This is intentionally open ended, use your own definition of best/worst, and explain it.
Im going to take a weird tack with this.
Bill fucking Cosby. Think of all he did for portraying a successful black man on TV in an age where that wasnt done, how he put a black family into millions of white homes and did a not insignificant amount of work in advancing the way black people were percieved in the mid 80s and early 90s.
Then we found out about the rapes.
Which is why he is a good example of a “best worst” person.
Mr. Roger’s has to be up there for best. Just a wholesome person who wanted to improve the world.
Best person: I’d go with an artist or scientist over any world leader so I guess Leonardo Da Vinci. (edit: I want to add Ibn al-Haytham for basically being the father of the scientific method).
Worst person: I think I’m going to go with King Leopold II of Belgium. Shout out to Hitler and Pol Pot for being 2 obvious answers. Ivan the Terrible: I see you being terrible. Vlad Dracula: you did plenty impaling. Those people were all more evil as individuals, Pol Pot probably being the most sick inside.
But King Leopold II was (arguably) responsible for more human suffering. And also Gorilla suffering. Chimps and bonobos too. His legacy has been bad for damn near the entire living family Hominidae and that, to me, puts him over the top in a crowded field. And his toxic legacy in Central Africa still causes issues to this day. (He wasn’t as bad to Belgians as he was to Africans but come on: Belgium is a failed state too. They just have such amazing chocolate and beer that no one gets worked up about it.)
I want to get out of that mould that people always answer here with (Roger’s, painting man, hitler). So my answers are
- best: Mandela. What a hero to so many and a soul that seemed to just exude kindness. I wish his work would’ve spread deep in South Africa, but what he accomplished was still remarkable
- worst: pol pot. Probably not as widely cited of a dictator but this man was genuine fucking evil. A very very close second worst imo are the people that worked in Unit 731 reading about that unit can give you nightmares.
Marcus Licinius Crassus, Roman Republic 53 BC.
This man started by monopolizing the Fire Department. When fires would start, he would personally go to nearby houses and buildings with his firefighters. He would begin negotiations: Crassus will ONLY save the building if you sell the building to Crassus immediately. Tick-tock, the price gets cheaper every minute that fire is going.
As such: Roman buildings would either burn to the ground (where he’d buy up the land cause he’s so rich anyway), or he’d buy the building for cheap. Crassus then purchased up a ton of slaves who would fix up these buildings, as well as his slave-firefighters, and his slave managers of real-estate. Money buys more real estate, buying more slave-firefighters, buying more portions of Rome, making Crassus likely the richest person in literally all of history.
In fact, Crassus’s personal wealth was roughly one-year’s worth of GDP of the entire Roman Empire.
Naturally, Crassus would enter politics with this immense amount of wealth. It is said that Crassus’s political power rivaled that of Ceasar himelf, despite being “just” a businessman… likely due to the incredible amounts of wealth he amassed.
I dunno, some people might give Brutus evil guy for betraying his close friend Ceasar. Or various serial killers throughout history who had disturbing ways of killing people. Or maybe conquerors like Ghenghis Khan who likely killed the most people ever. (Well… Hitler and Stalin probably beat Ghenghis Khan…) But somehow, none of them are more evil and loathsome than Crassus in my eyes.
Hitler’s killings ultimately are the kind of genocidal killings that are somehow a dime-a-dozen throughout history (Okay, Hitler’s numbers are bigger, but hardly unique). Crassus however? This guy is uniquely evil in that he levied this upon his own countrymen and his own damn neighbors. Its one thing to kill a demonized group (I mean, wrong and genocidal, but its hardly uncommon on a historical basis). But doing this to your own damn neighbors is… uggghhhh.
I’m reducing the scope to people who’ve affected my life and people around me.
My answer for the worst person is the former president of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rakapaksa. Dude perverted the constitution, filled the parliament with family members, widespread corruption, gutted public transport projects. Ultimately led Sri Lanka to economic ruin that we still struggle to get out of. Fuck him! I’ll rejoice the day he dies which I hope will be very soon.
Best and worst could go to Fritz Haber. You may not have heard of him unless you’re into agriculture, but he is a Prussian Chemist, born in 1868. He worked with Carl Bosch and created the Haber-Bosch process. This process allows you to synthesize ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen. Large amounts of fertilizer can be made from this quickly. He received the Nobel Prize for this in 1918. It is what allows us, even today, to mass grow crops. His work, without hyperbole, feeds billions today.
