
Travelers Reveal The Terrible Places That They Most Regret Visiting In Their Lives
[rebelmouse-image 18361563 is_animated_gif=Traveling, whether at home or abroad, broadens the horizons and really teaches us about the world... that is unless you're one of these travelers. What they learned is to never, ever, go back to these places. One Reddit user asked: Travelers of Reddit, what place made you think, "I have made a huge mistake by coming here?"
We were expecting a list of far-away lands with city names we can hardly pronounce, because that's what we think of when we think world travel. But it turns out quite a few of the most awful places people have been are pretty close by and not that hard to pronounce. We're talking about you, Times Square. We edited some of the entries for clarity, and in some cases combined different responses into one.
Why? Because a surprising number of people really hate Blackpool in England, that's why.
"Very GTA"
[rebelmouse-image 18361564 is_animated_gif=Honduras.
Me and girlfriend got into a taxi and In the footwell in the rear of the car were lots of spent bullet casings. When the driver was fighting for position in traffic, he was shouting out the window and holding up bullets at other drivers. He did a great job, we got where we wanted and we paid a fair price.
Very GTA.
Busted Blackpool
[rebelmouse-image 18361567 is_animated_gif=Blackpool in the UK.
No offence to anybody, but it's probably the only place I've visited and instead of wanting to make the most of it, I actually contemplated leaving ASAP. Even the overnight stay was a night too long.
It was a big tourist place back in the day. It's got a famous tower, piers, theme park all that stuff. The big event were the illuminations where a couple of miles of the coastline would be lit up. It was pretty cool back in the day so some people still speak fondly of it, but I heard it died on it's arse pretty much.
I f*cking hate Blackpool.
Litter, loud ladies nights and stag parties, the smell of fried onions and doughnuts, sunburnt lobster-colored people, sewage on the beach, grey horrible concrete buildings, terrible quality "comedians", moldy hotel rooms, white supremacists, gutters flowing with vomit and dismembered bodies in wheelie bins. Absolutely horrendous place. 2pm on a Saturday, there were packs of exceedingly drunk people puking in the street.
Roll up roll up try your luck. But no, seriously, don't.
Wheel-y Bad Time
[rebelmouse-image 18361568 is_animated_gif=Cleveland.
Went in to pay for gas and came out to a rental car with no goddamn wheels on it. Cashier said they:
"Didn't see nothin' and the cameras was broke."
Time Share
[rebelmouse-image 18361569 is_animated_gif=A time share presentation. Holy sh*t it was like a prison of nice people who hold you there with niceness.
Never never do that... I'll never get those 5 hours back.
Too Much Bourbon
[rebelmouse-image 18361570 is_animated_gif=Bourbon Street, New Orleans
I went down for a friends wedding. They decided to take us to Bourbon Street and it was...it was just not at all what I expected.
I pictured that it would be a great place full of colorful things, great booze, neat stuff to see, and interesting people......instead I got over priced booze (which I kind of expected), overly crowded streets and average bars - besides the piano bar, that place is amazing.
The worst part was the smell. My god I just don't understand how people don't get sick from the smell alone.
Jamaica Got "Real"
[rebelmouse-image 18361571 is_animated_gif=Rented a car in Jamaica. Decided to get off of the main tourist paths and see the "real" Jamaica. I drove a gorgeous winding road up a beautiful mountain and stopped to get out of the car to get a picture. As I was walking back, 4 men all carrying machetes came running at me from out of nowhere.
They actually chased the car about a block.
Floating Bodies
[rebelmouse-image 18361572 is_animated_gif=I've been to the Philippines about 5 times and must say the people are lovely and I've always had a good time... but f*ck me! the first time I landed in Manila I wanted to go back to the airport and leave ASAP.
Our taxi driver stopped at a convenience store about 10 minutes from the airport. We were swarmed by 10 filipinos who begged us for money and tried to pickpocket us at the same time. When we got back in the car, they surrounded the car holding babies up to the window, crying and begging for money.
Somewhere in Manila, the driver took a wrong turn and went down a street where he said "this is a bad area." Not a good sign. There was a guy walking down the street towards the car with a handgun. Taxi driver reversed up the street and got us the fuck out of there.
We got caught up in a terrible traffic jam and at one point were stopped on this small bridge that looked into a waterway. The driver started pointing into the water where a dead body was floating.
