Largest body count

Post by **GORDON** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:57 am

Just started wondering what single person in history is responsible for the most murder.... both personally, and because of his/her actions.

Right now I am thinking Mohammad. Things were going generally OK with Christianity overtaking polytheism throughout Europe, but then in the 5th century some random goatherder said, "Hey God talks to me too and he has whole new rules/and hey let's cut off access to the Silk Road." This caused the crusades and the current state of the middle east, Asia, and Africa, and all the fun that has come with it.

I say that if not for that single guy, hundreds of millions of deaths could have been averted.

AND.... if not for the kerfuffle on the Silk Road, Europe would not have been looking for a new path to the far east, and maybe the Europeans would not have founded colonies in the Americas for another century. Maybe the native Americans could have advanced enough by then to not get wiped out by Smallpox in the 1600s. So I put the native genocide on Mohammad, too.

Attack or support.

Edited By GORDON on 1421942291

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:00 am

Muhammad? Fucking no way. I ain't got time to go into it now, but no. Not even close.

And

Things were going generally OK with Christianity overtaking polytheism throughout Europe

Bull fucking shit.

Edited By Malcolm on 1421942466

Post by **GORDON** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:01 am

you're bull fucking shit

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:19 am

GORDON wrote:you're bull fucking shit

Let's remember the awesome Dark Ages, given to us by Christian Europe, during which they forgot or lost most of the useful knowledge discovered by the empires before them. Except for the Muslims over in Western Europe, who kept that shit around, preventing us from wasting more years and lives reinventing the wheel, figuratively speaking. Also, the Roman Empire going Christian was like when Metallica cut its hair. A mere shadow of itself afterwards.

Edited By Malcolm on 1421943663

Post by **GORDON** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:23 am

Yeah they got all Hari Seldon, or did they? Thib says the Dark Ages never actually happened, it was a calendar mistake. I have no idea how to search for that old thread.

I think knowledge could still have been protected here and there without muslims.

Post by **GORDON** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:30 am

I just realized the reason I can't find Thib's old thread is because we purged the forum a while back. Bummer.

Here's what I am talking about:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns....-happen

Edited By GORDON on 1421944255

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:35 am

I think knowledge could still have been protected here and there without muslims.

In the eighth century in Europe, if you had a few dozen books, you had the biggest library in hundreds of miles. If you had a few hundred, you were an institution. Only Christian places with that many books tended to be monasteries. The Muslims had universities in Spain churning out mathematicians, scientists, and artists the likes of which Christian Europe didn't see until the Renaissance.

If you want to talk largest body count, my vote goes to Genghis Khan.
1) He was brutal as hell and raped, pillaged, and plundered the likes of Russia, China, India, Korea, Asia in general, and huge swaths of Europe.
2) He was leading armies into battle from his mid teens until he keeled over dead in his 60s.
3) He fucked like a rabbit. Approximately 1% of the world's current population can claim ancestry from Genghis. All those descendants that probably murdered their way up the the imperial ladder. It's estimated Genghis and his kids, grandkids, ad nauseum, killed 10-15 million people in the Arabian peninsula alone during the time of the Mongol Empire.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:37 am

GORDON wrote:I just realized the reason I can't find Thib's old thread is because we purged the forum a while back. Bummer.

Here's what I am talking about:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns....-happen

Bullshit.

They claim mysterious forces inserted 297 years into the calendar between 614 and 911 AD — in other words, what we're calling 2011 is really 1714

....

Charlemagne is something of a problem for the Phantom Time hypothesis. The leader of the Franks consolidated much of western Europe under his rule in the late 700s and in 800 AD was crowned emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, all of it square in the middle of the intercalated 297 years. Illig explains this away by saying Charlemagne is an "invented figure," that a famous domed chapel that was part of the Carolingian palace complex in Aachen couldn't possibly have been built when everybody thinks it was built, and so on.