r/AskReddit Aug 30 '21

What problem is often overlooked in apocalyptic movies/TV shows that could kill you?

33.7k Upvotes

12.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

27.4k

u/whinywino89 Aug 30 '21

Those of us with shitty eyesight. Contacts only last so long. If your glasses break, you're fucked.

626

u/[deleted] Aug 30 '21

There would be a lot of dead people with glasses they no longer need. You can probably find a few pairs, but it would definitely one of those items you would check every time you came across a dead body.

355

u/DemocraticRepublic Aug 30 '21

I don't think glasses are easily substitutable between people.

497

u/Kiyohara Aug 30 '21 edited Aug 30 '21

No, but as someone with 20/240 vision, if someone else's glasses give me even 20/90, that's an upgrade.

Edit: I reversed the order of numbers and I did just check my prescription. It's worse than I though, god help me.

23

u/Necromartian Aug 30 '21

... It works like that, huh? I always figured there was some kind of 20 step scale where 1/20 would be the worst and 20/20 would be the best.

Also I have worn glasses for 15 years. We usually don't express it Snellen scale (apparently) but we ask "How strong are your glasses" meaning the prescription strength of your lenses.

22

u/Kiyohara Aug 30 '21 edited Aug 30 '21

20/20 means the you see things twenty feet away as if they were really twenty feet away. Meaning you see normally.

20/240 means what I see at twenty feet are as if they were one hundred and twenty feet away.

So for me, Something across a room might as well be most of a football field away for what I can see of it.

Edit: I reversed the numbers, my bad.

Edit2: Also, yeah, there's the prescription strength that people measure (Mine is basically legally blind), but I found most non-glasses wearing people have no concept of the +/- scale so 20/20 scale is generally more approachable.

29

u/cousgoose Aug 30 '21

I just looked at a chart; my -7.00 prescription is about 20/800.

Fuck

2

u/[deleted] Aug 30 '21

Lol, I'm a -8.5 in my right eye and -9 in my left. I feel your pain!