What is the scariest thing you've come across or can think of?

[Underestimated Nutria]

I just posted this link in another thread to which it was pertinent:

The paradox of longer sperm telomeres in older men’s testes: a birth-cohort effect caused by transgenerational telomere erosion in the female germline

It's worth reading because it is short and its implications terrifying!

 

[Red Hood]

Someone farted in the elevator at work and it smelled like they'd been eating nothing but hard boiled eggs and Taco Bell for weeks. My eyes watered. My nose ran. I legitimately thought it might be the end for The Shadow.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

The Station Fire gives me chills. Not being burned to death—if you’re stuck in a fire and there’s no hope, suck the smoke and suffocate, it’ll suck less—but being trampled to death. Actually, can I change my answer? One of my very first fears was being trampled to death, and I won’t go into small spaces with a lot of people for that very reason.

One survivor lived because he got buried underneath bodies and didn't get hurt by the fire. I can't even imagine what it was like to be stuck underneath something like that.

 

[JambledUpWords]

Here’s some historical methods of torture that freak me out:

Spoiler

The first one is the rat torture that was used in Europe during the Renaissance. Sometimes, this torture involved hot coals underneath you while rats would eat your innards. Another variation of this was using hungry rats to eat your face.

The second picture is quartering, which was usually used for treason. A famous person that got this treatment was Guy Faux after the failed Gunpowder Plot. This torture involves hanging a person to cause asphyxiation, but not death. Afterwards, the victim is hoisted up on a ladder while an executioner slowly cuts off parts of your body and throws them into a fire. Common things that were cut off were genitals, breasts, ears, etc. After that, your limbs were cut off and sometimes the person would still be conscious during that process. A common way to cut the limbs would be having horses gallop in four different directions until the limbs pulled away from the sockets.

 

[teriyakiburns]

I just posted this link in another thread to which it was pertinent:

The paradox of longer sperm telomeres in older men’s testes: a birth-cohort effect caused by transgenerational telomere erosion in the female germline

It's worth reading because it is short and its implications terrifying!

I'm inferring from this that women who have children later in life are passing on shorter telomeres. Also the ideal breeding pair is an old man in good health and a young woman.

 

[Underestimated Nutria]

I'm inferring from this that women who have children later in life are passing on shorter telomeres. Also the ideal breeding pair is an old man in good health and a young woman.

Older men have other things wrong with their spermatozoa, like higher mutational load, and those longer telomeres are still (probably) shorter than they were in that old man's youth, though longer than those of contemporareous young men. As it states, no one has actually done a long term study on the subject. But if this hypothesis is correct, it seems that our species was not long term built to have older parents and may in the end go extinct for it.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Older men have other things wrong with their spermatozoa, like higher mutational load, and those longer telomeres are still (probably) shorter than they were in that old man's youth. But if this hypothesis is correct, it seems that our species was not long term built to have older parents and may in the end go extinct for it.

Welp. It was a good run, folks.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

It's a small sample size, but old man sperm produced Chris-chan and Jonathan Yaniv, that's reason enough for codgers to wear johnny bags.

 

[Gender Affirming Surgery]

One survivor lived because he got buried underneath bodies and didn't get hurt by the fire. I can't even imagine what it was like to be stuck underneath something like that.

Imagine the smell.

 

[Buster O'Keefe]

Fatal Familial Insomnia

 

[Gender Affirming Surgery]

Here’s some historical methods of torture that freak me out:

Spoiler

View attachment 960960View attachment 960961

The first one is the rat torture that was used in Europe during the Renaissance. Sometimes, this torture involved hot coals underneath you while rats would eat your innards. Another variation of this was using hungry rats to eat your face.

The second picture is quartering, which was usually used for treason. A famous person that got this treatment was Guy Faux after the failed Gunpowder Plot. This torture involves hanging a person to cause asphyxiation, but not death. Afterwards, the victim is hoisted up on a ladder while an executioner slowly cuts off parts of your body and throws them into a fire. Common things that were cut off were genitals, breasts, ears, etc. After that, your limbs were cut off and sometimes the person would still be conscious during that process. A common way to cut the limbs would be having horses gallop in four different directions until the limbs pulled away from the sockets.

The Catherine Wheel.

There’s an enormous spoked wheel. Your limbs are threaded through the spokes. The torturer turns the winch.

Your bones break. There is no way to avoid this.

You die from shock, or fat embolism, or, if you’re unlucky enough to be hardy, from exposure or dehydration—but the whole time, your limbs are being rent asunder.

E: Bone pain is the worst there is.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

Imagine the smell.

I heard it smells like chicken. But it would smell so bad, and it had to be terrifying.

 

[Count groudon]

For me, emptiness and odd sounds are fucking horrifying.

When I was a kid I used to have nightmares about being stuck in weird abandoned places like a weird cave system in a swamp or a weird forest in the middle of the night all alone while something in the distance kept making bizarre whooping and hollering noises. To this very day I still can’t sleep well if I don’t have a tv or something on for me to focus on, because if it don’t I’ll hear every single fucking sound around me, and despite being a grown ass adult I instinctually get freaked out and try to figure out what it could be.

I guess I’m just afraid that something could be watching me or stalking me while I have no way to defend myself. Like I’m scared of being prey to something.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

Getting a head injury/brain damage that gives you a change in your personality is a terrifying thought.

 

[Vlinny-kun]

Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP)
A connective tissue disease that makes your body heal damaged soft tissue with bone. Slowly over time you lose more and more mobility as your body turns into bone and you eventualy become a living statue. No surgeries can be done to remove bone growths or otherwise because that results in the scars healing with more bone. When discovered, the unlucky sufferer has to decide what position they want to be in for the rest of their lives.

Also, check out that usual onset age. Before 10 years old.

 

[Cantercoin]

For me the most terrifying thing is that no matter how much effort or time you put into something, you'll never be good because of some sort of permanent skill cap you'll never get over

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

Buried alive, burned alive, the depths and emptiness of the ocean, drowning, heights (falling), being watched/followed, becoming a vegetable and not being put out of your misery, dying.

 

[Human Flesh]

Not dying

 

[Spl00gies]

Anything flesh-eating tbh

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

Torture via a spotlight being shone at eyes with eyelids that are forcefully pried open, slowly leading to blindness.

That's called abacination, or at least it's similar. They used to do it in the Middle Ages with metal plates heated up until they glowed instead of a spotlight.