy materials without the need for heavy machinery. A Jedi's lightsaber would be like a gift from God to a welder, given its ability to cut through basically anything. Companies would likely pay the Jedi a fortune for the use of their lightsabers for civilian purposes. Jedi would even be useful for doctors, because they would know ahead of time if patients are going to get sick and would be able to get them preventive care. Jedi would be of help to surgeons since they could sense where the injury is located, or perhaps even telekinetically remove it with the Force rather than needing to cut them open. Insofar as you want to acknowledge healing abilities, which are either mild or extremely esoteric (what Rey did to Kylo Ren, Darth Plagueis ability to stop death) then Force users would be sought after for their miracle power to save lives. The Jedi using lightsabers and Force powers to stop Sith seems like only one small part of what they could be doing to help people.

** In ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'', Howard Stark, one of the brightest allied minds and the US Army's primary weapons contractor, has access to a completely vibration-absorbent metal called Vibranium. He fashions it into a circule, supposedly a prototype, though for what or how he planned on making more of it with no more of the stuff isn't explained as Captain America decides to use it as a shield. [[Film/BlackPanther2018 Seven years later]], this is averted by Wakanda, who have built an advanced civilization around diverse use of the mineral, including hologram projections covering the entire country, forcefields, and clean energy. In fact, this trope is a significant theme in that movie, with T'Challa realizing that Wakanda's secretive nature and hoarding their advanced technology is a grave misuse of something that could better the entire world.

** Gravity is, simply put, a distortion of spacetime manifesting as an apparent force of attraction between two or more massive particles. While many different theories exist as to what exactly makes gravity tick the way it does, there is actually still very little we know for certain about it. This makes any technology capable of replicating this force of attraction particularly suseptable to this trope, as until we can figure out what exactly it is, gravity will have to be assumed to be such a fundamental feature of the universe that being able to generate or manipulate it without a planetary mass will doubtlessly present a [[TheSingularity technological singularity]] that could easily propel humanity [[JustForFun/AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit far past any conventional metrics of civilizational advancement]].

** The ability to translate almost any physical object across the universe at comparatively instantaneous[[note]] FTL speeds may be slow or fast in the context of a given work, however compared to a contemporary, relativistic understanding of spacetme they are effectively instantanious[[/note]] speeds can also raise questions as to how exactly this technology is being applied, namely why can the heroes not simply warp around behind the enemy vessel and light up their weak points like the Fourth of July, or even why does sublight propulsion need to exist in the first place.

** The ability to translate almost any physical object across the universe at comparatively instantanious[[note]] FTL speeds may be slow or fast in the context of a given work, however compared to a contemporary, relativistic understanding of spacetme they are effectively instantanious[[/note]] speeds can also raise questions as to how exactly this technology is being applied, namely why can the heroes not simply warp around behind the enemy vessel and light up their weak points like the Fourth of July, or even why does sublight propulsion need to exist in the first place.

* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', the [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampires Cullens]] are blessed with eternal life and a seemingly infinite amount of money. You'd think they'd devote their lives to something interesting, if not something charitable since they are described as basically Jesus. The best thing they could come up with is ''going to high school for decades'' and not even making good friends every once in a while.

* Buffy Summers from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' acquires the ability to read minds in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E18Earshot Earshot]]". Giles suggests using it for gathering intelligence against her enemies... but Buffy's response is "Way better than that", and she uses it to investigate the petty personal questions of how people think about her. Of course, like most magic in Sunnydale, it goes horribly wrong. It ends up being a moot point anyway, since she can't control it and vampires were immune.

** The Vidiians have some of the most ridiculously advanced medical technology ''ever''. They are also afflicted with a disease that devours their organs one by one, and which adapts too quickly for them to cure. They use their hyper-advanced medicine to murder people and steal their organs. In "Faces", it's definitively established that they can create clones through transporter technology. The obvious use of this is to mass-produce organ-harvest clones, which may be something of an ethical minefield but has to be miles ahead of ''murdering people and stealing their organs''.

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'' has a villain whose Stand can reverse a person's age down to a child, or even a ''fetus''. There's no limit to people willing to pay him astronomical amounts of money for eternal youth (and assuming he needs to use the power continuously, they'd have to keep paying him). He uses it to weaken his targets before murdering them. However, he ''is'' a psychopathic axe killer, so fame and fortune might not actually rate higher than a satisfying murder.

