# What do you think is the most insane, collective human event in history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 14, 2012, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776 "2012-04-14T19:38:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/21 "2012-04-14T22:29:56Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > That is half of what he said, and that half does not accurately apply. > > Deductive and inductive consistency are not sufficient to provide sound logic: > the premises and observations upon which the ensuing steps are based must > be valid. No genocide that I know of rests on any valid premise or observation. > Please tell me if you know of something I have missed on that score. - “Those people hate us, and we hate them.” - “Those people occupy territory that we want for ourselves.” - “Those people dominate and enslave us.” Those aren’t valid premises for causing genocide? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/22 "2012-04-14T22:34:46Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > I’d cut the Xhosa some slack by assuming they were ignorant of the causes of disease. If it had happened in 1956 I might be more inclined to agree. I disagree. I think pretty much every society understands the importance of food and is aware of the consequences of not having food. Destroying all of your food is pretty irrational. And it was something the Xhosa did to themselves. Genocide may be a terrible atrocity but it’s one group killing the members of another group. Even the Khmer Rouge regime and the Cultural Revolution, where a government was killing its own citizens, were peasants killing non-peasants. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/23 "2012-04-14T22:41:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I disagree. I think pretty much every society understands the importance of food and is aware of the consequences of not having food. Destroying all of your food is pretty irrational. > > And it was something the Xhosa did to themselves. Genocide may be a terrible atrocity but it’s one group killing the members of another group. Even the Khmer Rouge regime and the Cultural Revolution, where a government was killing its own citizens, were peasants killing non-peasants. I’d have to know the scale of the destruction of their cattle wrought by the disease. If their cattle was dropping dead in droves, that would seem to be a desperate circumstance calling for desperate measures. An ignorant and superstitious society is ripe for exploitation by religious hucksters, but what alternative did they have? Did they have agriculture that could sustain them in the absence of cattle? Did they know enough about disease to make a better choice? ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/24 "2012-04-14T22:53:07Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > - “Those people hate us, and we hate them.” > - “Those people occupy territory that we want for ourselves.” > - “Those people dominate and enslave us.” > > Those aren’t valid premises for causing genocide? To those of Nazi persuation, yes. You are not the only member to inflict this board pro-Nazi posts lately. I hope you are the last, though. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/25 "2012-04-14T22:58:48Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Certainly, though rarely on that scale. But **most of the really epic genocide happened earlier in human history** , and even things like what happened in Turkey simply weren’t on such a premeditated and industrial scale. Basically, there isn’t a lot of really nasty, dark things that haven’t happened in human history, so if that’s the bench mark then nothing is really ‘insane’ by that definition. > -XT Can you elaborate? (Genuine curiousity not snarkiness) ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/26 "2012-04-14T22:59:58Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > To those of Nazi persuation, yes. > > You are not the only member to inflict this board pro-Nazi posts lately. I hope you are the last, though. Settle down. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/27 "2012-04-14T23:02:55Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > You are not the only member to inflict this board pro-Nazi posts lately. I hope you are the last, though. **colonial** , knock it off. You seem to have completely misunderstood the posts to which you are responding. Accusations like this should be made in the Pit so people can respond in kind to what you are saying. They don’t belong in Great Debates, so don’t do it again. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/28 "2012-04-14T23:22:12Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > To those of Nazi persuation, yes. I think you misunderstand the OP (and I’m not the OP). All of us agree that the Nazi’s were terribly wrong, but they had a logical argument in their head about what they were doing, evil as it was. The OP was talking about pure nutcasery; no logic at all.. