Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Break Down The Scariest Inventions Mankind Has Ever Created

People Break Down The Scariest Inventions Mankind Has Ever Created
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

Make us preferred on Google

Ever wanted to freak yourself out? Stay up late at night and read Hiroshima, journalist John Hersey's account of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing and its immediate aftermath. It's 31,000 words––originally filling an entire edition of The New Yorker––and it never fails to send a chill down my spine. The piece, later published as a bestselling book, is a frightening piece of journalism about one of mankind's most frightening inventions... perhaps it's most frightening.

People shared their opinions after Redditor Illurinatil asked the online community,

"People of Reddit, what is the scariest thing you think mankind has ever created?"

"You can't see them..."

"The most terrifying inventions are biological weapons. You can't see them and you die horribly. In the best case, you die within minutes; in the worst, it can take hours or days. Or you don't die and there are permanent damages to you."

Delta1136

The silent killer.

Reading about the Ghouta chemical attack is bound to ruin your day. We apologize in advance.

"Chemical weapons by far..."

"Chemical weapons by far because the effects are limitless and you can engineer the fallout to be global."

tmcdrw

"A vicious cycle..."

"A vicious cycle where we have the technology to solve our problems but can't because not everybody can agree on it."

Coolius69

We're doomed, aren't we?

Yeah... we totally are.

"The idea that..."

"Adversarial thinking. The idea that "we are right and they are wrong." This is how every war begins."

WonderfulSpecific601

"I'm honestly..."

"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 @ss 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."

DeputyCartman

"Nukes are..."

​"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 ones on the receiving end. It is by far the scariest thing mankind has ever created."

ghigoli

Mutually Assured Destruction has indeed kept the world safe... but what happens when someone gets a little too scary and cocky?

Probably shouldn't think of it. I need to sleep tonight.

"I just saw..."

"I just saw a video of a robot controlled by neurons from a rat's brain. So that's alarming."

owmyfingy

"The scariest thing..."

"The scariest thing mankind has ever invented is still a secret because if they told us we wouldn't be able to sleep."

Blacklolipop

"We don't have very much..."

"Antimatter. We don't have very much of it, but the very idea of a substance that can annihilate matter is insane. For that matter, the colliders that can make it. The physics involved are terrifying."

Rainbow_Dash_RL

We'll never sleep again.

Sorry if you had a nice, leisurely day planned. Did you really need another reason to think that humans are horrible? To be fair, they make it so easy.

Have some suggestions of your own? Feel free to tell us in the comments below!


Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Omar Jimenez and Nancy Mace from CNN interview
CNN

Nancy Mace Gets Blunt Civics Lesson After Claiming Every Muslim Elected Official Is A 'Trojan Horse'

South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace was called out by CNN anchor Omar Jimenez for her lack of understanding of the First Amendment after she published a series of Islamophobic tweets, including one referring to every Muslim elected official in the country as a "Trojan horse."

Mace's posts came after Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. El-Sayed, a physician who campaigned on expanding healthcare access, strengthening the economy, and ending unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel, became the first progressive to win a statewide primary in a state carried by President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. He is set to face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in November.

Keep Reading Show less
Bill Cassidy; Donald Trump
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

GOP Senator Hit With Brutal Reminder After Slamming Trump Over Executive Order To Break Up MMR Vaccine

Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy was criticized for voting to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) after he spoke out against President Donald Trump's executive order recommending that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine be broken up into separate shots.

The new policy would recommend giving the MMR vaccine as three individual injections rather than as a combined shot, while also spacing childhood vaccinations across separate doctor visits.

Keep Reading Show less
Donald Trump
@atrupar/X

Trump Slammed After Claiming Infants Get Vaccines The 'Size Of A Bottle Of Soda' In Unhinged Rant

In the latest move toward promoting conspiracy theories and anti-vaxxer pseudoscience over legitimate research, MAGA Republican President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans.

The signing ceremony was attended by members of his administration and other guests, including anti-vax activist and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., White House policy advisor and Project 2025 architect Stephen Miller, and health economist and controversial National Institutes of Health Director and acting Centers for Disease Control Director Jay Bhattacharya, who attended medical school but never practiced medicine.

Keep Reading Show less
Ryan Reynolds; Janice and Jeff Ivey
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images; Jeff Ivey

Ryan Reynolds Has Hilarious One-Liner After Texas Couple Moves To Wrexham After Being Inspired By His Reality Show

After watching Welcome to Wrexham on Disney+ and visiting Wales seven times in the past two years, Texas couple Jeff and Janice Ivey decided to make the big move from Texas to Wrexham.

The docuseries stars Ryan Reynolds, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Rob McElhenney, and the Wrexham soccer team, and it showcased a sense of community that the couple loved. Since Jeff has UK citizenship thanks to Scottish ancestry, the Iveys decided to put it to good use to visit various places in Wales, focusing their time on Wrexham.

Keep Reading Show less
Brooke Shields on @grier_henchy's TikTok
@grier_henchy/TikTok

Brooke Shields Offers Iconic Clapbacks After Daughter Hops On 'Bully' TikTok Trend To Jokingly Mock Her Gray Hair And Wrinkles

A lot of trends that get popular on TikTok are mean-spirited, in most people's opinion, and now there's a "bully trend" going around in which people say unkind, critical things to a friend or family member and give them a chance to clap back.

When her daughter Grier approached her with the trend, Brooke Shields was ready.

Keep Reading Show less