I love the Philippines, but I hate Manila and get out of there immediately every time I go.
Ten Minutes Too Long
[rebelmouse-image 18361573 is_animated_gif=Daytona Beach.
It was pretty disgusting, with garbage all over the beach. We spent ten minutes there, packed up and left.
It's famous for NASCAR, bikers, Spring Break, and being dirty. Accurate.
Cabbie Drug Deals And Brothels
[rebelmouse-image 18361575 is_animated_gif=Juarez, Mexico.
Went there with a few buddies from the Army. We went there first in 2006. The last time I was there was 2010 I believe. During the day it was shady, but typical. At night is when the action happened. We were just home from Baghdad, Iraq when we first went. We just came home from war, were young, felt invincible and thought:
**"How bad can it really be?" **
We realized that most of the cab drivers really didn't care where we said we wanted to go. They would get kick backs from the brothels for bringing people there. No matter what we said, somehow we were always dropped off at a strip club or brothel.
Hollywood Bad Dream
[rebelmouse-image 18361576 is_animated_gif=Honestly, the biggest let-down I've ever experienced while traveling was Hollywood, California. It was... seedy. The whole place was just this false, sickening, soulless mess. I stayed in a grotty hostel - I slept clutching my possessions - and got up and got to the Greyhound station as early as I could.
My only memory was just wanting to be anywhere else. I hated everything about the city.
Class Trip
[rebelmouse-image 18361577 is_animated_gif=I was in 8th grade and I went on a class trip to Washington DC.
When we left the airport and actually entered the city, it was terrible. We saw these amazing historic landmarks surrounded by homeless people everywhere. I even saw a group of about 5 tents and a fire set up near an overpass. Even on the tour bus, the guide swung by the homeless shelter, which had like 50 people waiting outside in a line. There were also lots of panhandlers and people walking around with boxes of sunglasses, encouraging us to buy a pair.
Because we were young tourists, whenever we entered a food court area, people literally yelled at us to get food from them.
Death Valley
[rebelmouse-image 18361578 is_animated_gif=Death Valley.
Everyone knows that its hot. Or rather, they think they know. But you don't know. It's not something that can be explained. That place is f*cking hot. You know how when you leave a car out all day in the summer and open the door, and a blast of heat comes out?
That's a pleasant breeze in death valley.
Mucus Consumption
[rebelmouse-image 18361579 is_animated_gif=Hanoi, Vietnam.
My little brother kept covering his nose because of the smell, and everyone consumed their mucus in public like it was some snack.
Scaremare
[rebelmouse-image 18361580 is_animated_gif=Lynchburg, Virginia near Halloween. They call it Scaremare.
They have this huge "haunted house" with and outdoor area full of zombies and all sorts of gruesome stuff. That part is really fun, but after you genuinely have a good time, they TRAP YOU IN 1 TO 6 TENTS and tell you that you're a bad person, a sinner, unclean, UNCLEAN, etc... for a good 10-15 minutes. And the "staff" won't let you leave this attempt at brainwashing. Jesus this, God that... it's a whole sermon that you didn't sign up for and can't leave. Like they temporarily kidnap you for Christ or something.
Sponsored by Liberty "University" every year.
Waiting in line for over 3 hours, hearing people chant and "pray" it was f*cking awful.
Don't. Go. To. Lynchburg. Virginia. Ever.
São Sad
[rebelmouse-image 18361581 is_animated_gif=São Paulo, Brazil
It's only worth visiting as a layover hub or if you know people who live there. São Paulo is quite the sh*thole and I can't think of another non-third world city I'd consider worse. Anthony Bourdain described it perfectly:
"It's like LA vomited on NYC."
The traffic is apocalyptic and public transport is awful for such a large city. People spend most of their time hustling and in traffic, just to lock themselves away in their gated apartment complexes as a reward at the end of the day. Why gated? The crime, of course. Almost everyone has a story of being mugged. And it's f*cking expensive! I live in Switzerland and I found prices for most things to be surprisingly high even by my standards, I don't know how the locals afford it.
The saddest part is that you have such an amazing mix of people there from every background you can imagine. White, black, Japanese, Lebanese, etc. I just wish they didn't spend most of their lives stuck in traffic in such a depressing place.
