is 2016 the worst year in human history?

ie, it's over

lol weed

jameson, actually

That was me second guess ;-)

2016 is the year five years and purple rain officially became the reality we're living in

Not sure about that, Bowie's prediction of the start date of World War 3 was off by ~38 years at least:
Aladdin Sane (1913-1928-197?)

You say you want a leader
But you can't seem to make up your mind
I think you better close it
And let me guide you to the purple rain

seemed pretty relevant, in the "fuck this human ezperiment, let's call the whole thing off" sort of way

so true!

haha i was about to put 'but no one is actually saying this?' then i googled it & found i was v v wrong

well tbf google hits from 1954 are somewhat rare

personally the destruction of the library at Alexandria has always felt like an enormous tragedy/crime tho, only mitigated by the possibility that what was lost was exaggerated

yeah. things get lost, broken and burned all the time, and when we do find past knowledge or preserve it, we either turn it to our own ends or good bits of it end up preserving ignorance of past as received wisdom (hello galen).

was just reading about drunk soldiers shooting at the ankles of passers by in a cellar bar in 17th Germany, and people being forced to drink boiling shit as torture in 30 Years War, but it's hard not choose Holocaust.

Progressivists don't always seem to have the capacity to understand that things can become progressively bad. The 20th Century administrative and infrastructure frameworks helped expediate the programmatic slaughter of peoples.

On this "progressivist" basis however (and with all our new and wonderful globalising weapons and structures) the world as it is very much has the capacity to deliver the worst year ever very soon.

Rooting for 2017. I more see 2016 as the equivalent of the drag racing start line smoke, nitro and burning rubber, before the actual fun starts.

Nothing can touch the GLF for the sheer rapid death toll but the Cultural Revolution probably wasn't far off - albeit over a longer timescale of horror.

List could've done with the inclusion of the 2004 tsunami, that wiped out 230.000 people, for good measure. But it wouldn't be right if this poll threw up a winner that wasn't caused by humans themselves tbf. Hard to not vote for the holocaust indeed.

voted an lushan rebellion (reports of 36 million dead are not considered reliable due to the COMPLETE COLLAPSE OF SOCIETY in the rebellion's wake), but i would add:

1755: lisbon earthquake
1945: hiroshima, nagasaki
1975: start of cambodian genocide

i would also argue the negative perception of 2016 comes from the perception that absolutely _nothing good has happened_ this year. so 1943 is a terrible, terrible year in human history, but if you're russian you can point to the soviet victory at stalingrad as a source of hope and comfort. in 2016, by contrast, you have democracy completely and decisively crushed as a global political force by ethnocentric fascism, but, uh... the cubs win the world series?

I'd err more to the side of the argument that the 36m figure is probably erroneous and caused by the breakdown of the census system. But if if it was correct it would be staggering by 8th century standards, wouldn't it be approx the third of the world or something?

Read a book by Rui Tavares recently that suggested the Lisbon earthquake provoked a sea change in Portugal (and consequently Europe at large) away from viewing natural disasters as the wrath of God against sinners and towards urban planning/prevention strategies.

Voting on Monday, after Austria’s presidential election and Italy’s constitutional referendum.

very tempted to vote 1200 BC for the bronze age collapse but went with spanish conquest of americas/smallpox. not just death but close to a total civilizational extinction, enormous impact on world history. mongol conquests, black death, 1917, 1943 all heavy on doom but there's been more of a sense of recovery.

1864 is a bit of a dark horse, as it also has the end of the American Civil War, and the Paraguayan War didn't really get devastating until later. But it's the year where North America, South America, Europe (Second Dano/Prussian War) and China (Taiping Rebellion) are tearing themselves apart. Wordwide violence for some weird reason.

Personally speaking It's been the worst year of my life, hands down, so yeah 2016

no ilx comps this year, so deffo 2016

2003 - sufjan stevens begins his 50 states project

44 BC was great cos it finally gave stabbing victims a clever dying repartee

Pretty much the beginning of the end in 1440. All downhill from then.

Voted 30 Years War, mostly to remind myself to finish reading that book.

no ilx comps this year, so deffo 2016

― ^ 諷刺 (ken c), Saturday, December 3, 2016 1:25 PM (fifty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

had the idea of an ilx comp of 'the worst songs we can think of'

"Sack" lol

Back, Sack, and Crack of Rome.

thinking of Khia now for some reason

stunning lack of non-western history here - write in vote for 210 BC, the burying of the scholars

upon further reflection i am changing my vote to 200,000 B.C., when homo sapiens sapiens evolved from archaic humans

it's sad, ppl in 1346 never even got to hear Bowie and Prince

ppl rly bad at reading thread title questions

um I factored in human history

it's sad, ppl in 1346 never even got to hear Bowie and Prince

― lettered and hapful (symsymsym), Saturday, December 3, 2016 10:06 AM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is so great. we are blessed to have been alive during the reign of Bowie and Prince.