However, his background in chemistry meant that in 1914, he was asked by his country to contribute to the war effort. After all, that’s what one does in war right? He devised heavier-than-air chlorine gas that would go on to be used to kill millions. He resigned from his field in 1939, but the nazis took his research and used it to form Zyklon B - the chemical used in gas chambers on Jews.
He is one of the people whom we ask “does their good outweigh the bad?”
It’s weird to think how someone had to go out of their way to discover something like chlorine gas, considering nowadays most of us have the ingredients to create it sitting in our cupboards.
Chlorine gas is one thing but you have to mix it with something else to get it to bouyant enough to be dispersable over large areas
Ah
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That Vlad Dracula guy was kind of a jerk I hear
He’s actually considered a hero of the region historically.
Learned that literally right after posting this reading his Wikipedia article
He actually did a ton of good. He impaled the “bad” guys (Ottomans)
Vlad Dracula started by impaling all the local corrupt politicians IIRC.
I mean, he basically impaled anybody who had the slightest flaw. But the locals / Romanians consider almost all of his killings / impalements to be justice. Like, imagine if Batman went around killing people instead of pulling his punches, that’s how the Romanians see Vlad Dracula. Or really, imagine if “The Punisher” were a real life person.
Its… not who I’d consider heroic. But Vlad Dracula wouldn’t be the “best” or “worst” person on any list of mine. He’s interesting, but not especially extreme on the good or evil axis.
You got any source for him impaling non-ottomans? He specifically chose impaling as it would leave their bodies unburied to deny them access to heaven. There would be no point to doing it to his fellow christians, they get into heaven anyway the fear tactic wouldnt work.
Muslim men at several points refused to fight him for fear of being denied heaven.
Easter Massacre.
Vlad invited all the Wallachia boyars over for Easter. During some point of the celebrations, Vlad got up out of his seat, blamed the Boyars for murdering his father, and then took them outside to get them all impaled. Then again, it was likely that the Boyars were about to mutiny vs Vlad and try to depose of him, so who knows what the truth was?
In any case, after impaling all of those Boyars… Vlad returned and the Easter celebrations continued. Didn’t even break a sweat.
There would be no point to doing it to his fellow christians, they get into heaven anyway the fear tactic wouldnt work.
There’s plenty of Christians Vlad decided to impale. He pretty much impaled everybody who he had a problem with. Easter Massacre to start (none of those nobles would have come over unless they were Christian). But it is said that Vlad left a golden cup in the center of his city. If anyone stole it, he hunted them down, impaled them, and then returned the cup to the center of the fountain. To remind people that he’s controlling and protecting the city.
Wikipedia lists the following story, with regards to at least one Christian being impaled:
Meistersinger Michael Beheim wrote a lengthy poem about Vlad’s deeds, allegedly based on his conversation with a Catholic monk who had managed to escape from Vlad’s prison.[149] The poem, called Von ainem wutrich der heis Trakle waida von der Walachei (“Story of a Despot Called Dracula, Voievod of Wallachia”), was performed at the court of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor in Wiener Neustadt during the winter of 1463.[149][150] According to one of Beheim’s stories, Vlad had two monks impaled to assist them to go to heaven, also ordering the impalement of their donkey because it began braying after its masters’ death.[149] Beheim also accused Vlad of duplicity, stating that Vlad had promised support to both Matthias Corvinus and Mehmed II but did not keep the promise.[149]
There would be no point to doing it to his fellow christians, they get into heaven anyway the fear tactic wouldnt work.
Ummmmmmm. You know that Vlad the Impaler used blunt sticks, right?
A lot of the impaled were alive for a few days while they hung outside of his cities. Squirming and wailing, dying a slow tortuous death. IIRC: Vlad was of the opinion that if he killed an honest man, they’d go to heaven anyway so no biggie.
The main problem though with Vlad Dracula is that the bounds of his brutality waver between fact and fiction. Much of what we know was from legends or folklore, as opposed to history. But there’s plenty of stories of Vlad Dracula killing (and impaling) Christians. The German stories (or anyone to the West) got extremely brutal writings about Vlad. While the more Eastern writings were … well still brutal and no doubts about the widespread impalments… but they have a sense of justice involved.
Worst person? Bill. He fucking knows why.
Best person? That really nice lady from that one bus ride. She may remember why.