Happy New Year
[rebelmouse-image 18361582 is_animated_gif=Times Square on New Year's Eve.
I went one year when my girlfriend, her brother, and his girlfriend were visiting her dad in New Jersey. He took us to a Broadway play and a fancy sushi dinner and we parted ways with her dad and step mom so we could head over to Times Square. It was awful, terribly crowded and loud and we couldn't even get close enough to see anything. After a while we decided to just give up and we went to a Korean barbecue instead.
"Charity" At Gunpoint
[rebelmouse-image 18354595 is_animated_gif=Nairobi, Kenya
I ended up on a stopover with a group of other women. We all had stuff stolen, all blatantly overcharged and all ended up staying in one room. We had to stay together for safety since random men were coming into our rooms.
These men had keys to get into our rooms, so the hotel was absolutely involved.
Finally, we had enough and as a group we all confronted the manager in his office, refused to let him out or let his friends in to help him. We managed to get all our drinks and food refunded. We thought things were turning around, but the following day we were forced at gunpoint to put all the remaining currency into "charity" bins at the airport.
Never again.
Stuck In A National Uprising
[rebelmouse-image 18361583 is_animated_gif=I happened to be in Cairo during the Arab Spring/Arab Revolutions in 2010. Saw some nasty sh*t and felt like I was witnessing the apocalypse.
I was three hours away having lunch by the water when it started. We heard explosions on the main road and the police had set up barricades to stop the huge crowd from marching through the streets. They were using tear gas to try and disperse everyone but it wasn't working. We saw people being beaten bloody by the cops. Because this was on the main road, which is by the water, I had to push through the crowd to get to the middle of the city where it was quiet. That means I got teargassed - which was awful! I found a cafe in a safe area and waited there for 5 hours until it was prayer time so I could go back to my hotel.
The next morning I found a guy who was driving to Cairo so I paid him a few hundred dollars to take me to the airport. There were tanks lined up along the highway while we were driving. I thought Alexandria was bad, but Cairo was so much worse. It looked like the whole city was on fire and there were burnt out armored police cars and buses in the streets. We saw more people clashing with the police, sporting bloody faces and ripped clothing. A few people were limping, injured, and helping each other get away. It was insane.
It took forever to get to the airport and check in. My flight was delayed two hours, then again, then cancelled until the next morning. Same thing the next day. The airport ran out of food and bottled water and the ATMs ran out of money so people couldn't buy snacks. Somehow they managed to get more food in and people were given vouchers. Planes could land, but they couldn't fly out and people couldn't safely leave the airport - the place was packed to the brim! Because of the lack of bottled water, people were drinking tap water and became sick.
The bathrooms were nightmarishly filthy and some people preferred to sh*t in the corners of the waiting lounges.
Finally the military let the pilots and crew through into the airport on the third day and my flight to Morocco departed. I did not smell too fresh when we landed.
"Psychiatry" Museum
[rebelmouse-image 18361584 is_animated_gif=I accidentally wandered into a Scientology-backed psychiatry museum in LA called Psychiatry: An Industry Of Death. I knew I had to escape as soon as the video at the start of the tour began. I was curious and took a picture of the signage outside to show to my friends for laughs later.
Then a guy came out and said the free tour was starting in a minute. I had time to kill so I was like uh....sure why not. Wrong choice. The place was pretty eerie from what I remember. When we walked past exhibits without actually reading anything they would pop out of a corridor and ask us why we weren't interested. They watch you from beginning to end. Some people even complain about being locked in until they've finished watching a film.
I didn't know of the Scientology affiliation until I looked it up afterward to see who funded this horror show.
H/T: reddit
Being an emergency responder is a high-stress job.
It's a career with long, laborious hours.
There is always a hint of danger. And death is always around the corner.
So we as a society could try to help these people out and not put ourselves in unnecessary danger.
Redditor Diligent-Log6805wanted the rescue workers out there to tell us about the times they rescued people. They asked:
"Emergency responders of reddit, what are some dumb things that have lead to an emergency situation?"
These workers and the world already has enough trouble without my stupid.
"So... was she impressed?"
"Kid driving his new truck down a residential street, wet from a recent rain, lost control and hit a parked car, overcorrected and rolled it once back onto its wheels up onto a lawn. He told the fire chief he had gunned it to impress his girlfriend and the chief just looked at him and asked 'So... was she impressed?'"
