Not to go all serious in a fun thread, but it seems like anything people used to be scared of is still a source of fear for at least some.
I’m amazed at some of the things people are scared of now. Measles is coming back because people are scared of inoculations: they would rather listen to an ex-Baywatch actress and Playboy Playmate than scientific studies. People are starving to death in third-world countries because people are scared of genetically-engineered crops.
Oh come on! If you had to spend an hour with someone, who would you choose: the Playboy Playmate, or the scientist?
My Polish aunt was ultra-super-duper suspicious of microwaves when they first started being widely introduced into Poland in the 90s. To her, all radiation will kill ya.
On a similar note, once when I was in Poland - can’t recall which city, might’ve been Lublin or some other smaller provincial area rather than a big city - I was sitting on a stone wall admiring some little local fountain, when a little old babuszka came up to me and told me in no uncertain terms that sitting on “those cold stones” was going to give me a yeast infection.
So, my survey sample says that some Polish women are scared of microwaves and sitting on concrete. People believe all kinds of weird crap.
This is similar to something I’ve heard quite often about Edwin S Porter’s 1903 film, The Great Train Robbery.
I can’t say how accurate that quote is, but I’ve heard similar statements about it from multiple sources over the years. It could have been made up for publicity’s sake, I’ll admit, but it doesn’t seem too far-fetched either – even 35 years later, people were getting whipped up into a frenzy over a radio show about Martians.
There was a time when people were afraid of water. They rarely bathed, and drank wine & beer over water. But their fears may have been justified…
Flying. According to my grade school teacher in Catholic school, there was a time when a Catholic would request his/her Last Rites from their priest before boarding a plane.
Shitting where you drink will do that to you lol. Beer is a far much safer think to drink, man the good ol days
This is actually the only argument I’ve heard, in person, against being an organ donor. And more than once. I’ve read religious arguments against it online, but the idea that doctors will “let you die” if you sign your card is the only case against it someone has told me to my face. And I told them they were idiots, to theirs.
But the box told me I could go horsebackriding!
I just wanted to add that the first thing I thought of while watching Jackass 3D was the famous train movie/audience. The puke was coming right for me, I tells ya!
China, too. My wife refuses to turn the air conditioner in our apartment on at all. She wouldn’t even go near it when she was pregnant.
In India there are a lot of people whomumplig the refrigerator at night because they think it will poison the food.
I grew up in the 50s with parents that read John Birch Society literature, and were convinced that the “commies” were infiltrating our schools/capitols/churches AND ready to shoot ICBMs at us from Cuba as well as Mother Russia.
They didn’t just believe … they knew that our painful deaths at the hands of the USSR were inevitable, and mere months away.
I’m actually at a loss as to why Dad never dug a fallout shelter in the backyard.
Before I read this post, I didn’t think that these fears could ever get to me.
But now I’m going to “whomumplig the refrigerator”.
Is whomumplig related to manbearpig?
I … can’t … stop … laughing …!
Of course, what I meant to say is “who unplug”!
Ragginfraggin tiny Iphone keyboard.
He’d rather his family be killed in the initial blast that slowly die of radiation poising over the course of a week or two? 
No, it’s where we store cows that have been orked.
Oh, and there was also the idea that menstruating made women into some sort of walking blight; that they withered crops and soured wine.
Coma, from 1978?
Well I do seem to recall a kerfuffle where we were rather upset that the Soviet Union was installing IRBMs in Cuba, presumably so that we would only have ten minutes warning of a first strike instead of thirty.
Yep, just added it to my Netflix queue.
I don’t believe that’s legal in this state.