* ''Anime/{{Patlabor}}'' famously averted this in regards to {{Mecha}}. While you do see some mechs built for military purposes like most anime depicts, the majority of them are used for more practical, menial purposes. They're common sights at any workplace that requires heavy lifting and transport, police often use them in operations and have departments trained in their use, and security firms and crime families pay top dollar to have mechs for use as enforcers.
* Averted in ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline''. The revolutionary "Seed" program developed by Akihiko Kayaba is initially used just for entertainment purposes in the form of VRMMO games. Nobuyuki Sugou, the BigBad of the second arc, even lampshades it, by stating ''he'' has [[BrainwashedAndCrazy better]] [[MoreThanMindControl uses]] for Kayaba's inventions than the man himself. But as time goes on, VR technology starts spreading to other purposes. The first major breakthrough comes in the form of the Medicuboid, a specialized VR interface meant for medical research and to help terminally ill patients.[[note]][[spoiler: The Medicuboid was designed by Kayaba and his partner, meaning Kayaba ''did'' see proper applications for his research.]][[/note]] ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnlineAlternativeGunGaleOnline'' shows that several countries' armed forces are testing VR environments for use in combat training, while school sports teams also use VR for practice sessions building team cohesion. The biggest application comes in the ''Alicization'' story arc, where [[spoiler: a next-generation, hyper-realistic VR world ''completely indistinguishable from reality'' is initiated by the Soul Translator, the SuperiorSuccessor to the above-mentioned Medicuboid, is being secretly used by the Japanese Self-Defense Force to construct fully sentient artificial intelligences to pilot [[AttackDrone autonomous combat vessels.]]]]
* Anime/{{DragonBallZ}}

* Franchise/{{Green Lantern}}s: You have the ultimate weapon. Its power is limited only by your imagination. Big-ass hammer is NOT a good application of your powers. Finally subverted with Kyle Rayner, who was more likely to create [[HumongousMecha Humongous Mechs]] and {{Anime}} characters than giant hammers and boxing gloves. Once when asked to make a simple bubble he said that it was the "other guy" who did mundane things like that. On the other hand, until the 1970s the rings were really able to do ''anything'', including wiping minds, acting on time-delayed and pre-programmed commands, transmuting matter, and mutating living beings at will. Really, neither Kyle nor Hal Jordan ever really noticed all the implications of the rings.

** ''Franchise/TheFlash'' :

** Pre-Crisis MadScientist Comicbook/LexLuthor could become every bit as wealthy as [[ComicBook/FantasticFour Reed Richards]] if he marketed his tech legally, but he has too much of an {{Ubermensch}} complex to even ''want'' to make a living within society's infrastructure, viewing mundane Last Man civilization itself with contempt. John Byrne's ComicBook/PostCrisis Luthor is rich, but he only sporadically does scientific jobs himself, preferring to supervise or steal the work of specialists; while he has a superior intellect and his empire is based on earlier inventions, he is mostly rich by being a mundane ruthless SOB. Modern Luthor ''combines'' the two versions elevating his intellect to finally CutLexLuthorACheck and establish his scientific genius as the ''source'' of his colossal wealth.

** ''Almost'' subverted in DC's critically-acclaimed ''ComicBook/{{Starman}}'' comic of the mid-to-late-1990s. Our Hero, Jack Knight, agrees to take on his father's mantle as Starman, ''if'' his father will in turn take the amazing Cosmic Rod technology that he's used for self-indulgent heroics for half a century, and adapt it to civilian use: clean power, antigravity, force fields, and more. In the final issue, Ted makes good on the promise, and hands Jack a thick sheaf of documents detailing exactly that. It's ''almost'' subverted because, years after the end of the series, [[ReedRichardsIsUseless no trace of the "spin-off" technology has been seen]].

** ComicBook/UltimateXMen mentioned the theory that Charles Xavier used his telepathy to make money in stocks. He never actually confirmed this, but he didn't specifically deny it so much as pull a "I won't validate that with an answer."