AntiMacro
Ricky
"I had a client once who was basically Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, loud, obnoxious, hilarious and every second word was some Maritime slang or a derivative of 'f**k.' He has been on daily eye drops for decades for dry eyes, sure ok cool. I hear screaming down the hall and run in and he's wedged against the wall and the bed just screaming 'I f**ked up boys, I dunno what the f**k is f**king happening but It's f**ked."
"Turns out he mistakenly put Jublia which is an antifungal ointment for toenails in his eye thinking it was his eye drops. The strangest part was the bottle has this miniature sponge at the end so you soak the sponge then paint it on like a gel...he painted this antifungal ointment onto his eye which immediately went red and angry then proceeded to do the other one."
"So he's at the eyewash station and I'm talking to poison control and they are pretty stunned because they have zero data on what happens to a human eyeball when it's painted in antifungal. I can hear the staff at the other end kind of snickering under her breath and she asks can you compare and contrast the eyes? Well... he put it in both eyes. The line goes silent because I can tell she is howling. Guy was totally fine but it was a standout for sure."
krzysztoflee
Will they show?
"Responded to a call of two minors being kidnapped and their parents being beaten in front of them and then taken someplace else. One was around three years and the other one was six. They were held captive in an apartment out of hundreds of residential apartments which not easy to locate, upon reaching there we found out that the boy six was just playin' with us to see if we would actually respond. Their parents were so embarrassed by all of that and vowed to not give them mobile until they are adults."
erectilereptilelol
Bowled Over
"When I was an EMT in NYC years ago we had a call for a man 'unresponsive.' We entered an upscale apartment that was a hoard: floor to ceiling newspapers and magazines, just a mess. The woman who called said her brother was in his bedroom sick."
"We entered his room and it was pretty obvious that he had already passed away. She had placed a bowl under his mouth because he had hemorrhaged which had coagulated the day before it was crazy. We asked her why she hadn’t called sooner and she said thought he’d get better?!"
"The joke around the house was 'if you have to put a bowl under a relative who is bleeding from the mouth, call 911. Don’t wait.' Never thought we’d have to advise anyone to do that. But there ya go. Also, it was Thanksgiving. Didn’t eat any cranberry sauce that year."
Sufficient-Swim-9843
God Only Knows
"Had a guy call because he had the cure to Covid and needed a ride to the local education hospital so he could share it. Dude was so high on meth He ended up having 4 or 5 binders worth of scientific looking notes. God only knows what was actually in them."
Flame5135
Wow, people really need to get a grip. Of their minds.
"Sparky"
"One of my old bosses once built a new shed in his back yard, to replace his old, worn-out one. He moved everything from the old one to the new one, then decided that the best way to remove the old one was by burning it down. He ended up with no sheds and the nickname 'Sparky.'"
Wadsworth_McStumpy
Dead in the living room...
"Paramedic here. We responded to this 54 year old having chest pain. Man was having a heart attack. Dude didn't want to go to the hospital because it too early in the day. That's it. We tried to convince him to go. Got the ER doc to talk to him and he wouldn't budge. He signed a Refusal. Later that same night, his family found him. Dead in the living room. We got to him and started CPR, meds, everything. Dude didn't make it. When we advise you to go to the hospital, go."
Chaprito
Bad Ideas
"Got called to a shooting. A guy says he received a text message from an anonymous number saying his brother has been shot. He checks all the hospitals with no luck. He goes to his brother's apartment but gets no response at his door but sees his car and can hear the TV on. We get there, attempt to get an answer at the door."
"Eventually we kick the door in to make sure he wasn't dying in his apartment. We boot the door, announce police, and find him asleep in his bed. The guy tells us that he got a new phone number and decided to mess with his brother by texting him he had been shot. He then fell asleep and forgot about the text and was woken up by us. So many wasted resources on his idiotic prank."
TheDOC816
The Swimmer
"Got called to a priority job. The caller was kayaking in a lake and said that there was an unresponsive male in the water. So off we went, lights and sirens. We requested paramedics and fire to attend as well for the rescue operation. There were about 6 emergency vehicles attending including a rescue boat. We got there within minutes and met the caller who showed us where the guy was."
