As has been intimated but not spelled out, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler are generally credited with tens of millions of deaths, on the order of 20-50 million and which one’s on top varies wildly depending on the foibles of the person quoted. Certainly they are in a league with the AIDS epidemic itself, and 2 or 3 of them probably individually exceed it to date (eventually I suppose AIDS will keep going and catch up).
I’ve been to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy extension twice and stared and stared at the Enola Gay. It’s weird to think that object is the single deadliest individual weapon in history (and yes, the plane counts as a weapon if a gun counts as a weapon and not just the bullet it fires).
Curtis LeMay not only directed the firebombings, but developed the incendiary tactics. One raid on Tokyo killed an estimated 100,000, quite competitive with the atomic bombings.
No he can’t, because it’s bullshit. Genghis Khan was ruthless enough. I read that if a city did not capitulate, he’d order his army to kill all they found, wait 3 days and come back and kill everyone they found again. It was a very effective way to get cities to cave. Very few of the ancient peoples were as efficient as the Romans, though. (“They create a desert, and call it peace.”) Alexander the Great didn’t have enough soldiers, or time, to approach the Romans.
Blaming someone for CFCs is unfair. Early refrigerators were death traps. Even Einstein patented a safer refrigerator. CFCs were considered lifesavers for decades, because they are so inert. Inert enough to persist in the atmosphere long enough to cause trouble.
I’m sure that the guys who dropped the bomb figured they saved way more people than they killed. So does this get into a ± logic game? If not, you’d have to consider those that develop vaccines to be mass killers also, because every vaccine costs some lives.
Back in the day, I used to see “the big three” ranked Mao, Stalin, Hitler. I guess no one counts the Japanese leaders during WWII and earlier, because there was more than one? If so, they’d still have to be up there with Pol Pot.
Except Adam wasn’t a real person. However there was an “Eve” that we are all genetically descended from. I give her the indirectly nod. St. Paul a close second.
And I may be speaking out of my ass here but if I recall from reading his biography, Genghis Khan did toss the infected over the walls of cities to purposely spread the plague. Regardless, the trade routes he established certainly spread it much more dramatically than it ever would have without him. It’s a fascinating read either way.
Your claim was that Genghis Khan deliberately introduced the plague to Europe, which I took to mean Western Europe. Since he never invaded what is now Western Europe, he couldn’t have.
*A pandemic is slaughtering millions, mostly children and pregnant women – one child every 15 seconds; 3 million people annually; and over 100 million people since 1972 --but there are no protestors clogging the streets or media stories about this tragedy. These deaths can be laid at the doorstep of author Rachel’s Carson. Her1962 bestselling book Silent Spring detailed the alleged “dangers” of the pesticide DDT, which had practically eliminated malaria. Within ten years, the environmentalist movement had convinced the powers that be to outlaw DDT. Denied the use of this cheap, safe and effective pesticide, millions of people – mostly poor Africans – have died due to the environmentalist dogma propounded by Carson’s book. Her coterie of admirers at the U.N. and environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund have managed to bring malaria and typhus back to sub-Saharan Africa with a vengeance.
“This is like loading up seven Boeing 747 airliners each day, then deliberately crashing them into Mt. Kilimanjaro,” said Dr. Wenceslaus Kilama, Malaria Foundation International Chairman.*
Back on track…if we can blame Genghis Khan for starting all the wars of Mongol conquest, that might knock him up to the 100 million skulls mark. Of course, if we’re that far removed, we might blame Gavrilo Princip for even more.
I considered Adam vs Eve, but I would argue that Eve couldn’t have done it without Adam, while Adam could have done it without Eve’s consent. In other words, it was Adam’s will that created mankind, not Eve’s, although both had to be involved.
And then, while I know neither one can be verified, in the terms of this game, saying “Adam” or “Eve” simply means whoever started the human race.
It’s mostly chemical industry propaganda. DDT is still permitted for malarial outbreaks; saying it’s not is a trope of anti-envrionmentalism. More to the point, mosquitoes will certainly evolve resistance to DDT, making it useless, and that will happen sooner if it is used in unrestricted fashion. So the claim is untrue in letter and spirit. But hey, at least it’s a slander!