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/29 "2012-04-14T23:26:30Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > Stop it. Peoples have killed and conquered their neighbors since time immemorial. The legitimacy of such an act is in the eye of the beholder. I never said it wasn’t evil. Not that wanton slaughter is as easy to justify as you seem to think, but what you describe above is not the same as genocide, which is properly defined as killing an entire nationality or ethnic group. Dispersal as slaves at one fell swoop would count as in the case of Carthage after the 3rd Punic War, although speaking of which the Roman victors did not perform any equivalent genocide that I am aware of in their history, most Jews apparently being dispersed ca. 70-160AD as freemen rather than slaves. > [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > Not true. The Stalingrad area needed to be secured to guard the northern flank of the advance into the Caucuses, and the city itself was an industrial center. There was a definite military purpose for advancing into the area, though the way the operation was conducted represented a crucial strategic blunder by the Germans. No, the city did not need to be secured. It was a mere few 10s of miles out of several 100 miles of front that had to be defended (an impossible task with the relative numbers available to the Axis, but that is another story). As for the city’s industry, there was no possibility of the Germans putting a dent in overall Soviet weapon production, so no sense in trying at Stalingrad: the Germans had to beat the Soviet armed forces in battle, and that could not be done by hurling themselves against resolutely entrenched Soviet defenders. I believe at the time Stalingrad was termed “Verdun on the Volga”. That is to some extent apt, except that the Germans were facing an enemy with several times more population to draw from than France had in 1916, so attrition proved to be all in Soviet favor. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/30 "2012-04-14T23:36:12Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > **colonial** , knock it off. You seem to have completely misunderstood the posts to which you are responding. Accusations like this should be made in the Pit so people can respond in kind to what you are saying. They don’t belong in Great Debates, so don’t do it again. I have misunderstood nothing. See, especially, from my reply #20: _The other half of what he said was that “the consequences must be insane”. but that the holocaust “(made) some sense”. I do not really need to say more about that, do I?_ ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/31 "2012-04-15T00:05:46Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I think you misunderstand the OP (and I’m not the OP). All of us agree that the Nazi’s were terribly wrong, but they had a logical argument in their head about what they were doing, evil as it was. The OP was talking about pure nutcasery; no logic at all.. See my reply #20: \*Deductive and inductive consistency are not sufficient to provide sound logic: \* \*the premises and observations upon which the ensuing steps are based must \* _be valid._ The Nazi premeses were invalid, right? Therefore all that follows in their ideology is unsound logic. viz: Premise 1: All men are immortal Premise 2: Socrates is a man Conclusion: Therefore Socrates is immortal Is unsound because Premise #1 is false. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/32 "2012-04-15T00:06:49Z")
[QUOTE=colonial] I have misunderstood nothing. [/QUOTE] Yes…you did. The OP and I don’t always see eye to eye, but MOIDALIZE is no Nazi sympathizer, nor someone trying to either handwave away the Holocaust or justify what happened. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/33 "2012-04-15T01:01:30Z")
The Aztec human sacrifice rituals are surely the most insane act embraced by a society. Genocides don’t even come close, since “destroy the other tribe” isn’t even a particularly insane ideology to have. People naturally tend to identify with a community, and it’s not strange or uncommon to feel hatred for communities in conflict with yours. War in general is not any less insane than genocide, in my opinion. It’s certainly not any more insane on a community-wide level than robbery is on a personal level. The Aztec human sacrifice rituals were downright CRAZY though. It was a form of penance to them. They killed themselves because they felt guilty, just for being alive. They weren’t brainwashed by a charismatic leader. They didn’t have historical grudges to blame for their violent hatred. They were just fucking nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/34 "2012-04-15T01:11:49Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > The Aztec human sacrifice rituals are surely the most insane act embraced by a society. Genocides don’t even come close, since “destroy the other tribe” isn’t even a particularly insane ideology to have. People naturally tend to identify with a community, and it’s not strange or uncommon to feel hatred for communities in conflict with yours. War in general is not any less insane than genocide, in my opinion. It’s certainly not any more insane on a community-wide level than robbery is on a personal level. > > The Aztec human sacrifice rituals were downright CRAZY though. It was a form of penance to them. They killed themselves because they felt guilty, just for being alive. They weren’t brainwashed by a charismatic leader. They didn’t have historical grudges to blame for their violent hatred. They were just fucking nuts. Are you aware that most of the people the Aztecs sacrificed weren’t Aztecs? The Aztecs would attack neighbouring kingdoms and capture prisoners. Or they would insist on prisoner tributes to forego attacking. Then these prisoners would make up the bulk of the human sacrifices. Leaving aside any religious issues, periodically attacking your neighbours and killing off large numbers of their warriors was also a sound strategic practice. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/35 "2012-04-15T01:26:22Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Are you aware that most of the people the Aztecs sacrificed weren’t Aztecs? The Aztecs would attack neighbouring kingdoms and capture prisoners. Or they would insist on prisoner tributes to forego attacking. Then these prisoners would make up the bulk of the human sacrifices. > > Leaving aside any religious issues, periodically attacking your neighbours and killing off large numbers of their warriors was also a sound strategic practice. There were lots of “tribute” sacrifices, but most scholars agree that the majority of people sacrificed as ritual offerings were not foreigners. In fact, at least one large Aztec city outlawed the practice of sacrificing foreigners, and their sacrifices came from willingly offered sons and daughters of local nobles. Yes, you heard that right. People willingly offered their own children to be sacrificed on a public altar. Not just occasionally, but all the damn time. Aztec children had a 1 in 5 chance of being sacrificed before adulthood. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/36 "2012-04-15T01:45:15Z")
Do religions count as collective human events? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/37 "2012-04-15T02:20:19Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > at least one large Aztec city outlawed the practice of sacrificing foreigners, and their sacrifices came from willingly offered sons and daughters of local nobles. OK, arguments and snarkiness aside, that is Goddamn weird. Please give a cite, just so I can see how fucked up these folks were. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/38 "2012-04-15T03:00:00Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > OK, arguments and snarkiness aside, that is Goddamn weird. > Please give a cite, just so I can see how fucked up these folks were. > Thanks. Wiki has a pretty detailed article about the scope of Aztec human sacrifice [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture#Estimates_of_the_scope_of_the_sacrifices). The last part of that section is the following: > [@wiki](#): > > Likewise, most of the earliest accounts talk of prisoners of war of diverse social status, and concur that virtually all child sacrifices were locals of noble lineage, offered by their own parents (compare Cortes, Letters 105 with Motolinia, History of the Indies 118-119 and Duran, Book of the Gods, 223, 242). > > Likewise, it is doubtful if many victims came from far afield. In 1454, the Aztec government forbade the slaying of captives from distant lands at the capital’s temples (Duran, The Aztecs: History of the Indes, 141). Duran’s informants told him that sacrifices were consequently ‘nearly always… friends of the [Royal] House’- meaning warriors from allied states (Duran, The Aztecs: History of the Indies, 141, 198). This probably meant that the average Aztec warrior stood as much chance of procuring a victim as he did of himself becoming one ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/39 "2012-04-15T04:04:04Z")
I would say the slavish worship of incompetent, deranged and dysfunctional political leaders like Stalin, Kim Il-Sung and Mao. All three had major policy screwups. Stalin purged his officer corps and then trusted Hitler not to invade. Mao promoted tons of stupid policies that led to massive dysfunction, the cultural revolution and famine in China. Kim Il-Sung is self explanatory. From the outside looking in all 3 come across as horribly inept leaders. Despite it all, and despite those 3 rulers having verifiable track records of not just inhuman brutality but political ineptitude, they are/were held up as god-men. I guess the one link holding them all together is the dogma that ‘they saved us from foreign and domestic imperialist bastards’, which I guess, in the minds of those who adore them but are aware of their screw ups, makes up for how badly they screwed up once in power. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/40 "2012-04-15T06:08:44Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Wiki has a pretty detailed article about the scope of Aztec human sacrifice [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture#Estimates_of_the_scope_of_the_sacrifices). > > The last part of that section is the following: I have to say this conflicts with what I’ve read. I won’t dispute there were Aztecs who were sacrificed. But the sources I’ve read all list war captives as the main source for sacrifice. And they say that the majority of the Aztec who were sacrificed were from the poor not the nobility. It was a form of taxation. If you were unable to produce your assigned share of money or goods, you were expected to make up the difference with a family member. There also seems to be a point of confusion in this Wikipeda article. It says _“that one in five children of the Mexica subjects was killed annually.”_ That’s not at all the same as saying the Aztecs were sacrificing a fifth of their own children each year. The Aztecs ruled an empire and it was their subjects who were being called for sacrifice in the greatest numbers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776.md?page=3)