and also, not the plague.

the death count for plagues since 1346 has to be somewhere in the hundreds of millions

http://dailypicksandflicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/how-very-interesting-come-closer-and-tell-me-more-tiger.jpg

1945: hiroshima, nagasaki

this was on the original list but it got deleted and when i reconstituted it i forgot to add it

stunning lack of non-western history here - write in vote for 210 BC, the burying of the scholars

stunning lack? i made sure to include a lot of non-western history.

xxp Up to 500 million from small pox in the 20th century alone.

i did not like this year very much! but i'm lucky i had a great thanksgiving

voted the midnight of the century

2009 - GAPDY

a scholarly friend told me at the British Museum last week that the Alexandria Library thing is mythical/exaggerated

i'm sure it's exaggerated, it's just the perfect fairy tale of regret for bibliophiles and people who hate Christianity

it wouldn't be right if this poll threw up a winner that wasn't caused by humans themselves tbf.

― Le Bateau Ivre

Yeah, I kind of feel like my opinion of "the worst year in human history" falls more toward the revelation of how awful humans are/can be, rather than natural disasters befalling them.

would consider adding 1941 as well for Operation Barbarossa. you could honestly make a case for every year of WW2.

just remembered that as well as some 80s pop stars dying 2016 was the year the Premier League was stolen by a gang of mercenary drug abusers who cheated their way past the noble corinthians who normally contest the title so maybe throw that in the scales

kin right mate

without being too callous about it's humungous death toll, the Taiping Rebellion sounds fucking epic and the Hong Xiuquan backstory is very compelling. Deffo need a good book on this one.

The Crusades were fucking stupid and vile and went on for yonks too and, er, remain current.

After considering the Black Death plumped for 1943.

OK

can we move on now

Chicxulub impact fans hardest hit

lol at results
Maybe if more Star Wars cast members had killed themselves in sympathy

at least no one voted for Roman Sack and Siege of Juersalem

Good thing no beloved musicians are going to die now that 2016 is over.

This rookie general (Zeng Guoquan) for the Qing dynasty captures 8000 Taiping soldiers in an unlikely rout. His battalion commander helpfully explains that they have to kill them all now. Zeng then reluctantly subordinates the task to him and goes off to hide in his tent. The Commander sets up a killing station where people get beheaded in batches of 10 at a time "finishing by the light of lanterns just after the sun went down that night"

His brother (Zeng Guofan) wrote several letters to Guoquan over the following days - first more sanguine, suggesting his brother find a way to bury the thousands of corpses or else pile them onto old boats and send them down the river so the stink wouldn't bring disease into his camp. But as he realized that the slaughter was weighing heavily on Gouquan's conscience, his letters became more reassuring by telling him if Confucius were alive, he too would say it was right to exterminate the rebels.

This General Beheaded 8000 Captive Soldiers...And That's Okay!

Probably for the "why am I such a dick" thread, but have felt a rage I don't quite understand every time I see facebook / twitter posts along the lines of "quit it with the fuck 2016 meme - there's no magical meaning to a year" or "whew, glad it's 2017 now and all of your heroes are safe" - I don't think these ideas / sentiments are wrong, exactly, it just seems like such a patronising attitude, like they think everyone else is an irrational idiot for indulging in some sort of semi-magical thinking when (a) everyone does and (b) the world isn't always a worse place for it. But I should get over it I guess.

yep

surprised there was no option for "every year is worse than the previous year"

ban years

ban years

mods?

they would but even the worst one only got 16 fps

read about the Great Leap Forward the other day. 55 million dead, wow that 20th century was evil

not if those 55 million were stood in the way of a beautiful future

I'm dying to get hold of that new Tan Hecheng Cultural Revolution book, but £18.20 for an epub download is more than I'll pay.

2017 thus far featuring less celebrity death but more dystopia

Alan Colmes rip
Fuck you 2017

no

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive

That’s a woke kid’s dream come true

should i run this again with 2020

definitely

Smallpox very likely killed more than 50% of the population of the western hemisphere within a few decades of its arrival. The black death killed nearly half of Europe's population. As bad as this year is shaping up for those of us living through it, covid-19 isn't even close to the head of that class.

We're still in April!

rank the past five years in order of terribleness

i'll start

5. 2019 - came out
4. 2017 - moved, got new job, bought house
3. 2020 - ehhhh.
2. 2018 - severe depression (recurrent), treated with tms but overall unpleasant
1. 2016 - dad died, lost job, also it was 2016

or, like, just go on speculating what was really worse, the black death or the an lushan rebellion. not sure i have much of a horse in that race.

Smallpox very likely killed more than 50% of the population of the western hemisphere within a few decades of its arrival. The black death killed nearly half of Europe's population. As bad as this year is shaping up for those of us living through it, covid-19 isn't even close to the head of that class.

Governments around the world in those named single years didn’t respond to massive climate crisis events by relaxing or waiving checks on fossil fuel extraction.