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Who is the worst person in history?

Whether obscure, obvious, or entirely random, who do you all think were the worst people in history? :holmes:

So we get a bit more variety here, post your 3 'worst' people in history, and let's see if TSR can agree on the top contenders :colone:

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Reply 1
Avatar for ha33an99
ha33an99
7
Not really a specific person, but the British Empire commited horrendous atrocities, not just massacres like Amritsar either. Upto 4 Million Bengalis died from starvation under British rule when Chuurchill when he diverted food to soldiers. His response? ‘I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.’ That’s just one example. There are many.
Of the people that I have read about;

1. Cecil Rhodes (millions of Africans died due to his racist views)
2. Winston Churchill (millions of Bengalis died due to his policy).
3. Adolf Hitler
King John is certainly one of the most awful people I have studied in detail - I wouldn't say the worst person ever to have lived, but certainly one of the worst in British history.

Sadistic, provocative for no reason, overtly paranoid (even comically so), and heaps of other descriptions. Above all though, a failure.
Reply 4
Avatar for Pugglet
Pugglet
20
1) Hitler
2) Cromwell
3) Stalin
This is fun!.

1. Pol pot. Killing the entire Vietnamese population and a quarter of the population of Cambodia in 4 years certiantly makes you a contender.

2. Chairman Mao. His policies of a cultural revolution caused countless deaths, the Great Leap Forward lead to a huge famine.

3. Adolf Hitler. Murdered 6 million Jewish people as well as other minority’s. Also started a war in which millions died.


I’m disappointed I’m only limited to 3.
(edited 5 years ago)
Well what is evil?
I'd say sin but whatever you choose is fine in the context on the situation.

So now we know what we're measuring with, are all of these sins or "evils" equal or have their own distinct value?
If they're equal, then whoever committed the most sins or "evils" is the worst in History. If they aren't then it's a lot harder to measure.

Is the worst person in history someone who affects himself or others? If it's himself, the most decadent man in History is the most evil. If not then of course it will be leaders who are the worst people in history.

Is evil the intent of committing evil or the actual actions themselves? If it's intent then maybe a serial killer is the worst in history. If not then again it will probably be a leader.

And who's this judge, God (or a higher being for that matter) or us? If it's God then it's a bit easier and more "objective" compare to humans which is subjective.




Personally I'd say since all sin leads to death (even one) and all sin is equal and death is the great lever of us all, all of us are equally evil because all of us aren't perfect in the eyes of God.
Reply 7
Avatar for Picnic1
Picnic1
19
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".

i.e. most of these huge boogeymen of history were only allowed to be so because of the action or inaction of many other people - or because of each level of power below them not wanting to rock the applecart because part of them either agreed with the sin, or saw it as a lesser sin compared to some larger sin caused by someone else usually related to the 'lesser sin', or stood to benefit economically, socially, from the sin.

Most evil, even at a supposedly small level, flatters the vast majority of selfish, weak people.

How else to explain why a significant number of women are so sexually fascinated by serial killers?

It is the majority, the pseudo-meek (as opposed to the minority of truly wise and humble), who have the greatest effect on the nourishing of evil. It is that majority who sneer at 'Walter the Softy' whilst implicitly welcoming Dennis The Menace.

In a large way, the likes of Adolf Hitler are no different in intent than anyone you've ever had cause to think is even slightly a bully. They wish to make someone else feel inferior, insubstantial, under control, powerless. It's only the potential loss of social position by being found out and jailed that prevents them from doing anything too explicit in most cases.
(edited 5 years ago)
In terms of harm done to humanity and continuing influence, probably Muhammad.

In comparative terms based on negative effect as a proportion of the world during their own lifetime, probably Genghis Khan.
Mao Zedong.

go look at how much people he killed.
Stalin

Hitler

Sergio Ramos
I would say Mao Zedong. The history behind him is very interesting but he killed a sh*t ton of people.
Reply 12
Avatar for gjd800
gjd800
20
Ben Shephard
Leopold II. This guy was responsible for the numerous atrocities that took place in the Congo, such as severing the hands of Congolese labourers.
No one mentioned Genghis Khan yet?

He showed brutality on a scale I don't think anyone can match. For example, an estimated 1 million people where massacred over a period of 4 days when the Mongols captured the city of Merv.
King Leopold II

Killed more than 10 million Africans.
it depends on perspective. I mean different people value different things so clearly different people will have different answers but for me it has got to be LT Lawrence of Arabia.
I'm sure we could all agree thats it's Hitler
I would say in general we cannot class historical figures as immoral solely based on our modern morality as in their time, it was different in terms of mentality and circumstance so we can't so readily judge many figures of the past, if we did purely reflecting morals today most if not all historical figures would be classed as immoral. However there are exceptions for example in Hitler or Stalin's case, their actions we see as immoral and unjustified today were also seen as the same back in their time so we can conclude them to be immoral. The main point I want to put across though is that for many historical figures from the past such as Cromwell and Genghis Khan, we are so quick to judge them as evil or immoral when actually considering the time, what they did wasn't as bad as we would see today
(edited 5 years ago)
Man like Heinrich Himmler

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