Re:Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)
by YeGoblynQueenne on Sunday May 31, 2020 @07:36AM
(#23368887)
The low number of deaths from shark attacks fails to account for the way in which people die from a shark attack: broken in two and eaten alive by a gigantic fish while simultaneously drowning.
This is a horrible way to spend the last few seconds of your life on Earth and it likely triggers all the self-preservation instincts in a human mind, and then some.
The slow, painful death from a debilitating disease like malaria does not even come close for sheer compulsive terror. After all, most people experience sickness at some point during their lives, but very few experience being eaten.
This "raw, visceral horror of being eaten alive by a very big fish" [1] is the reason why people are afraid of shark attacks much more than mosquito bites or even accidents etc.
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[1] That's a quote from a National Geographic article I read a few years ago that stuck in my mind. I have no reference to it, apologies. It was in an issue of the print magazine.
This is a horrible way to spend the last few seconds of your life on Earth and it likely triggers all the self-preservation instincts in a human mind, and then some.
The slow, painful death from a debilitating disease like malaria does not even come close for sheer compulsive terror. After all, most people experience sickness at some point during their lives, but very few experience being eaten.
This "raw, visceral horror of being eaten alive by a very big fish" [1] is the reason why people are afraid of shark attacks much more than mosquito bites or even accidents etc.
____________
[1] That's a quote from a National Geographic article I read a few years ago that stuck in my mind. I have no reference to it, apologies. It was in an issue of the print magazine.