[matmat]

sceptic, on Feb 1 2008, 11:33 AM, said:

How many christians thrown to the lions (this may predate but the point is the same)
How many jews gassed
How many killed by stalin
Yugoslavia ethnic cleansing
Africa (too many to mention)
How many innocent vietnaese killed by napalm
How many civilizations did the spanish destroy( this may predate but the point is the same)
And I am sure us Brits can't evade some kind of attrocity somewhere in our history
How about uprooting people to test nuclear weapons and poisoning the land

I would not like to pick a winner, I think this poll is quite sick

yeah... this is sort of like asking the mother of n-tuplets, who her favorite child is, except much, much, much sicker.

[vuroth]

Write-in vote for the Supertramp album.

[hrothgar]

vuroth, on Feb 2 2008, 03:52 AM, said:

Write-in vote for the Supertramp album.

I like Supertramp

Breakfast in America rocks

[Gerben42]

Abstain, this list is biased. I just want to quote this:

"If you kill one man, it is murder. If you kill a million, it's a statistic."

Sad, isn't it. Why can't we all just... get along?

[finally17]

To ask which of these is greater, either in the face of tragedy or separated from it by a month or a decade or a century, is to lessen the atrocities that you deem less great. They were not any less great to those who suffered them.

To assign blame for the greatest sin to this group and not that is almost an absolution. I don't want to give any one or group with murderous or genocidal intent grounds to say such as "We were not as bad as Hitler, the evil bastard. He was real evil, we are just the diet coke of evil."

If you can boil it down to a question of numbers (which is greater is a question of numbers), you're missing the point. It's not a question of individual or group, great or small; either human life is sacrosanct or not, there is no in between.

I abstain as well, but I am curious where the term "century of ingress" came from? It sounds like some apologist's attempt to demonstrate ideas I don't agree with at all, that the 20th century achieved some level of murderous hate that mankind had, in other centuries, failed to achieve.

It's not that we've gotten more hateful, or that groups persecuted in the 20th century were somehow more despised than those trod upon in the preceding generations. If anything I would argue that it's the other way around (but this is not either a debate I want to have). No, it's not that hate has increased, it's just that increased populations, population densities, and an improved machinery of war have allowed us to be vastly more efficient at our hatreds than our forerunners were capable of.

[skjaeran]

finally17, on Feb 2 2008, 01:52 PM, said:

To ask which of these is greater, either in the face of tragedy or separated from it by a month or a decade or a century, is to lessen the atrocities that you deem less great. They were not any less great to those who suffered them.

To assign blame for the greatest sin to this group and not that is almost an absolution. I don't want to give any one or group with murderous or genocidal intent grounds to say such as "We were not as bad as Hitler, the evil bastard. He was real evil, we are just the diet coke of evil."

If you can boil it down to a question of numbers (which is greater is a question of numbers), you're missing the point. It's not a question of individual or group, great or small; either human life is sacrosanct or not, there is no in between.

I abstain as well, but I am curious where the term "century of ingress" came from? It sounds like some apologist's attempt to demonstrate ideas I don't agree with at all, that the 20th century achieved some level of murderous hate that mankind had, in other centuries, failed to achieve.

It's not that we've gotten more hateful, or that groups persecuted in the 20th century were somehow more despised than those trod upon in the preceding generations. If anything I would argue that it's the other way around (but this is not either a debate I want to have). No, it's not that hate has increased, it's just that increased populations, population densities, and an improved machinery of war have allowed us to be vastly more efficient at our hatreds than our forerunners were capable of.

Well said!

[helene_t]

finally17, on Feb 2 2008, 02:52 PM, said:

It's not that we've gotten more hateful, or that groups persecuted in the 20th century were somehow more despised than those trod upon in the preceding generations.  If anything I would argue that it's the other way around (but this is not either a debate I want to have).  No, it's not that hate has increased, it's just that increased populations, population densities, and an improved machinery of war have allowed us to be vastly more efficient at our hatreds than our forerunners were capable of.

Absolutely agree. Europeans would have used nukes or mustard gas against the Zulus, the Moors and the Incas if those technologies had been available.

Nevertheless I think the 21st century will see less crimes against humanity than did the 20th. The idea that human rights extend to people with other skin colors has become quite popular, some even extent them to people with other religions.Besides, as our economy has become more based on labor and information and less based on natural resources, genocide makes less economical sense than it used to.

[Fluffy]

sceptic, on Feb 1 2008, 04:33 PM, said:

How many civilizations did the spanish destroy( this may predate but the point is the same)

Lol, they teach us that this is just propaganda from England and France you know?


Anyway Al_U_Card, why didn't you even mention the jews? didn't anything happen in europe on the first half on the century?

[Al_U_Card]

finally17, on Feb 2 2008, 07:52 AM, said:

I abstain as well, but I am curious where the term "century of ingress" came from?  It sounds like some apologist's attempt to demonstrate ideas I don't agree with at all, that the 20th century achieved some level of murderous hate that mankind had, in other centuries, failed to achieve.

I am guilty of the "coining" of the term but it was intended to refer to the practice of looking inwards that developed during the last century. Introspection, self-loathing, ego-centricity, me generation etc.

I can appreciate the desire to abstain, but my preference would be to know and understand YOUR choice (on the list or not).

I made a more or less random list but was pissed with not having included the A-bombs as they were very heinous. (There was a 20 max limit btw)

As previously mentioned, "Why can't we get along?" Mostly because we refuse and fail to walk a mile in the other man's shoes.

