# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/101 "2012-04-17T17:44:55Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > That is not true it the case of the member, MOIDALIZE, who I chose to engage. > Here is his post #21 > > Which unambiguously approves of three premises for genocide. He is obviously > using “valid” to mean “true”. In fact the first and third premises are false when > applied to the Holocaust, and the deductions made from the second premise are invalid. I’m not the one approving of them, it’s human societies throughout history that have approved of them. Your quarrel should be with humanity, not me. > [@](#): > > If ignorance was inexcusable here then you would have been gone long ago. And I definitely don’t approve of the continuous, runny dumps you’re taking in my thread. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/102 "2012-04-17T17:53:11Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > Which unambiguously approves of three premises for genocide. He is obviously > using “valid” to mean “true”. In fact the first and third premises are false when > applied to the Holocaust, and the deductions made from the second premise are invalid. > > If ignorance was inexcusable here then you would have been gone long ago. I’m giving you a formal warning for this insulting comment and for ignoring my instructions. Drop this subject or start a new thread about it in the Pit. Do not post about it again here. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/103 "2012-04-17T18:13:04Z")
To clarify my thoughts, let’s take the Rwandan genocide as an example. I don’t know what life in Rwanda was like for the Hutu, nor the validity of their grievances against the Tutsi. Regardless, the grievances existed, such that when the state media and the military called for retribution against the Tutsi, many people responded. Was that insane? At least somewhat. But I don’t think you can examine the genocide in a vacuum. If the differences between the two groups were practically unresolvable, then trying to massacre those you can’t get along with is a type of solution. Now it was obviously a horrific solution, and it didn’t work out the way the Hutu elite had planned. And I concede that it wasn’t so much a popular uprising as it was the concerted efforts of Hutu militias and the military to cajole and intimidate the people into participating. But I don’t think that the Hutu elite were expressing sentiments that didn’t at least partly exist within the minds of the Hutu people, and those sentiments didn’t arise simply because the Hutu were insane. ---
**Author:** ![QuarkChild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c5a1d2/32.png) [@QuarkChild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuarkChild)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/104 "2012-04-17T19:25:39Z")
> [@figure9](#): > > Trying to find new sources of fossil fuels while your planet is dying from CO2 poisoning seems insane to me. Tragedy of the commons. It’s not insane on an individual level. ---
**Author:** ![QuarkChild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c5a1d2/32.png) [@QuarkChild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuarkChild)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/105 "2012-04-17T19:34:51Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I hear an axe grinding. Communism was a direct result of the horrors committed in England and Europe in the early days of capitalism. It was sort of the libertarian ideal … employers offered wages, you could take them or leave them, there were no unions or employment laws so the hours were insane, the wages were literally starvation wages, children worked in conditions that resulted in death, injury and illness … Communism or something like it was literally FORCED into being. > > Communism wasn’t madness, it was a sane and human response to outrage. It didn’t work out as the people who set it up hoped it would, but that’s par for the course in human history, as this thread amply demonstrates. I was referring more to Communism than to socialism. The abuses of capitalism that you describe above can be addressed in non-Communist ways, through government regulation and social programs. By communism, I was referring more to the idea of outlawing privately-owned companies, collectivizing capital, etc. [By the way, if I inadvertently blamed Marx for stuff that Lenin was actually responsible for, I apologize.] ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/106 "2012-04-17T21:08:27Z")
> [@figure9](#): > > Trying to find new sources of fossil fuels while your planet is dying from CO2 poisoning seems insane to me. Hyperbole. The worst-case scenerio of global warming has Earth with a very different climate and a lot of species being unable to adapt, not the “planet dying”. And trying to find new sources of fossil fuels makes sense if you place any value on the survival of technological civilization. What seems insane to me is neo-Luddites insisting that for the sake of the environment we have to undo the Industrial Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/107 "2012-04-18T02:37:07Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Hyperbole. The worst-case scenerio of global warming has Earth with a very different climate and a lot of species being unable to adapt, not the “planet dying”. Or, as the late George Carlin used to say, “The planet is fine. The \*people \*are fucked.” ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/108 "2012-04-18T02:43:15Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Or, as the late George Carlin used to say, “The planet is fine. The \*people \*are fucked.” **Plastic…asshole.** ---
**Author:** ![Wincerind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@Wincerind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wincerind)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/109 "2012-07-26T20:38:05Z")
Is there still anybody following this? If so, my two cents: The OP called for a collective event. I don’t think battles or the various communist leaders mentioned count, because the leaders may have taken insane decisions, the majority, either due to discipline or terror had no real choice but to follow the lead as it where. So things like the tulip mania would IMHO qualify. Maybe the enthousiasm about WW 1? Ruanda too… I can’t choose. As for insane battles: I am surprised nobody mentioned Passchendaele. That is even more unforgivable than Somme or Verdun: try again what failed at the Somme, in a salient, which is also a reclaimed swamp. There are too many Haig apologists anyway, but there are no excuses possible for Passchedaele. But maybe that should be a different thread… ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/110 "2012-07-26T23:24:44Z")
Despite invading Russia with 3.6 million soldiers, Germany could not win (this was obvious as early as November 1941). The next 4 years were an unequal battle …some German successes, most losses. Hitler should have negotiated a peace in 1941 ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/111 "2012-07-27T01:16:36Z")
