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I don't know if we can call them the most evil. There are plenty of contenders, even if the death rates don't match up. If we go purely by deathrates then we s

I don't know if we can call them the most evil. There are plenty of contenders, even if the death rates don't match up. If we go purely by deathrates then we should pick communist china or the soviet union. If we go by barbarity the mongol empire, the timurids, and the japanese empire (talking the one from ww2) are all good contenders. Imperial japan was so bad that the nazi ambassador to china in nanking did his best to save as many civilians as he could out of sheer disgust for their behavior. imperial japanese soldiers used to bayonet babies and do beheading contests for fun. literally, their newspapers had them even keeping score over who could do more beheadings. they melted people, literally ate people on one occupied island, they did multiple genocides, they tested gasses. Imperial japan is what I consider the worst by barbarity.

wizwit999 4y ago
I mean Mongols depopulated entire large cities. E.g. the entire population of Merv, which was one of the world's largest cities at the time, was killed.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  Or Baghdad which maybe was the largest city in the world at the time it was sacked.
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- mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
  yeah but I was talking about brutality vs numbers. the commies killed far more than anyone by numbers and in barbaric ways, but their brutality was beaten by those who killed less in more gruesome ways. the mongols excelled at both but I argued by brutality imperial japan was a bit worse.
samatman 4y ago
Raw death toll and percentage of total world population slaughtered seem like the two most objective measures. The Horde win the dubious blue ribbon for the latter.
- jltsiren 4y ago
  Mongol conquests were roughly comparable to the European conquest of the Americas. Both toppled great empires and may have killed ~10% of world population in a few generations. And both were more noteworthy due to their large-scale success than their brutality. While both waves of conquest were brutal even by contemporary standards, they were not extraordinary brutal. Being an absolute monster is a part of the job description of a conqueror.
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  - throwawaygal7 4y ago
    I think the comparison works in terms of percentages, but falls apart because the Europeans were not unified. Something like 3 or four great powers colonized America vs a single ethnic group for the Mongols (even if they did fight with each other)
    - jltsiren 4y ago
      The Mongol Empire was not a single ethnic group. The top leaders were ethnic Mongols (much in the same way as Europe used to be a family business), but the troops were mostly from conquered peoples. I would assume that the field army was mostly Turkic, as Turkic peoples were more numerous than Mongolic peoples and their societies and styles of warfare were similar.
      - mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
        also they splintered into multiple khanates early on with the great khans only having some respect rather than the ability to stop the infighting.
  - oldsecondhand 4y ago
    The Europeans didn't topple any empire in the Americas. They collapsed by themselves due to the sickness brought over by the Europeans before they made contact. It would have been logistically impossible to topple an empire overseas.
KoftaBob 4y ago
> If we go by barbarity the mongol empire, the timurids, and the japanese empire (talking the one from ww2) are all good contenders. It's interesting that 2/3 are central asian steppe empires/civilizations. What is it with that area and producing psychopathic tribes, not to mention being the origin point of several plagues.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Adding to the list of steppe empires, not an Asian one though, the Commanche Indians are way up there in terms of barbarism as well. Not just against the encroaching westerners, but other tribes as well. They really did not mess around with the sadistic torture of their war prisoners. Proper nightmare fuel.
- krapp 4y ago
  >It's interesting that 2/3 are central asian steppe empires/civilizations. Google tells me the Timurids were Mongol descendents of Genghis Khan, so not really. 100% of that relevant data set is one extended family. >What is it with that area and producing psychopathic tribes, not to mention being the origin point of several plagues. The Mongols were little more "psychopathic" than many societies at the time, only distinctive in terms of their relative success, not their cruelty. Alexander the Great tortured and slaughtered people by the thousands, and Westerners don't consider him a barbarian or psychopath so much as a tactical genius and founder of the civilized world.
- bakuninsbart 4y ago
  There might be some form of selection bias by the OP? Neither the colonization of the Americas by various European "tribes", nor the brutal colonial empires in Africa in the 19th century seem to make the cut, and for some reason not even Nazi Germany is listed. When it comes to the number of genocides, it is probably difficult to beat out the British, but they were always quite jolly about it, so I guess it wasn't that bad.
redsid 4y ago
In 21st century, is it the US on the lead?
- FredPret 4y ago
  You've got to be kidding
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  - NotSammyHagar 4y ago
    We did kill a million in Iraq and we must have done something similar in Afghanistan. Iraq was of course started based on lies.
    - mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
      no but you don't understand "muh freedomz" erases the destabalization of the middle east and large swaths of africa despite us doing it for zero reason. it also erases our allies killing and starving the yemenis and the starvation in afghanistan post-war we caused by freezing all their funds. clearly loosely defined ideals erase human suffering.
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krapp 4y ago
>Imperial japan is what I consider the worst by barbarity. On the other hand, the United States committed genocide against an entire continent, was the only nation to drop atomic bombs in warfare (and did so against civilians) continued Nazi and Japanese human experimentation and bioweapons research going under MKULTRA and other secret programs (as well as recruited Nazi scientists for their space program,) raped, tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Vietnam and Korea (and used Agent Orange), and went on a 20 year temper tantrum of violence and war crimes across Iraq for no discernable reason other than Afghanistan not being enough to satisfy their post 9/11 bloodlust. Not to excuse Imperial Japan or the Nazis or anyone else but ranking evil against evil is always a matter of perspective, and it's often less about which evil is greater than which evils you're willing to excuse and which not. A similar list of sins could be made about the Soviet Union, China, Britain, or just about any nation or empire in history. Humans are bastards everywhere.

