RE: What is the single darkest moment in human history?

Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)

The scale and the systematic insane cruelty of Holocaust makes it the darkest moment in humanity.

Hiroshima

Nagasaki

Dresden

Pol Pot's murderous regime

Hutus and Tutsis working to exterminate each other

Hitler's Holocaust

extermination of the Beothuk

Breivik in Norway

Spanish Inquisition

When Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto were published: seriously. Marx believed that the proletariat would naturally overthrow the capitalists as a course of history. That translated into anything but spontaneous revolutions, led by people like Mao and Stalin who thought that they had the master plan to solve social inequality scientifically- namely by removing what they viewed as the obstacles. Unfortunately, that wasn't only the Czar and his family, and as a result, hundreds of millions of people have been killed by Communists in the last century. Communism has killed more people in our "modern age" than were ever killed in the crusades, it is a fact.

a civilized people turned evil wrote:

The scale and the systematic insane cruelty of Holocaust makes it the darkest moment in humanity.

that's the easy answer, but I don't think it is true. the holocaust was relatively small and came in the midst of ww2, which was far worse. It also ignores all the asians and soviets killed in much larger numbers.

You're saying the nature of it was particularly nasty b/c of its efficiency and systematic nature. good points, but the starvations in china and Ukraine/russia really were worse.

Babylonian Captivity

The start of agriculture. Every evil since that moment follows as night follows day.

The Holocaust pails in comparison to the atom bomb or the rise of Islam.

12 midnight sharp in a forest with heavy overcast conditions and a new moon.

The fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire.

Comrade Obama wrote:

When Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto were published: seriously. Marx believed that the proletariat would naturally overthrow the capitalists as a course of history. That translated into anything but spontaneous revolutions, led by people like Mao and Stalin who thought that they had the master plan to solve social inequality scientifically- namely by removing what they viewed as the obstacles. Unfortunately, that wasn't only the Czar and his family, and as a result, hundreds of millions of people have been killed by Communists in the last century. Communism has killed more people in our "modern age" than were ever killed in the crusades, it is a fact.

This. Although people get mad at Reagan, I would argue that it is Communists who really brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Castro almost single-handedly ended the world, but for some reason young people wear "Fide" shirts and hats around. I don't get it.

Soviet Russia was far worse than the what happened in Germany.

a_goucher wrote:

First detonation of a nuclear bomb

That remains to be seen. Looking at the only 2 actual uses of of nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the actual casualties and physical consequences were less than many other events in human history. Of course it may only have been the precursor of some nuclear holocaust that will occur in the future, but that still remains to be seen.

The dog wrote:

Soviet Russia was far worse than the what happened in Germany.

"Far worse"? Maybe just as bad.

Military and civilian casualties in the USSR and Germany are highly disputed, but all well into the millions. Recent estimates are 14 million non-combatants of which Germany killed 2/3. Then you have the whole question of combatant deaths, killing/starving POWs, and/or being responsible for commencing an aggressive war.

Is it "worse" to murder 6 million Jews (Hitler)? To starve 3 million POWs (Hitler)? To starve 4 million Ukrainians (Stalin)? To starve 4 million Soviets as part of the Hunger Plan (Hitler)? To kill 1-2 million in the Gulags (Stalin)? Etc., etc.

When the numbers get that big, it's hard to say more than it was all horrible, and just adding up estimates of deaths is not an adequate way of comparing the horror.

Hasn't happened yet...

Define "moment". The Black Death was pretty bad by any account. It wiped out nearly half of Europe's population and perhaps 20% of the world population (although this wasn't the first time *that* happened. See The Plague of Justinian for another devastating incident).

Either that or WWII. Given the Nazi's early successes, many people in Europe wondered if this was the end.

The Corporatized African Slave trade. No question.

It was irrefutably evil, everyone knew it was evil, and it was allowed to persisted for hundreds of years.

Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable.

i just shut my eyes and it was very dark

Whoever the first person to come to Africa and throw people on boats to be slaves has to rank at the very top. To view your fellow man as inferior enough to believe you have the right to force them to work for no pay and take them from their homes ranks up there as the darkest moment in human history.