> [@figure9](#): > > Trying to find new sources of fossil fuels while your planet is dying from CO2 poisoning seems insane to me. Couldn’t agree more. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/112 "2012-07-27T01:48:44Z")
If not American baseball, I’d say the Sony Play Station craze. World War I and the Holocaust I can rationalize but those two… ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/113 "2012-07-27T04:09:42Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The Dutch Tulip Bubble is probably a myth, or at least greatly exaggerated. It is documented in Charles Mackay’s “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” published in 1852 and earlier under a different title and also in Simon Schama’s “The Embarassment of Riches” published in 1987. ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/114 "2012-07-27T04:14:33Z")
> [@figure9](#): > > Trying to find new sources of fossil fuels while your planet is dying from CO2 poisoning seems insane to me. It is not the searching, finding and selling that is insane, it is rather the allowing of junk science to be spread around the world under the sponsorship of the fossil fuel advocates that is insane. We have laws against fraud, why not deliberate deception for financial gain as well? ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/115 "2012-07-27T04:33:05Z")
> [@denquixote](#): > > It is not the searching, finding and selling that is insane, it is rather the allowing of junk science to be spread around the world under the sponsorship of the fossil fuel advocates that is insane. We have laws against fraud, why not deliberate deception for financial gain as well? Because that would mean oil companies would make less money. ---
**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:** [July 27, 2012, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/116 "2012-07-27T11:59:18Z")
> [@Scotty Mo](#): > > Because that would mean oil companies would make less money. This. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/117 "2012-07-27T12:32:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If you want an example of a society acting irrationally, check out the Xhosa in 1856 (in what’s now South Africa). A disease swept through the area in 1854 and killed many cattle. Two girls had a vision that their gods were testing the Xhosa and to prove their faith they had to kill all their remaining cattle and destroy their crop fields. Once all the food was destroyed, the gods would send them an abundance of new food from Heaven and, as a bonus, bring all the dead Xhosa back to life. > > The Xhosa believed this and went ahead and destroyed all their food. But the new food and risen dead didn’t show up as expected. Instead the Xhosa society collapsed into starvation and cannibalism. [It was insane, but not as insane as you make out.](http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1317/1/Cattle-killing.pdf)(warning: pdf) The Xhosa had tried to isolate healthy cows from infected ones but due to long asymptomatic phase of the lungsickness, this failed. As their scientific conception of disease couldn’t explain it, they turned to superstition. There world-view saw resurrection as akin to waking up after a nights sleep. They slaughtered the cows, as they didn’t want the sick/cursed old ones to infect the new magic ones. Futhermore, as powerful figures were behind the movement, failure to comply with the insanity would be taken as evidence of personal sinfulness, and you’d be penalised just as the Chinese who tried to go against the insane flow of the cultural revolution were. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/118 "2012-07-28T18:08:37Z")
The capacity for mass hysteria with illogical results is as prevalent today as at any time. In the not too distant past; the examples of the mass adulation of the Ayatollah Khomenhi and his followers bringing down the forward looking and pro Western Shah of Iran, and for that matter the adulation for those doing likewise recently to the previous Egyptian government, or even on a more trivial level, the “canonisation” of Princess Di. (A very devious and dishonest person, who you wouldn’t want to have known in R.L) Mass appeal can all too often become mob rule, though the participants seem to develop amnesia about their part in it after the event. The fun part is getting out on the streets with all the others, even if you don’t really understand too much about the “cause”. After all it gives a sense of belonging, plus a feeling of virtuousness at doing your bit for "freedom "etc. The not so fun bit is left to the poor sods left behind to clear up the mess all you "saints " have left on the street. But thats not so pleasant to think about that so we don’t talk about it do we ? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/119 "2012-07-28T20:34:29Z")
Food destruction during the Great Depression. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776/120 "2012-07-28T22:03:23Z")
Not to toss a wrench into your spokes here folks, but I think most of the large scale actions here really don’t count. Not the Holocaust, the Stalinist purges or collectivization, or the Great Leap Forward. All those actions were driven by a very small number of people, directing a substantially larger group of “enforcers”. Many of the enforcers had perfectly rational reasons for their actions: keeping food on their own tables while others starved, fear of punishment, loyalty to a leader who demonstrated an ability to lead the country through a crisis, etc. The other reason I would discount these examples is that the leadership had total control of the media and could explain anything they did as a reasonable and necessary act with no voices raised to dispute the interpretation. However, I will immediately step back from my own interpretation of these events, as they are the “logical” outcomes of my own nomination of collective human insanity. My nomination – the human trait of surrendering our own judgement about life and death issues to a “higher authority”. It has been and continues to be the cause of endless grief and abuse. The very idea that someone (for instance, a general) can order another to kill someone, or kill a whole slew of people who have demonstrated no personal guilt of any crimes (except _their_ willingness to follow the same orders from generals in _their_ uniform), is insane, IMO. This includes the soldiers of almost every war in history, and those who cheer them on. Our willingness to adopt such a herd mentality is an ongoing never-ending collective insane act. Sorry I can’t be more specific and point to one event. They almost all stem from the same cause. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-is-the-most-insane-collective-human-event-in-history/618776.md?page=7)