[Winstonm]

I have a more generalized view of this consideration. While it is true that murder is an awful act, it is often commited emotionally and spontaneously; however, governments cannot use that alibi - governmental use of its state-sponsored powers in a calculated and cold-blooded destruction of liberty, whether the ultimate destuction of death or the partial destruction of long-term confinement, is the most heinous of crimes.

[Al_U_Card]

Fluffy, on Feb 2 2008, 08:40 AM, said:

sceptic, on Feb 1 2008, 04:33 PM, said:

How many civilizations did the spanish destroy( this may predate but the point is the same)

Lol, they teach us that this is just propaganda from England and France you know?


Anyway Al_U_Card, why didn't you even mention the jews? didn't anything happen in europe on the first half on the century?

Genocide is a distorted part of the survival imperative. The church destroyed the heretical Mayan and Incan cultural records, Hitler eviscerated the jewish communities to help fund his war machine etc. etc. I couldn't (sadly) possibly fit all of the atrocities on the list....

[sceptic]

Al, can you use smaller words or words with only two sylables so I can understand what the heck you are talking about

[pclayton]

Holocaust, Pol Pot, and Rwanda.

Darfur continues...

[rbforster]

Gerben42, on Feb 2 2008, 04:25 AM, said:

"If you kill one man, it is murder. If you kill a million, it's a statistic."

Regarding that quote, I'd heard a slightly different version:

"Kill one man, they call you a murderer. Kill a million, they call you a conqueror. Kill them all and call yourself a god."

A similarly dim view on both men and gods. The origin seems to be Jean Rostand.

[skjaeran]

sceptic, on Feb 2 2008, 06:19 PM, said:

Al, can you use smaller words or words with only two sylables so I can understand what the heck you are talking about

What do you mean, understand? It's got more than 2 syllables.

[kenberg]

Al, I see you ask for our choice and our reason. My choice is to abstain but I can give you my reason for that, at lest more or less.


Crimes come in different categories and I am not sure it is sensible to try to compare them. Even within a category, say murder by the state, how to choose. I suppose that I could reasonably argue that Hitler was more of a monster than Stalin. Stalin caused the death of an enormous number of people but as far as I know, he did it in pursuit of power and so if you kept your head down you maybe had a chance of surviving. If you were Jewish in Nazi Germany, no such option was available to you. But then, is that really the right criterion? I wouldn't really be impressed as a juror where the accused asked for mercy because he only killed for power, not for the fun of it like other people did.

But, beyond such difficulties, I agree with some earlier comments that it really seems somehow wrong to try to make a ranking of this sort. We rank the best dressed or the worst dressed or the richest etc. I guess someone ranks congressman by stupidity. But most monstrous? I sit here, safe and comfortable, discussing whether Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot committed the worst crime. I visualize a Holocaust survivor seeing that their suffering didn't make the cut. I think I'll take a pass on this. And continue to take a pass if you add in the Holocaust.

[Al_U_Card]

I will defer (only 2 syllables but since syllable has more than 2 then I will use the word "parts" ) to Wayne here.

My point is just to show that no matter the degree, we are all guilty of evil. We are the source of the problem so we must be able to solve it. We must resist evil at every turn. We cannot allow evil to exist and persist without fighting against it. If we don't then we are the most evil of all.

[sceptic]

Al_U_Card, on Feb 2 2008, 09:14 PM, said:

I will defer (only 2 syllables but since syllable has more than 2 then I will use the word "parts"  ) to Wayne here. 

My point is just to show that no matter the degree, we are all guilty of evil.  We are the source of the problem so we must be able to solve it.  We must resist evil at every turn.  We cannot allow evil to exist and persist without fighting against it.  If we don't then we are the most evil of all.

ok lets say I agree with you, I still think your poll is in bad taste (at best)

Quote

We cannot allow evil to exist

Without evil, there is no good

[luke warm]

sceptic, on Feb 2 2008, 04:20 PM, said:

Quote

We cannot allow evil to exist

Without evil, there is no good

you don't really believe that, do you?

[sceptic]

luke warm, on Feb 3 2008, 03:24 AM, said:

sceptic, on Feb 2 2008, 04:20 PM, said:

Quote

We cannot allow evil to exist

Without evil, there is no good

you don't really believe that, do you?

Take away all the evil in the world, now what do you have, hapiness? boredom? utopia?(this exsists in your dreams)

much of the evil in the world is done in the name of God, Greed, Misunderstanding, Fear and Ignornace and a lot has been done by people believing they are doing this for the good of mankind.

Bringing in Global Democracy (evil) I think if people want to live alternative ways, they should be allowed to do it, why on earth do they have to do it under a Democratic umbrella

Change has its victims, is the price paid for change not an evil act if it is enforced upon them

Lets take an example, no more seven deadly sins


* 1.1 Lust (Latin, luxuria)
* 1.2 Gluttony (Latin, gula)
* 1.3 Greed (Latin, avaritia)
* 1.4 Sloth (Latin, acedia)
* 1.5 Wrath (Latin, ira)
* 1.6 Envy (Latin, invidia)
* 1.7 Pride (Latin, superbia)

it just aint gonna happpen and no one will ever change it, (I am not saying we should not punish people for certain things, even with the death penalty) all of these seven reasons are what creates (what to normal people is) evil, I am not sure if these seven things are what causes ALL the evil in the world

But there can and will never be just good in the world so for this reason actually, yes I do believe that without evil there can be no good.

Jimmy explain to me by eradicating evil, there will only be good in the world