"He was just swimming, minding his own business. The caller said he was unresponsive, but really he was just ignoring her. Had a chat with the guy, he seemed alright, said he swims here every day and likes the quiet. No issues. Would have been nice if the caller told the operator that he was still conscious and swimming rather than 'unresponsive.'"
amazingbecauseitis
Chew Slowly
"Well, I was taking a lady home from dialysis and she decided to eat a snickers in the back of the ambulance, and she started choking. Had to do the heimlich, and tell her to finish her food at home."
HotSoupInYourA**
If it's not a true emergency dial 311. Please.
I hated science classes.
As soon as I could I ran.
But it follows me.
Because science can be downright disturbing.
That's why I blocked out so many of the details.
Redditor Flimsy_Finger4291wanted to compare notes on all the frightening facts that are a definitive. They asked:
"What's the scariest thing that science has proven real?"
As if knowledge isn't scary enough, let's her more...
Hello Terry
"Some tumors have teeth, hair and even eyes."
Twat_Waffle_Stomp
"My sister had one minus the eyes! It was cantaloupe sized on one of her ovaries before it was found. She named it Terry the Teratoma."
Karina_is_my_cat
Hungry Bacteria
"Brain-eating amoebas."
dark_n_lovely_qu33n
"My best friend and bunk mate from summer camp died from one of those when I was in 7th grade. Happened so quickly, we were a week into camp and he got really sick. They gave us all heavy meningitis shots because they didn’t know what it was and within a few days he was dead. Turned out to be a brain eating amoeba."
"Edit: strangely enough on the same day he started getting sick one of the lifeguards that was sitting out in a boat waiting for the next group of kids for what we called Trojans Vs. Spartans day had a seizure, fell off the boat and drowned. Only deaths they’d ever had in the 50+ years the camp had been open."
Csharp27
Far Far Away
"The size of our galaxy, how many other galaxies there are and how far away they are. When you can actually see something that incomprehensible.."
Jfonzy
"The nearest star to us would take the Voyager 70,000 years to reach. The nearest galaxy to ours would take the Voyager 749,000,000 years. If we some how managed to take on the monstrous task of speed of light travel it would still take 25,000 years to reach the nearest galaxy. And it's even further apart after you read this. Wild stuff!"
ConqueredCorn
Head Changes
"How the brain is literally rewired and chemically altered by childhood neglect and abuse."
petalumaisreal
"It's genuinely kinda freaky, playing a puzzle game, and noticing how quickly you're getting better at it. The kind of puzzles that were a real blocker in the beginning become baby-easy after like an hour of playing puzzles like it."
LtLabcoat
"My sister faced horrible abuse at the hands of our father, and she has been working through it with multiple therapists over the last 10 years and she is only now starting to get her life back. I feel like she was robbed at a fair chance at life because of our a**hole father."
Pehdazur
Awake
"Prions, horrific and totally unpredictable."
geordiesteve520
"Fatal familial insomnia is a prions disease where you can't sleep anymore, you just stay awake until your brain deteriorates and you die."
DrinknEspresso
Now I can never UNKNOW about prions. Perfect.
Days gone by...
"Ageing. I'm content with death but the idea of my body growing old, frail and eventually falling apart before the end game gives me goosebumps."
EvidenceOfInnocence
Bursts
"Gamma ray bursts. No warning, no escape, no defense, no survivors."
Swampwolf42
"If you're talking about supernovas if the star isn't too close the gamma burst would probably only destroy some part of our ozone layer. And gamma radiation is actually the least lethal out of all types of waves."
Broccoli_sauce24
Sizzle
"Entropy. Time shall consume all things. Inevitable heat death of the universe."
Revolutionary_Elk420
"I personally want the 'Big Crunch' to be true. That instead of fizzling out it all gets sucked back into an infinitely small/dense particle and then another Big Bang happens. It’s my explanation for the multiverse. It’s all one timeline. Just infinitely long."
ChoppyWAL99
They're Watching
"More like a theory, the 'orangutan paradox,' when we film a documentary on orangutans, they can’t realize that we are observing them, yet they are the most intelligent species of their category, so aliens might be watching us and we are as oblivious as an orangutan."
Time_Succotash
Fade 2 Silent
"That hearing is the last sense to leave, when dying."
User Deleted
Well that is the antithesis of comfort. Life is so fun.
Ever since Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope opened on May 25, 1977, a devoted fanbase developed.