** Lampshaded when Spiderman confronted the villain Sauron, who can rewrite DNA and used his power to make people into dinosaurs. Spiderman points out that with his power, he could do amazing things like cure cancer, to which Sauron retorts that he doesn't ''want'' to cure cancer. He just wants to turn people into dinosaurs.

* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'': Not entirely averted, as people like the Trapster and Spider-Man demonstrate. In the case of the latter, the alternate-future series ''ComicBook/TheLastAvengersStory'' showed Peter Parker as a multi-millionaire, having patented his web formula after retiring as Spider-Man. One continuity had Peter try to patent the formula, and get rejected on the grounds that it wasn't permanent. Never mind that even an impermanent adhesive like that would have countless uses. If not ''especially'' an impermanent adhesive like that-- take the formulation on Post-It notes, which has made EleventyZillion dollars for 3M.
* One "ComicBook/WhatIf" story asked the question "What if Tony Stark shared his power suit designs with the world?" It turned nasty very quickly, as it allowed considerable power into the hands of some very ruthless people and caused several very unpleasant wars. (The Fantastic Four were also slaughtered by a power-suited Dr Doom.)

* In the aftermath of the Franchise/{{Marvel|Universe}} ComicBook/CivilWar, ComicBook/NormanOsborn invents an actual cure for cancer. What does he use it for? To try and kill ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}. OK, he had good reasons to want Deadpool dead, but still, you'd think that making it readily available would bring him a ridiculous amount of money and good publicity. He himself gives it to us straight:

** Averted in the case of replicators; TheFederation as depicted is an example of a moneyless socialist society, sometimes regarded as a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity post-scarcity economy]]. Federation citizens do still work, but they do so to "better themselves", follow personal interests, and contribute to society. From ''The Next Generation'' series onwards, replicators make everything you need -- for an energy input. In a normal space opera you might need some [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief suspension of disbelief]], {{Obvious Rule Patch}}es or [[HandWave handwaving]] to explain why replicators don't cause the economy to collapse, but, in a post-capitalist utopian society, the problem doesn't exist.\\
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The replicators also get more and more limited as the franchise goes on. For instance you can replicate food, but a homecooked meal or restaurant will taste better. It's also inefficent enough that in early seasons of ''Deep Space Nine'' Bajor was struggling with famines, even though they have both replicators and Federation foreign aid. Torpedoes are manufactured traditionally and stored on ships until use, not replicated as needed. Even the Federation is criss-crossed by trade lanes as goods are moved from one side of the galaxy to the other, and a few races build their [[ProudMerchantRace whole culture]] around the fact that trade is still important. (As one ''Star Trek'' producer put it, a society that can replicate a starship is a society that doesn't ''need'' starships.)

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''
** The Vidiians have some of the most ridiculously advanced medical technology ''ever''. They are also afflicted with a disease that devours their organs one by one, and which adapts too quickly for them to cure. They use their hyperadvanced medicine to murder people and steal their organs. In "Faces", it's definitively established that they can create clones through transporter technology. The obvious use of this is to mass-produce organ-harvest clones, which may be something of an ethical minefield but has to be miles ahead of ''murdering people and stealing their organs''.
** In "Prime Factors", the Sikarians are a culture of hedonists who have a teleporter that can reach planets ''forty thousand light years'' distant, which they use exactly once in the episode - to allow one of them to go on a romantic walk with Harry Kim. They presumably use it for other things too, but apparently not for trade or diplomacy. [[note]]Naturally, because FailureIsTheOnlyOption, it's incompatible with Federation technology so that the cast can't use it to get home even after some rogue crewmembers get their hands on one through shady means in violation of Sikarian law against selling their technology.[[/note]]
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}.'' When a character is discovered to have mind control abilities, he is asked why he is only using it to live a lower middle class life and to obtain some weed, get laid (by getting girls into impressive venues, not brainwashing them), and a couple cool things like a rare car, as opposed to something more grand like world conquest. He replies by claiming that he has everything he would ever want.
* Buffy Summers from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' acquired the ability to read minds. Giles suggested using it for gathering intelligence against her enemies... but Buffy's response was "Way better than that," and she used it to investigate the petty personal questions of how people think about her. Of course, like most magic in Sunnydale, it goes horribly wrong. It ended up being a moot point anyway, since she couldn't control it and vampires were immune.

