What's the worst thing ever happened in history? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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What's the worst thing ever happened in history?

443 sats \ 32 comments \ @IamSINGLE 27 Jan AskSN

I was just reading about the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by USA in WW2. It's not that I didn't read about it before or I didn't know what happened after it. But whenever I read about it, I also think of many other such incidents, like the the war of Kalinga, Mahabharata, the Iraq, the Afghanistan, the 9/11 and so on, there can be 100000 examples if I go on.

The worst one for me isn't however from the wars or human annihilation, it's the recent COVID and Lockdowns.

What do you think what's the worst thing ever happened in history?

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1 reply \ @BlokchainB 27 Jan

According to this the worst day in human history is January 23rd 1556

Which was a flood in china that killed cave dwelling people.

221 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 28 Jan

Thanks. This is the best answer. I'm pinning it to the top.

133 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Jan

From my understanding, the worst thing that's happened in human history is the spread of Eurasian diseases to the Americas.

Over 90% of the population died off over the course of a few generations and entire complex cultures disappeared.

I'd put Communism as a close 2nd place. Thankfully, that didn't last as long.

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 28 Jan

I second this. It's surprising that noone talks about it. People are just busy in calculating deaths by heatwaves or cold strokes.

25 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 27 Jan

Much ignored/misunderstood/unknown!

63 sats \ 0 replies \ @ZezzebbulTheMysterious 27 Jan

While its not the worst thing in history, 2 inventions Thomas Midgley Jr. had a very long tail of influence in the 20th Century, resulting in significant environmental and human damage:

Lead in Gasoline (poisoning the brain of humans, and he knew and downplayed the risks; A measurable loss in global intelligence)
CFCs (stripping the planet of its ozone layer which offers protection against UV radiation; A measurable gain in cancer, etc)

113 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan 27 Jan

Female suffrage? #861088

(KIIIIDDDING!)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 27 Jan

Breh! 🤣

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 27 Jan

😀😀😀😀😀😀

40 sats \ 1 reply \ @Shugard 27 Jan

Karl Marx!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ZezzebbulTheMysterious 27 Jan

Marx was just a philosopher. The crimes of communism were perpetrated by the its implementers.

I'm replying because we should not attack the philosophers, regardless if we agree or disagree with the theory. I personally disagree with Marx's theories, for example the Labor Theory of Value, it is dashed by advances in technology like AI. He is 'wrong' in the 21st century, and we have the technology.

But without theory, at least, we cannot possibly imagine the best implementation, or learn any lessons about what to or not do.

Writing a book cannot possibly the worst thing ever. But ideologically interpreting that book, in a way that leads to worse outcomes for the people, could be.

It applies to any book, especially "holy" ones.

52 sats \ 4 replies \ @Aardvark 27 Jan

I think the worst thing to happen in human history is that our species has somehow collectively convinced ourselves that the best way to live is under the heel of an authoritarian government.

20 sats \ 3 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 27 Jan

Governments have been there forever. Even some of the authoritarian ones were loved by people. So, for me it's not a net negative.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 28 Jan

The modern state is only one form of governance and it has not existed forever. Not a bad answer as it covers many wars and wrongs.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ZezzebbulTheMysterious 27 Jan

The modern passport was only invented in 1920. Before that, people could, in general, freely move between countries.

Governments have been there forever, but the ratchet of authoritarianism, directly impacting people was very much turned in the 20th century.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 28 Jan

Governments at best have existed for maybe 3000 years I believe.

10 sats \ 4 replies \ @ama 27 Jan

Fascism: Hitler, Mussolini, Franco. Closely followed by trumpism. 😂

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 28 Jan

Where's Gandhism???

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Shugard 27 Jan

Communism killed far more! They deserve a place on your lost.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 28 Jan

Nice troll, lol

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 27 Jan

This list without Stalin is sus!

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @OneOneSeven 27 Jan

I think we are still reeling from whatever happened 12800 years ago during the Younger Dryas period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis

Graham Hancock always say we are a species with amnesia. What can be worse than forgetting who you are?

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE OP 28 Jan

Many people say it's never happened, is the proof of amnesia.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @itsrealfake 27 Jan

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 27 Jan

Human history or the history of the earth?

60 sats \ 1 reply \ @IamSINGLE OP 27 Jan

Just History.

59 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 27 Jan

The worst thing that happened in history was likely the Permian mass extinction event when 95% of all species on earth died off.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LowK3y19 28 Jan

American civil war

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Longtermwizard 28 Jan

The Federal reserve

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 28 Jan

You took out Mahabharata here which imo is the worst in history. I think if we inflate the war crimes and deaths to modern world with modern weapons, Mahabharata will stand out as the largest doom to have ever been caused by humans upon humans.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Roll 27 Jan

Natural causes :

The Yangtze-Huai or China River Floods, which occurred in 1931, are considered to be the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded. While estimates are rough, it is believed that a minimum of one million people died, but this figure is likely closer to 3.7 million.

Primarily affecting the Yangtze, Huai and the Yellow River basins between July and November, the floods were caused by a combination of excessive rainfall, snowmelt and failing dikes which were installed to prevent floods.

The submersion of vast areas of land around these rivers displaced more than 25 million people, many of whom had their homes and livelihoods destroyed. Food shortages were severe and continuous outbreaks of disease killed millions.

The Chinese government and local authorities implemented large-scale emergency plans but the scale of disaster was just too large to be managed by their existing resources.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @itsrealfake 27 Jan

Some thoughts come to mind:

any lie ever told
the burning of the library of alexandria
destruction of cultural artifacts, generally.. and languages.

there's some hypothetical situation you could suggest... like: what if you genocided a culture of pederasts.

yeah, I guess that is a situation where the culture seems to be a bad deal. but I think destroying their cultural artifacts would be a net-bad.