Thought Exercise: Who is the worst person in the world alive today?

[gunn]

I saw this one on reddit but I think it is worthy of discussion that's longer than a few one liners.
Here's my thinking:
1) The worst person alive (WPA) cannot just be the prick who cut you off this morning or the person who ratted you out at school/work/whatever. The WPA must affect a LOT of people to really be the works in the world.

There are plenty of terrible, terrible people who cause outsized problems because of their wealth, power, and influence.
Where things get complicated is if this person, by their ongoing actions, are causing problems on a global scale.

2) Q: Does any terrible person they lose out on becoming the WPA because of any goodwill/good deeds they generate?
- I think the true WPA must cause global issues at a far worse scale than they cause good.

3) Finally, is the WPA really the WPA if upon their death/removal, they are easily replaced? In that situation, its the organization they are apart of that is the issue vs the person causing the issue themselves.
- Iran causes a lot of issues for a lot of people worldwide (not just in Iran) but their supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, is just one cog in the machine. Ditto with MBS in Saudi Arabia or even Xi Jinping of the PRC.

My vote: Putin.
- Unlike Kim Jong Un who does terrible things to his people, Putin's actions affect not only their immediate neighbors but also. We are spending extra money on arms because of him.
- He hasn't made his own people's lives better (economically, stndard of living, life expectency) so you can't say he benefited one group to offet the issues caused for the other.
- He won't be simply replaced so my #3 disqualifier doesn't necessarily apply.

I tried to think of any American who has caused significant issues globally but at least today, the Koch brothers and Trump remain a destabilizing force within our borders (so affecting 300M out of the 7B worldwide).

 

[Derphound01]

I would say George Soros even though it seems his little clone/son Alexander is poised to continue George's misdeeds once he's gone.

That's a whole different conspiracy. Nobody was sleeping with George Soros' old self 38 years ago. If cloning is indeed real, Alexander Soros is proof of it.

Klaus Schwab would be my runner up, but he's just a cog.

 

[gunn]

I would say George Soros even though it seems his little clone/son Alexander is poised to continue George's misdeeds once he's gone.

That's a whole different conspiracy. Nobody was sleeping with George Soros' old self 38 years ago. If cloning is indeed real, Alexander Soros is proof of it.

Klaus Schwab would be my runner up, but he's just a cog.

Alight, I'll bite.
What has Soros actually done that you object to? I'm curious why this person, without any army and certainly without nukes, has done more to threaten the world than say Putin or even Rocketboy Kim.
-g

Also:
A quick search shows Soros has been married 3 times and has 5 children.
- He was married to his first wife, Annaliese Witschak, who was also german from 1960-83 and she gave birth to 3 out of 5 of his kids. She wasn't Jewish but got along with his family. Apparently the divorce was likely b/c of his repeated infidelities
- The kid you dont like, Alexander Soros, is 38 yrs old and the daughter of George Soro's 2nd wife, Susan Weber. They were married in 1983 so I'm going to go on a limb and say she probably had something to do with the breakup of the first marriage.
- As far as being a clone, the first human clone was born in 2002. Alexander was born in 1986. While I might be talked into the idea that cloning could have been self funded by a billionaire to create a treatment a few years earlier, thinking someone could have developed the technology 17+ years earlier and never put it to use again until 2002 is simply madness. Another billionare would have come along and made an offer that the scientists couldn't refuse. Most likely, he did it the old fashioned way.

After all, money and talent are an incredible aphrodisiac.

You should put your tinfoil hat down, derphound. Shouldn't you be wearing some KC or 49ers shwag today?

 

[XR7-4.6]

I always mix up Soros and the Koch brothers in the left/right boogeymen behind the curtains conspiracies

My vote died in November, so I’d have to ruminate on who’s currently the worst

 

[dDUBb]

Shouldn't you be wearing some KC or 49ers shwag today?

That would be me .. in the 49ers schwag.

 

[MadMikeyL]

Putin is no different than countless other dictators over the years. He is obviously a bad guy, but this notion that he is somehow worse than all the other tyrant world leaders today is clearly just propaganda, and the citizens of Russia are doing much better on the whole than many other nations. Kim Jong Un is most definitely more evil. Luckily his ability to cause harm is pretty well restricted to North Korea, but the extent to which he has oppressed, impoverished, and murdered the citizens of North Korea is beyond what any of us could possibly imagine! I would undoubtedly put Kim Jong Un on the short list of most evil people of all time, let alone alive today, so on pure evil, he gets my vote. However if the standard is destruction effected, I’ll go for Klaus Schwab. The financial ruin that the World Economic Forum has unleashed on the global south is astounding.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Wow, what a loaded question with so many possible answers for so many reasons. The operative word being "alive". Yeah, there's been many despots over history but we're discussing the current generation of degenerates.

I could write a book on the topic (as I'm prone to do when digging into these questions).

