The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I love Wikipedia. I’ve been reading up the history of the Americas about the time of European discovery and early colonisation. Upon reading about the many atrocities the Native Americans endured I thought it might be interesting to make a list of the “most evil people in the world”.

Such a list is full of pitfalls, I mean, what is the definition of evil? Is it how many people you are responsible for killing even if you are not personally involved yourself? If so then Mao Tse Tung would be top, even though he probably truly believed that his actions were for the good of China. Or is it attention to detail - taking pleasure in the torture of others such as Vlad the Impaler or Elizabeth Bathory, two sadistic Transylvanians.

And also, does insanity qualify as some sort of excuse? If so maybe you could excuse a number of Roman Emperors and hereditary monarchs.

Anyway here is my list of the top ten meanies from history (in order):

1. Hernan Cortez
2. Attila The Hun
3. Christopher Columbus
4. Tomas de Torquemada
5. Josef Stalin
6. Pol Pot
7. Vlad the Impaler
8. Nero
9. Oliver Cromwell
10. Adolf Hitler

The honourable mentions are too many to name but include: Julius Caesar, Idi Amin, Oliver Cromwell, Darth Vader, Pappa Doc Duvaille and any number of Popes.

But consider this: to what degree can evil be attributed more to a societal, political or cultural institution rather than individuals? Think of the Khmer Rouge, Spanish Inquisition, Iroquois (Five Nations), Third Reiche, witch burning in England, Structural adjustment economic policies, Hutus in Rwanda etc

Well sure, you've got the ruler guys. Allow me to introduce you to Carl Panzram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Panzram), the worst criminal in history. That's worst as in most depraved, monstrous and evil, rather than least successful. Least successful, he certainly was not. Or how about a dose from the good doctor, Harold Shipman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman), with uncountable murders to his name? If anything, Hitler might even be pushed off your list by a career criminal or two - he could never have done anything by himself, compared to these heartless chappies who went out and, intentionally and personally, killed their fellow man.

or the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare) burke and hare murderers

This Carl guy does seem like a disagreeable fellow. He clearly falls into the category of those that are pathologically insane.

There are certainly many different ways of looking at it.

I guess I’ve favoured rulers because they’ve been in a position of power and have abused that power. The power they’ve had has also allowed them to inflict murder and torture on a larger scale. “Evil” being not just a tendency towards unnecessary cruelty, but also a desire to accrue power for purely selfish ends.

And I’ve also steered away people that could conceivably use insanity as an excuse. Hence no Caligula. Al those in my list have been methodical in their evil.

I’ve also put a lot of weight on those who have dehumanised who sections of society (races, ethnicities, religions etc). But no doubt that if Carl had his way he would have wiped out everyone!

Darth Vader? wtf?

Yeah, shouldn't it be George Lucas, for completely ruining the Star Wars prequels? :P

Hey, don't forget about natural phenomena . . . like the Dark Side of the Force! ;)

If it's net lives lost, Stalin might not feature because the outcome of WW2 might have been very different without him. But I think he does belong on the list.

Also, did you consider Genghis Khan? I think empire building is justifiable if done with the greater good in mind, but he divided everything up between his sons. Wikipedia's Mongol Empire article lists some benefits though.

As it seems that we are including fictional characters, I nominate the God of Christianity.

• he would sentence anyone to eternal suffering for having the wrong belief (or in some denominations, for dying before you got to be baptised)
• he sees all the suffering in the world (being all-knowing), and does nothing, even though he could solve it all without negative consequences (being all-powerful)

That has got to be more evil than any human has ever managed, by anyone's definition of evil.
(Though some humans may be evil enough to match his "minor" evils like ordering his chosen people to kill and rape the people who happened to be living in his "chosen land" in the book of Joshua.)

Killed everyone on earth but, oh, 12 people? Yah.

Anywho, this is in some cases terribly subjective.

Compare:
"If Philip [II of Spain] possessed a single virtue it has eluded the conscientious research of the writer of these pages.  If there are vices--as possibly there are--from which he was exempt, it is because it is not permitted to human nature to attain perfection even in evil."
--John Lothrop Motley, _History of the United Netherlands_, 1868

to the Wikipedia entry on King Philip II of Spain. One can see where their difference of opinion arises, of course.

Yeah I did, but I decided that Ghengis Khan's motivation was born of protection of his homeland. Actually he was a little bit like the Ur-Quan/Kohr-Ah. They way to guarantee safety is to subjigate everyone else.

Actually this is just supposed to be actualy people, not fictional. I was just testing your attention to detail! Well done, you all passed.

What the heck makes Stalin worse than Hitler???
I don't say Stalin was an angel, but Hitler did far worse things.
I particularly dislike those racism and ethnic cleanse things.

Hitler was vegetarian, which earns him a few points

But actually, you probably just need to Wikipedia Stalin. He killed up to 20 million if his own people during the second world war.

Hitler had some strange ideas about protecting the German race and was clearly a sandwich short of a picnic. Stalin was a calculating tyrant who took extreme measures to maintain power, including periodic purges of his own Communist party and generally executing anyone he thought would be a threat. Millions were tortured to death in gulags, executed, and died from ethnic cleaning policies.