** Sylar's power of "studying something and figuring out exactly how it works". In-story use: fixing watches, stealing supernatural powers. Better use: churning out Nobel Prizes. In ''anything''. Studying just the human body opens up fields like medicine (cure diseases, extend lifespans), neurology/psychology (figure out how the ''non-superpower'' parts of the brain work--consciousness anyone?), and genetics (genotype interaction). However, this may result from the fact that Sylar is ''insane''. In Season 3, Peter takes Sylar's power in order to understand the show's plot. Unfortunately, [[TheDarkSide it also comes with an uncontrollable]] [[ImAHumanitarian craving for brains]].
** Claire's blood. Could easily prevent and reverse any character death in the series. Could even end death as we know it. Her dad ''is'' fully aware of this and thus tries to keep her hidden [[TheyWouldCutYouUp so she won't be locked up and turned into a 24/7 immortality potion dispenser]]. [[AndIMustScream Forever]].

** In the episode "Tin Man", a lonely alien android makes RobotMe versions of the team, almost indistinguishable from the originals except for needing to recharge their batteries every few hours. In-verse application: none, they bury the gate and we never hear of it again. (At least they don't murder the doubles!) Better application: MesACrowd. The SG teams have dangerous jobs; sending disposable duplicates on them would greatly help. Even better, it would probably be fairly easy to make it true BrainUploading. There would be huge lines of the terminally ill and quadriplegics willing to be transferred into properly functioning, indistinguishable-from-the-original bodies (absent the problems they had in the first place). Sure, the whole "can't leave the planet" caveat's a bummer, but a minor one; they could receive visitors and news/entertainment/whatever through the gate. Given the alternative, a lot of people would probably take the offer.
*** Used and abused for this purpose in the spin-off novel ''Hydra''; the NID acquire the templates for the robo-SG-1 and create various subtly-reprogrammed versions of the team to try and do the job that the NID feels the SGC should be doing, such as taking technology from other societies regardless of the cost. This plan backfires as the various duplicates come to resent feeling like slaves, culminating in the creation of the psychopathic 'theta team'.

* In ''Series/WeirdScience'' (series): Of course, considering [[JackassGenie how their wishes usually turn out]], even if they did wish for that it would end badly anyways.

* Just about any technology from ''Series/{{The Outer Limits|1963}}'' gets used in the most wrong, awkward and fucked-up way possible in-world.

-->'''Servo:''' What's he on about... oh! You mean... to escape ''from here''!

** In the story "The Ambassadors of Death", a race of [[spoiler: friendly]] alien beings are discovered that possess highly advanced technology, are ImmuneToBullets, consume radiation and can blow things up (including people) just by touching them. They could end the nuclear waste problem, defend the Earth from asteroids, uplift humans further into outer space... but the people who've kidnapped them just want to use them to rob banks.
** In the episode "Planet of the Dead", with a psychic woman who repeatedly wins small amounts on the lottery, because she's happy enough with her life as it is and doesn't want the changes a big win would create.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': Harold Finch created a surveillance supercomputer that predicts crimes, which the protagonists use to [[WeHelpTheHelpless help the helpless]]. However, the true implication of the Machine isn't as a surveillance device, but the fact that it is ''true artificial intelligence''. This trope is subverted as the series shifts to examine the ramifications of human-equivalent AI in a near-future setting, eventually culminating in [[spoiler:a company bringing a rival AI online to TakeOverTheWorld.]]
* ''Series/JessicaJones2015'' has [[HardboiledDetective Jessica]] herself (super strong and able to jump extremely high,) using her abilities just as a means to make her job as a private detective less dangerous and difficult. It's only somewhat effective, as she's still not particularly successful [[spoiler: until the end of the season, where her reputation grows and she starts getting more calls]]. [[BigBad Kilgrave]] has the power to mind control anybody who comes within a certain distance, and all he does is lead a life of amoral hedonism rather than attempt anything grander. Justified in both cases, as Kilgrave is a psychopath who cares about nothing beyond his immediate pleasure until he develops a psychotic obsession with Jessica, at which point he devotes all his energy towards dominating her. Jessica herself once considered being a superhero, but was so traumatised by her captivity by Kilgrave that she prefers to just get by with enough money to buy alcohol.

