I have a good friend who likes to say, “I love humanity, I tolerate human beings.”
I think I know what he’s getting at…humans do a lot of terrible things to each other.
And a lot of scary things, too.
Folks on AskReddit shared what they think are the scariest things ever invented by humans.
See what they had to say.
1. The reactors.
“Nuclear power reactors.
Chernobyl comes to mind immediately. To sum it up, there was a severe break of protocol leading up to a safety test. The test was delayed by 10 hours and the crew that carried out the test was unprepared. They were forced to do it anyways.
When the core exploded, it’s estimated that the radioactive material released was 400x the amount of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings put together. Over 100,000 km2 (39,000 mi2 ) was contaminated and evacuated.
So many people d**d. There isn’t even an official number. Just knowing what radiation does to people is so haunting. It’s even worse knowing that it could have been prevented.”
2. Is it too late?
“Our current climate crisis.
It’s been known of for years and we refused to change or try and find new ways.”
3. A divisive one.
“Capitalism.
Because it’s a system that richly rewards any innovation: good or evil.
Once there’s a huge profit motive, it’s impossible to resist creating dynamite, agent orange, zyklon b, nuclear weapons, etc etc.”
4. Even worse.
“Everyone here is saying nuclear bombs, I’d say hydrogen bombs.
It is formed by a nuclear fission reaction, i.e. the nucleus of the atom splits up into two or more particles. While, in nuclear fusion reactions (which forms nukes), the two particles fuse to form the atom’s nucleus.
Hydrogen bombs are 10x worse than nuclear bombs in terms of impact. I’d say hydrogen bombs by a mile.”
5. A new Cold War.
“Hypersonic missiles. We are entering a new Cold War.
China has just announced they have rockets (and a wind tunnel) that can travel at over 28,000 mph.
No anti missile system on the planet can Intercept something traveling at that speed.”
6. Uh oh.
“The Pug.
We created a complete inferior version of the original and still manipulated our way into “loving it.” We love things just because we made it.
Just wait until we expand our access into human modifications.”
7. Mo’ money.
“Money.
Switching from a bartering system to physical markers of effort, especially given that your pay no longer has much to do with how physically or mentally difficult your task is, and more to do with where you were born and to who, and who you met along the way with your birth-family’s help.
This has caused us to dissociate from reality. It’s rewarded absolute greed (thus, climate change) and aggression (thus, colonialism).
It’s also brought back some of the worst parts of feudalism, such as the fact that you likely d** from the elements or malicious actions from others if you don’t have protection from a noble, which is now how American health insurance works, as it’s through your employer or prohibitively expensive.”
8. Good and bad.
“Governments.
The good ones can be great, but when it comes to the bad ones the horror sets in. Corrupt governments can do almost anything they want to their citizens with little to no consequences, because as long as you have the military on your side, you cannot be overthrown (unless you make a big f**k up or millions of people storm you directly).
The worst dictators cannot be overthrown without outside interference, North Korea is the perfect example. They have been violating many human rights for generations but much can’t be done by the people. They have to either escape or live miserable lives.
Not to mention, Governments are the things that make all of these nuclear bombs and bio-weapons which many people here have listed as the most horrible things.
I’m not an anarchist but Governments are the most horrible thing that modern humans have made, an entity that pumps out all of these, bombs and, all of these weapons, whilst being able to be almost invincible to inside threats.”
9. Artificial intelligence.
“A.I.
The reason I believe this is because society is slowly imploding because of the echo chambers that A.I. recommendation systems create.
We are going down a very dangerous road and people do not understand what is happening.”
10. Horrifying.
“Nuclear Bombs.
Imagine a bomb so scary that any nation is basically crossed off the list for invasion. War despite no matter how gruesome or gory. All the d**th, torture, starvations, fire, and disease that came out of war.
No one once looked at something fired once and said” yeah no there is no fighting that level of d**th and horror.”.
Nukes are what kept the planet at peace for the majority of the world based on the understanding that if you get turned to dust in a second you are considered the lucky one on the receiving end. It is by far the scariest thing mankind has ever created.”
11. Thoughts?
“I’m honestly going to have to go with social media in its current form. Nuclear weapons have chains of command and are kept under lock and key.
Some private cannot initiate a nuclear strike but any nitwit can hop on Facebook, Instagram, etc. and fall into the rabbit hole of extremism, believing whatever some s**thead tells them due to lack of critical thinking skills, people who know how to exploit social media doing just that, and so forth. And this has happened to millions of people.
I honestly think social media has been a net negative to humankind and that, if it had been invented in the 1940s, we would still have polio crippled people being placed in iron lungs every year.”
12. Frightening.
“Biological weapons.
Sure there’s a convention that countries have agreed to that makes production illegal, but not all countries abide by it, and as the “good guys” you need to have your own in the pack so they’ll be too afraid to use it
Yeah Nukes are scary, but at least that’s an instant d**th for most of the population. A Biological weapon could take a long time to actually k**l a population, or even spread. Even Covid took a relative long time to spread. Took months whereas nukes would be a few hours.
Plus not everyone would be susceptible to the weapon. Imagine surviving a pandemic that k**led 99% of the global population. Even global thermonuclear war would have more survivors than that.”
What do you think is the scariest thing about mankind?
Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