And that fanbase has opinions.
Lots and lots of opinions.
Redditor Ebo8000 wanted to know:
"What is your most controversial take on Star Wars?"
Doors
"LASERS LOCK DOORS. LASERS OPEN DOORS. LASERS KNOW WHAT YOU WANT THE DOOR TO DO."
- SlamVanDamn
"But if you get past the door and close it behind you and you don’t want anyone to follow you through it…"
"…you shoot the bloody door panel!"
- treeonwheels
"Also, f*cking hell, we're in the future (or in the past), whatever, and people have better technology."
"Why put the door control RIGHT NEXT to the door? Put the door control system in a breaker box."
"Build every door so in case of malfunction they all shut closed (after all, they're in space and you don't want to lose air in decompression, do you?)"
"Shoot the breaker box, now the whole floor is closed until someone can figure out what happened."
"Almost look like those doors just exist as dramatic elements..."
- smegma_yogurt
The Past
"I’d like a film about when the Republic was at its height. 1,000 generations is 25,000 years and we’ve had 9 movies about the last 60."
- Musickat18
The Future
"Not sure if controversial but they need to take the franchise and yeet it 200 years in the future."
"I'm tired of the Empire era where they need to justify why more than 2 Jedi and 2 Sith exist at one moment alongside knowing everything is pointless until Luke leaves the farm."
- Alandrus_sun
Design Fail? No!
"The Death Stars weren't badly designed they were just badly managed."
"Yes, designing them assuming large scale assaults was stupid given the political state of the galaxy but the second Death Star wasn't even finished so that doesn't count, it's all Palpatine's fault. As for the first one that was finished, the Alliance made three runs on the exhaust port."
"The first was called off before they made it to the trench, the second failed and the third was carried out by space Jesus which isn't exactly fair."
"All in all it sounds like a fairly effective defence when you consider the design philosophy."
- Engeneus
Cool Factor
"The entire universe has a cool factor that outweighs the atrocious storytelling."
- Ozty
"Bro imagine the following movies, but if they were in Star Wars universe."
"Magnificent 7 - A Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Ex-Imperial, Pilot, Wookie, a Droid, and Lawman team up to defend a town against pirates"
"Dredd - Two Jedi climb up an apartment block to confront a new dark side user who has mental control of the entire apartment block"
"Supernatural (T.V. Show) - A Jedi and their apprentice go around and solve and defeat Dark Side Force spots—where the Force consolidates from emotions and creates foul creatures to fight"
"Top Gun - But it's you know, Wedge or something"
"Ford versus Ferrari - But it's podracing or swoop racing"
- BoutsofInsanity
Ships
"Something about the ships in the original series always felt more like real ships than in any of the later movies, despite the objectively better effects of the later films."
"Some of this is probably the use of models (i.e. actual three dimensional objects), but I think there is some critical difference in the design that makes them feel more real (probably because they were designed to be things that would actually work as models)."
"Whatever it is, I LOVED the ships in the original series and never really liked any of the new ones."
- UnspecificGravity
"The original trilogy changed the world by showing a universe in space that was dirty and lived in. The special effects from the later movies did not recognize this."
Boba who?
"Boba Fett is an oddly overrated background character, and even after watching The Book of Boba Fett, I don’t really care about him."
- imidoesonlyfans
"He was never a character. He was a cool helmet."
- JimPlaysGames
"He was a cool jetpack too."
- RipperFromYT
Time for the weather...
"Han is actually older than Obi-Wan due to Time Dilation."
- Snowbofreak
"Time dilation in a universe where every planet and moon has the same gravity and atmosphere?"
- suman_issei
"And just 1 biome."
- DogShampoop
"That way they only need one Weather Channel per planet."
- The_Most_Superb
"And over to Klaatu for the Tatooine weather report. Klaatu?"
"It's still sunny."
- Budsygus
These are the droids we're looking for.
"Star Wars is actually the life story of C-3PO—think about it."
- jonguy77
"I disagree. I think its R2-D2's story. He had a much greater presence in Episode 1, 2 and 3, and got the same amount of screen time as C-3PO in 4, 5 and 6."
‐ MacGregor_Rose
Fan is short for fanatic.
"Fans ruined the whole franchise."
- SeaworthinessNo5209
Ouch...
So, did your controversial Star Wars opinion make the list?
