What scares you?

reply to post by baseball101


LOL that picture is classic!

Anyway I shall not share what scares me. I shall instead focus on the positive hahaha!

Yeah that's right, I'm a damn genius!

[edit on 5-5-2009 by _Phoenix_]

this site used to scare the crap out of me. All the alien and demon talk, but I think now since Ive spent a good amount of time here, it no longer really bothers me. Ive read it all too many times now.

So thanks ATS! For scaring the crap out of me, enough to make it mundane.

So this got me to wondering, what are some of the things you guys have heard that really scare you?

Coincidental that I should find this thread while almost ready to close my browser for the night. Tonight is the very first night that anything I've read on ATS has scared me... truly scared me.





So many people here fear shadowy organizations, tyrannical government, alien invasion, ancient prophecies, demons, political ideologies, natural disasters, or the end of days by a wrathful god. I see no real danger in any of this. Most of it's just pure fantasy. Much of it is based on misconceptions, misinterpretations, and misunderstandings. Some of it does warrant caution, but the threats are highly exaggerated and or based upon speculation.

Me, I'm not scared of any of that stuff.

Here's what I am afraid of. America is currently one of the largest generators of academic research in the world. We are home to most of the world's top collages.We are home to the largest space agency - giving us such tools as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars Rovers. We (I believe) have the largest oceanic exploration program.

We are standing on the cusp of a full and comprehensive understanding of genetic programming and manipulation. We are reverse engineering the human brain are astonishing speed; some areas of which we have basic working computer emulation of. We stand on the cusp of brain-computer interfaces which promises to allow amazing augmentation potentials, as well as reliable memory storage and immersion. We stand on the cusp of the birth of nanoassemblers and the real take off of nanotechnology such as reciprocites. We stand on the cusp of fundamental cures for diseases based on fixing the problem or vulnerability. We stand on the cusp of regenerating lost limbs and damaged organs.

We stand on the cusp of fully realizing age old dreams previously attributed only to supernatural, thanks to science. Telekinesis, Telepresence, Telepathy, and even practical immortality. Technology is going to advance very, -VERY- rapidly, and very, -VERY- profoundly in this century. If we're lucky, by time we get to the half-way point we will even be able to say that we -finally- are not alone in the universe. I'm not referring to aliens - but to AI.

And yet - 33% (roughly) of our population thinks that it is perfectly reasonable to believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs walked with man in the Garden. 1/5th of our population apparently still believe in some form of geocentracism. Sarah Palin actually had a fairly decent shot at being our presidency.

I am afraid of what may happen if we allow ourselves to piss all that potential away in the pursuit of phantasms, urban myths, and boogey men.

Does NOBODY see how this might be a problem going forward? Does NOBODY wonder what happens when the scope of technology which sustains our prosperity eclipses simple minds?



Does NOBODY see the innate danger in removing the critical thinking process? Does NOBODY see what happens when erroneous information, speculation, rhetoric, and fear mongering are allowed to circumvent reason... When they are openly promoted as an alternative to reason? When political, religious, or ideological fundamentalism is allowed to trump rationality and compromise?



Does nobody remember what happens when we surrender ourselves willingly to that demon haunted world?

Our current situation is strikingly similar to those final days of the Hellenistic Days. Thankfully Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc will carry the torch... but what will be the ramifications of the power vacuum left if America should fall into the hands of fundamentalists and loons? I still have a hard time conceptualizing any sort of Civil War sparking from all of this... and it won't be some "NWO vs. the People showdown" BS. However, I can see a great potential for all this to spawn a multitude of "Ruby Ridge" type incidents that will eave deep resentment - perhaps sparking domestic terrorism responses down the road. Irregardless, it would be a horrific and needless tragedy.

I really fear that there are enough people out there paranoid and deluded enough - reinforced by irresponsible media and political/religious affiliations - to really cause a lot of damage and get a lot of people needlessly hurt or killed in the process. America isn't a powder-keg ready to blow, it's being crafted into one by the very people who think they're trying to save it.

I wonder how deep the scars of the conflicts we endured in 20th century are ingrained in our collective cultural mind? The first fifty years of it marked by two bloody wars on the scale of which the world had never seen - and the next fifty years spent in a bomb shelter wondering if your fellow comrades had been infiltrated by communist sympathizers - and scared they have misinterpreted your use of the word comrade.

History is full of people who; out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value, which truly belonged to all of us. We must not let it happen again.

Knowledge is what truly frees people.. Superstition is what will enslave you. Please don't follow the path of superstition. We've been down that road already, and we know where it leads.