** Several of the items in ''GURPS Magical Items'', especially in the section on criminal tools. Somebody put a lot of time and effort into researching a variant of the Glitch spell, in order to ... create a coin that would magically trick vending machines into giving you items for free.

* A particularly hilarious and [[LampshadeHanging acknowledged]] version of this occurs in a codex entry in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': before the creation of the Circle of Magi, the Chantry employed mages ''exclusively'' for lighting sacred candles and lamps in their churches. And occasionally sweeping up. Eventually, the mages of Val Royeux's cathedral snuffed out their lamps in protest and demanded that their services be put to better use; the [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Divine]] responded by ordering an Exalted March (i.e.: a crusade) on her own cathedral, which was only prevented by her Templars pointing out what a patently insane idea this was. Then again, the Chantry has historical reasons to avoid magic users, not the least of which being their penchant for Demonic possession, so putting them to limited use is justified from the Divine's point of view.

* A particularly hilarious and [[LampshadeHanging acknowledged]] version of this occurs in a codex entry in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': before the creation of the Circle of Magi, the Chantry employed mages ''exclusively'' for lighting sacred candles and lamps in their churches. And occasionally sweeping up. Eventually, the mages of Val Royeux's cathedral snuffed out their lamps in protest and demanded that their services be put to better use; the [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Divine]] responded by ordering an Exalted March (i.e.: a crusade) on her own cathedral, which was only prevented by her Templars pointing out what a patently insane idea this was.

* Charles Stross's ''Literature/TheMerchantPrincesSeries'' [[PlayingWithATrope plays with]] this trope. Members of the Clan have the ability to teleport between [[AlternateTimeline alternate timelines]], along with whatever they can carry. They use it to get rich in modern America by smuggling drugs through a world with a feudal culture that lacks a DEA, and in that feudal culture they use their ability to get rich by bringing in modern innovations like penicillin and automatic guns. That's a very practical application of the phlebotinum, compared to many examples on this page, like robbing banks, using GreenLanternRing superpowers just for fighting, or using dinosaurs as the main attraction in an amusement park. However, after a modern business journalist learns about the system she quickly points out that mercantilism is a very old-fashioned, zero-sum economic theory and there are much better things the Clan could be doing with their time, like GivingRadioToTheRomans.

** The (current) Rainmaker program is all about averting this, but it's been played straight (and [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]]) since the days of [[UrExample Mr. Extraordinary]] that the best thing many [[FlyingBrick living]] [[RequiredSecondaryPowers perpetual energy]] [[SuperSpeed devices]], {{Technopath}}s, and GreenLanternRing users do is punch bad guys, build robots to punch bad guys, and punch bad guys with force-field hammers.

* Averted to an incredible degree in ''Franchise/MassEffect'': almost everything in the universe runs on [[MinovskyParticle eezo]]-based technology, from artificial gravity and FTL travel to miniature railguns and telekinesis. Hell, one of your crew members in the third game has an eezo ''[[MundaneUtility toothbrush]]''. The writers even remembered to ObviousRulePatch away FTL ramming.

** The Institute created thinking androids so intelligent that they're basically human. These androids are so realistic that they use the bathroom, bleed, eat, and even sleep. Rather than marvel at their new sub-species of humanity, the Institute puts them to work like common robots. The android research even produced fruit on cybernetics, which increase speed, strength, reflexes, provides immunity to disease, and slows down aging so much life expectancy can exceed 200 years. Only a handful of Institute members use these cybernetics. They also created teleportation. Even if the teleportation can only work in the range of Massachusetts, the Institute would be able to make roads meaningless if they put these teleportation arrays at key checkpoints across the country. The Institute foolishly uses their technology to abuse the Commonwealth citizens, even though simply giving this technology to them would change life so radically they would obey the Institute just out of good will.

* The way Miaka from ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'' used up her three wishes. Seriously, for how long the series went on, you would think the writer could have thought of better requests...

* {{Averted|Trope}} viciously in ''Webcomic/DriveDaveKellet''. If the space being pinched by a ring drive is occupied by a planet, then that planet will suffer massive tremors. The bigger the ship, the more severe the quakes. This ''has'' been taken to the [[http://www.drivecomic.com/archive/110519.html logical]] [[http://www.drivecomic.com/archive/110623.html conclusion]].