Death is a subject many people shy away from because what they don't know beyond our realm of existence can be intimidating.
Hollywood hasn't helped, as movies and TV have typically portrayed death as something sinister and violent.
How could anyone be convinced death is a peaceful transition, and that what awaits on the other side is actually an unimaginable utopia?
Curious to hear strangers' thoughts about death, Redditor GoodNess2020 invoked a quote by an iconic literary figure and asked:
"Mark Twain once said, 'I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.' Why do you agree/disagree with his statement?"

People clarified what actually terrified them most about death
The Process
"I don't fear being dead. I fear dying."
– magicbluemonkeydog
"Yeah, that's usually the issue. It's why that quote doesn't mean much, to a lot of people."
"It's not a fear of eventually dying and not existing anymore. It's the act of dying itself. He didn't constantly die for all of time. He just wasn't alive."
– appleparkfive
Concept Of Loss
"To have not existed for billions of years is to have spent billions of years never knowing loss. To die is to know loss."
"If you look into a new bank account and see zero dollars, it’s nothing. If you look into a bank account that once had a million dollars and see there’s nothing in there, you’ll know it’s absence."
– -CrestiaBell
People provided an analogy to articulate what ceasing to exist must feel like.
It's About Time
"Time is only relevant to you when you are alive. He is right. Have you ever been sedated for surgery? You go under, and then instantly wake up and procedure is done.... or you died so no worries."
– 20190419
Consciousness Is Life
"You won’t be feeling anything in death though is the thing. That infinite/instant sensation was a living feeling, you just weren’t conscious for it - your body experienced it anyways. No body, no experience."
– Parradog1
Like Being Under
"That is very true, but for me, that's the closest amalgamation of what it probably feels like."
"No one can tell you what actual death will be like. It's impossible for you to experience nothingness."
"Thinking about death can be paralysing sometimes, and when I remember that the closest thing i can link as an experience I had, being put under, was actually sort of pleasant. I then think maybe death will be like that, and honestly it doesn't seem that bad."
– IamEclipse
When In Deep Sleep
"Yeah in contrast to sleep where you can actually feel like time has passed when you wake up."
– GreyFoxMe
Think Line Between Death And Slumber
"As CGPGrey puts it, your bed might very well be a suicide machine."
"Given our lack of understanding for the fundamental processes of our sentience, it's entirely possible that when you fall asleep, your mind is functionally killed, disassembled, analyzed, sorted, tweaked, and adjusted by your biology, before being reassembled when you wake. Every night."
– Mazon_Del
People opened up about their insecurities around the concept of death.
Fear Of What Comes Next
"I’m just paranoid that something does happen after death and it’s just based on one thing that you didn’t know about."
– PsychoDog_Music
The Circle Of Death
"There’s nothing to fear in oblivion. Unless, of course, your consciousness survives death. If so, it would be reasonable to fear the sensation of consciousness without senses, suspended alone in the cosmos, with no one to hear you, and no way to make yourself known. No reference point for counting time – a count that does not matter anyway in a literal eternity."
"You might wish that you still had a corporeal form, only so that you could make your mouth move to express your terror, to make the universal form of a terrified scream – the form of a letter O."
"But you won’t be able to. You just won’t!"
"This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Brought to you by shame, loneliness, and the letter..."
"O....."
– CecilSpeaksInItalics
When Faith Fails You
"what do you mean I'm going to hell?! I was a good person and attended church regularly!"
"Ah yes, but you failed to put a blue feather in your hat and then turn in circles the times praising God Almighty on the fifth Sunday after your twelfth birthday. To the pit with you!!!"
– phormix
There is an poignant episode from the Twilight Zone that brought me a sense of peace surrounding the concept of death.
Death was embodied by a handsome police officer who had been shot–played by a young Robert Redford–and begs to be let into the home of an elderly woman who had been living in perpetual fear of meeting "Mr. Death."
As the episode continues, she discovers much to her dismay that she welcomed Death into her home, but he warmly reassures her there is nothing to fear.
The episode ends with her finally offering her hand to Death after much protest, and they peacefully walk out together, arm in arm, into the light.
It was sweet and beautifully done. The 1962 episode was titled, "Nothing in the Dark."
That's how I imagine it to be.
A dashing Prince of Darkness telling me it's time to join him in guiding me to the other side.