All of those descriptions of Stalin also apply to Hitler, which basically leaves us with the insanity defense. I don't think that helps against labeling 'evil'.

What convinces me that Hitler was worse is that a lot of (not all, but a lot) Stalin's evils were under the stress of a very real threat of invasion from the west. If Hitler hadn't gone in and begun ramping up, I'm reasonably confident that the CCCP would have been a lot more relaxed in its industrialization, which would have partially alleviated the conditions which led to the mass murders.

Stalin was willing to go there. Hitler went there just because he felt like it.

Germany wasn't exactly a joyful land to live in either back then ;). That's why hitler was so successful.

Germany in the 30s was under its own stresses. It had been humiliated by the terms of  the Treaty of Versailles and was suffering economically. Hitler figured he could blame it on the Jews.

In western courts of law insanity is a defence against conviction of crime and is a mitigating factor in sentencing. I agree with that, and that would be the basis behind me placing Stalin above Hitler in the evil list.

Germany was under stresses for sure. None of the horrors were a part of a strategy to alleviate those stresses. They weren't even against political enemies.

In the CCCP, the horrors were political discipline, labor disputes, or simply stiffing the farmers so industry could ramp up faster. It was to a comprehensible end. The evil was in letting those needs override basic morality.

The kinds of insanity that Hitler had are not the kinds of insanity that exculpate evil; they are just the kinds that explain his evil.

So, I'm evil only because I eat meat? Isn't meat a part of human natural diet somehow? Diet shouldn't have anything to do with good and evil (except for cannibals).
I would also like to mention something about communism...  --  you must admit the basic idea is really nice. "We'll share everything, there won't be rich and poor anymore..."
This idea actually never came into reality. Stalin simply never cared about people.

everyone is a cannibal. EVERYONE

You mean because we chew our nails?

Ever think of the millions of tons of skin sloughed off in the history of man? Dont you think a good portion of that ends up in your food?

To be perfectly honest, I dont really think about that all that often. Although i do know that 70% of dust in the home is human skin (or hair)

and not even recently. The amount of water that flows though graves before reaching the ocean, or the waste products excreted by the body.

You ever heard of Chinese graveyard? Not me. It would be such a waste to let so much meat go underground. Where the body ends? I don't want to know.
No offense if someone is Chinese in here.

It's not cannibalism if some other entity has metabolized it in the mean time. Otherwise the word loses all meaning.

No mention of the infamous Jack the Ripper?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper

Not many murderers are so well remembered after a couple of centuries. Perhaps it's partly due to the "catchy" name and that the murders were never solved.

Don't forget the Japanese during WWII; the way they treated POWs or above all their Unit 731 in China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731)

"the Japanese" is probably not quite a proper description, though, since that would also include civilians living in mainland Japan. In pretty much every case of atrocities and crimes perpetrated by a state, the civilians have nothing to do with it.

All it takes for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.

Very true. That's why powerful regimes try to keep the people ignorant. What's sad (and scary) is that people can be tricked into giving up power when danger is perceived. Case and point: the "Patriot Act". Then, as the regime gets more and more powerful, the people become less and less aware of what is happening around them as the regime spits out constant propaganda and suppresses free speech.

Sorry, I meant the japanese military, and even among them there were exceptions. Search, however, for the harsh training and brainwashing they received.

Although I don't think Donald Trump is the most evil president today, I think he is one of the most stupid presidents today.

Putin on the other hand, combines evilness with intelligence. That is even more dangerous I guess. Or maybe not. I guess Trump is more likely to start a nuclear war because he can't control his impulses, while Putin is more likely to maintain his dominance over the Russian people, and succeed in malevolent strategies against other countries.

Merkel on the other hand, seems to be even smarter than Putin, but completely benevolent.

(https://image.ibb.co/b7QF35/wordleaders.png)

I am not entirely sure about the validity of this ranking, since I don't know so much about all of these presidents.

I would love to not have to lock anything. Contemporary politics is considerably more contentious than this thread had previously been.

Just saying.

(https://image.ibb.co/jjd4Lv/mercel_vs_trump.png)

The implication by putting this in THIS thread is worse than its simple existence. If you want to make partisan jabs (even ones I agree with the sentiments behind), at least put it in a thread which is not explicitly about 'the most evil people in history'. And generally try to avoid partisan jabs. They don't help except to relieve stress in private. In public, they are a negative-sum activity.

Any further contemporary politics in this thread will get this thread locked and we'll all get to find out if there's an official warning system for users. Any partisan jokes anywhere on the forum had better be at least as tightly-aimed at specific politicians or policies as this one is.

Ok, I will stop making fun of your president.

Anyhow,  I liked the word you used "negative sum activity". I am thinking that maybe such a concept could be implemented in early childhood, as an argument against immoral behavior. Stealing for example, might be regarded as a "negative sum activity", even if it makes you rich.

Where the f#$k is MAO?