[edit on 5-5-2009 by Lasheic]

Abduction cases used to scare me ALOT, but after reading a few, im kinda used to it.

I have a theory, on fear and death.

If you do not fear death, then you should not fear life.

I believe in reincarnation, and dont believe death is the end, so unlike most people, i am not scared of it.

All pain is, is your body telling you, that if this continues, there could be dire consequences, worst case senario - death.
But if i do not fear death, then why do i feel pain?

Its not as easy to simply blow pain away, but if you can convince your body that it shouldn't be there, then you shouldnt feel it.


Thats my theory.
Love&Light.

Jacob

Wowza, good topic I'm extremely afraid of "not knowing"... and that would include death ( a biggie for me ). I'm scared of living in a world far worse than the one we live in now. I have unsettling feelings about the future and that freaks me out

I'm scared of what's gonna happen in this country when our economy sh*ts the bed............

Lasheic, you're now my hero. =D

8 foot Grey with a rubber glove a martini and cigarette.
Sorry to plaigarize, but it's the truth.

Also, Dick Cheney in a sauna, oh baby, i just got a dry heave and goosebumps.

[edit on 5-5-2009 by dashen]

What scares me the most is thinking about losing my loved ones in a way where I cannot save them.
I am also afraid of getting shot on the bus. It happens here

The thing that really scares me is how absolutly blind we all are to the world around us and what is going on. How ppl just accept everything at face value and never question anything. I'm scared of what will become of us, how we would react in the face of actual adversity, something other than internet being down for an hour or your g/f breaking up with you.

I'm scared of what we are doing to this planet, our bodies, our minds. We are just begging to be ruled by some all powerfull oppressor. I'm scared of religion and the irrational decisions it makes otherwise sound minded ppl make. I usually throw some kind of tounge in cheek humor in most of my posts, but not this one. I'm serious, this is the stuff I ponder.

That the movie Idiocracy will turn out to be mankind's actual legacy. That and Ferris Wheels.

Back when I first came to this site years ago, it freaked the hell out of me.

I started seeing things everywhere I went. Shadow people esp.

The stupidity of people bothers me to the point of fear sometimes.

[edit on 7-5-2009 by CrygSol]

[edit on 7-5-2009 by CrygSol]

reply to post by CrygSol


My g/f used to see shadow ppl, esp when she was sick when she was younger. Without sounding crazy, we are big into protective amulets and gemstones, I have a thread I started a while back on here about gemstones.

if the universe is infite and there are an infinite number of lifeforms in varying degress of evolution in it.... then i will never be free of the pain that comes from my empathy. No matter how many people i help or problems i fix.. it will never lessen the pain and aggony that flows. To feel this and know it. To find the group of people who undersatnd what i do and be rejected from an only refuge.

living here is hell. You see the wounds that make scars which are never able to teach the lessons that it has. i want a planet of good happy people... i want to feel that.

- Ruminations on how severe illness is very common, painful, and progressive.
- Thoughts of a long drawn out death.
- Thoughts of being unable to care for myself.
- Thoughts of my medication (Plaquinel) not being available.
- Thoughts of bad reactions to food/drugs. (has happened in past)
- Thoughts of fire in the home.
- Thoughts of reincarnation and that I might be stuck coming back again.
- Thoughts that there really is no higher purpose or plan to life.
- Thoughts that 'God' is really just a collective of humans ... and humans are notoriously stupid.
- Demons. (I've been around a few ... seriously frightening)
- I'm 'germ aware' .. not germ phobic. That's because of Leukopenia.

Mostly health stuff. I'm not afraid of death. I'm afraid of a long life being sick.
Not much I can do about it though.

wolverines

The idea that conspiracy theory has been allowed to become so mainstream as to have a permanent fixture in pop culture and everyday media/life so that everything is seen as a conspiracy - slowly tearing apart a collective from the inside out so "they" don't have to.

a reply to: theSleepingMan

I fear humiliation and loss of face.. i.e. making a huge mistake at work and
everyone knowing... results in loss of job..
Not the loss of job you understand, but all the tension and stress leading up to the job loss.

"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. They know that America is not a place of which it can be said, as it used to be, that a man may choose his own calling and pursue it just as far as his abilities enable him to pursue it; because to-day, if he enters certain fields, there are organizations which will use means against him that will prevent his building up a business which they do not want to have built up; organizations that will see to it that the ground is cut from under him and the markets shut against him. For if he begins to sell to certain retail dealers, to any retail dealers, the monopoly will refuse to sell to those dealers, and those dealers, afraid, will not buy the new man's wares." Woodrow Wilson.

And now it is a crime in Europe to condemn or disagree with the dogma of this Power.