wizwit999 4y ago

I mean Mongols depopulated entire large cities. E.g. the entire population of Merv, which was one of the world's largest cities at the time, was killed.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
Or Baghdad which maybe was the largest city in the world at the time it was sacked.
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mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
yeah but I was talking about brutality vs numbers. the commies killed far more than anyone by numbers and in barbaric ways, but their brutality was beaten by those who killed less in more gruesome ways. the mongols excelled at both but I argued by brutality imperial japan was a bit worse.

samatman 4y ago

Raw death toll and percentage of total world population slaughtered seem like the two most objective measures. The Horde win the dubious blue ribbon for the latter.

jltsiren 4y ago
Mongol conquests were roughly comparable to the European conquest of the Americas. Both toppled great empires and may have killed ~10% of world population in a few generations. And both were more noteworthy due to their large-scale success than their brutality. While both waves of conquest were brutal even by contemporary standards, they were not extraordinary brutal. Being an absolute monster is a part of the job description of a conqueror.
- deleted 4y ago
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- throwawaygal7 4y ago
  I think the comparison works in terms of percentages, but falls apart because the Europeans were not unified. Something like 3 or four great powers colonized America vs a single ethnic group for the Mongols (even if they did fight with each other)
  - jltsiren 4y ago
    The Mongol Empire was not a single ethnic group. The top leaders were ethnic Mongols (much in the same way as Europe used to be a family business), but the troops were mostly from conquered peoples. I would assume that the field army was mostly Turkic, as Turkic peoples were more numerous than Mongolic peoples and their societies and styles of warfare were similar.
    - mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
      also they splintered into multiple khanates early on with the great khans only having some respect rather than the ability to stop the infighting.
- oldsecondhand 4y ago
  The Europeans didn't topple any empire in the Americas. They collapsed by themselves due to the sickness brought over by the Europeans before they made contact. It would have been logistically impossible to topple an empire overseas.

KoftaBob 4y ago

> If we go by barbarity the mongol empire, the timurids, and the japanese empire (talking the one from ww2) are all good contenders. It's interesting that 2/3 are central asian steppe empires/civilizations. What is it with that area and producing psychopathic tribes, not to mention being the origin point of several plagues.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
Adding to the list of steppe empires, not an Asian one though, the Commanche Indians are way up there in terms of barbarism as well. Not just against the encroaching westerners, but other tribes as well. They really did not mess around with the sadistic torture of their war prisoners. Proper nightmare fuel.
krapp 4y ago
>It's interesting that 2/3 are central asian steppe empires/civilizations. Google tells me the Timurids were Mongol descendents of Genghis Khan, so not really. 100% of that relevant data set is one extended family. >What is it with that area and producing psychopathic tribes, not to mention being the origin point of several plagues. The Mongols were little more "psychopathic" than many societies at the time, only distinctive in terms of their relative success, not their cruelty. Alexander the Great tortured and slaughtered people by the thousands, and Westerners don't consider him a barbarian or psychopath so much as a tactical genius and founder of the civilized world.
bakuninsbart 4y ago
There might be some form of selection bias by the OP? Neither the colonization of the Americas by various European "tribes", nor the brutal colonial empires in Africa in the 19th century seem to make the cut, and for some reason not even Nazi Germany is listed. When it comes to the number of genocides, it is probably difficult to beat out the British, but they were always quite jolly about it, so I guess it wasn't that bad.

redsid 4y ago

In 21st century, is it the US on the lead?

FredPret 4y ago
You've got to be kidding
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- NotSammyHagar 4y ago
  We did kill a million in Iraq and we must have done something similar in Afghanistan. Iraq was of course started based on lies.
  - mrcheesebreeze 4y ago
    no but you don't understand "muh freedomz" erases the destabalization of the middle east and large swaths of africa despite us doing it for zero reason. it also erases our allies killing and starving the yemenis and the starvation in afghanistan post-war we caused by freezing all their funds. clearly loosely defined ideals erase human suffering.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

krapp 4y ago

>Imperial japan is what I consider the worst by barbarity. On the other hand, the United States committed genocide against an entire continent, was the only nation to drop atomic bombs in warfare (and did so against civilians) continued Nazi and Japanese human experimentation and bioweapons research going under MKULTRA and other secret programs (as well as recruited Nazi scientists for their space program,) raped, tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Vietnam and Korea (and used Agent Orange), and went on a 20 year temper tantrum of violence and war crimes across Iraq for no discernable reason other than Afghanistan not being enough to satisfy their post 9/11 bloodlust. Not to excuse Imperial Japan or the Nazis or anyone else but ranking evil against evil is always a matter of perspective, and it's often less about which evil is greater than which evils you're willing to excuse and which not. A similar list of sins could be made about the Soviet Union, China, Britain, or just about any nation or empire in history. Humans are bastards everywhere.