[ExI] Worst ever

[Dylan Distasio]

I agree very much with what you wrote, particularly in the case of the
great Khan.   However, your opinion of him was different if you were
unlucky enough to be in Baghdad when he got there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 3:10 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Quoting Bill Wallace:
>
> > It is my earnest hope that Stalin, Hitler, and Mao have set records for
> > killing people that will last forever.   Surely among the worst people
> who
> > have ever lived.
>
> Those guys might have been bad by 20th century standards, but none of
> them set any records. In fact the record is still held by Ghenghis
> Khan who killed over 40 million people. That is more than Stalin,
> Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot combined. Furthermore there were fewer people
> in the world back during the Mongolian conquest so Ghenghis Khan has
> been credited with killing fully 5% of the world population at the time.
>
> According to scientists, Ghenghis Khan killed enough people to stop
> deforestation and allow trees to regrow thus reducing carbon dioxide
> levels and temporarily reversing global warming.
>
> https://www.livescience.com/11739-wars-plagues-carbon-climate.html
>
> Ghenghis Khan also united pretty much all of Asia with part of Europe
> in the largest land empire of all time, making the Silk Road safe for
> merchants to travel and thereby promoting trade between east and west.
> He did lots of other surprisingly good things things too like
> abolishing slavery and torture throughout his empire.
>
>
> https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/68894/11-cultural-breakthroughs-genghis-khan-achieved-during-his-reign
>
> So perhaps real people are a little more complex than the simple moral
> absolutism of good and evil allows. In fact, whenever someone is
> called "evil" these days, it is almost always politically-motivated
> hyperbole.
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
>
>
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