I'll stick with most of the current names already mentioned for the reasons already supplied. Putin, Kim and MBS at the top of the list. To the list I'll add Bashar al-Assad of Syria who is also a tyrant responsible for millions of deaths. Duterte of the Philippines also ranks high.

To the statement that "We are spending extra money on arms because of him [Putin]." First, I have to say it was a real eye opener to NATO of our unpreparedness to wage war by the fact that munition production had been allowed to fall to such low levels. Fortunately as a result of the Ukraine war those issues are being addressed now. Second, any support that we can provide to Ukraine to fight Russia [Putin] is money and resources well spent. Proxy wars are a great way to project our military resources and learn how well they do or do not work without putting American lives at risk. The lessons learned in Ukraine are invaluable. I regret that the Ukrainian and the Russian people are suffering to satiate Putin's desires.

As to Soros, there's a great deal of hate there that, other than dropping his name, no one can actually back up with any meaningful, substantiated reasons why they dislike him or why he's such a threat. Most of the hate is just because they've been told to hate on him or blame him for problems by talking heads and the social media conspiracy theory mill. I'd honestly like to hear a logical, verifiable explanation of why he's such a threat.

 

[Grog6]

I've asked that question for years, and never heard a coherent reason. He's a holocaust survivor,for one; it blew my mind to hear him described as a nazi, lol.

 

[Grog6]

So, I hear Taylor swift is at the head of a conspiracy to elect Joe Biden, So he will make listening to her music mandatory,along with self driving cars, and guns, gas stoves, and dogs will be Totally banned! I heard it from nikki minajes brothers cousin, so you know it's true!

 

[gunn]

Joe Biden is simultaneously an elderly, feeble minded man and also a criminal mastermind leveraging pop stars to secure 4 more years of power and enrichen himself. Neither of these guys should be running for President based on age alone but this variant of Schrodinger's President (he is somehow both alive and dead) makes me laugh.

As far as why Soros is some jewish supervillian, yeah, I'd like to know. Now, I don't think this guy is a 'good guy', as I believe billionares shouldn't be allowed to exist, but saying he's as bad as Koch is pure whattaboutism. I don't think they are balanced.

Interesting podcast about Charles Koch inc transcript - https://omny.fm/shows/behind-the-bastards/part-one-charles-koch-the-luke-skywalker-of-rich-p
- Patriach Fred Koch invented the way to refine crude into gasoline - sued big oil and won seed capital.
- He then took the tech to the Soviets in 1932 and two years later, kickstarted the oil refining industry for the Germans (those Germans).
- After that, he became a founding member of the John Birch Society who were anti-communist, anti sex-ed in school, and anti flouride in water. Not exactly a "mainstream" conservative bunch of rich which guys.

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/17/1176662608/a-historian-details-how-a-secretive-extremist-group-radicalized-the-american-rig

Charles takes up the throne and funds all sorts of shit.
While some things I can honestly say are good (museums inc the Smithsonian's NH museum and the NY Met) and pushing to end the war on drugs and for criminal justice reform including mandatory minimum sentences (they don't work)

Charles Koch | The Record

The best criminal justice reporting tagged with "Charles Koch," curated by The Marshall Project.

www.themarshallproject.org

He's also taken the family money to oppose climate change legislation, anti workers rights, and anti immigration.

Some Unsettling Facts About the Koch Brothers - HeadCount

One blogger's opinion on just who are the Koch brothers are: What do they do? What is their political influence in Washington? Why are they all of a sudden so important? Why should you care?

www.headcount.org

Perhaps their biggest outsized contribution was making it possible (by funding the legislation to get the right justices in place to make the Citizens United ruling possible).
Q: Can any of you non-billionares reasonably defend the right for rich people to fund their own dark money pools to influence politics because Corporations are people but without campaign contribution limits?

Our voices matter much less now since we cannot move (or merely threaten to move) the money necessary to sway electrions: just $400K is enough to nudge competitive races.

https://archive.is/gcodg

How Money Affects Elections

To quote the great political philosopher Cyndi Lauper, “Money changes everything.” And nowhere is that proverb more taken to heart than in a federal election, w…

fivethirtyeight.com

America's rich use money to sway voters

In the 2012 election, Ohio radio and television stations couldn't sign contracts for political advertising fast enough as a seismic shift occurred in American politics, playing out on TV screens and car radios across the Buckeye State.

www.news5cleveland.com

While THAT is his biggest FU to the American people, i still think it pales in comparison to the the direct affect KJU and Putin have had on their people.

Putin
its not propaganda to say that Putin, who has run russia for the last 25 years, has not improved his country in post soviet russia (population 146M).

Health in Russia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

- Their population growth rate is shrinking. This isn't necessarily a bad thing globally but if you aren't able to attract the best and the brightest from other countries, your workforce shrinks to take care of an aging population.

Russia - Place Explorer - Data Commons

Statistics about economics, health, equity, crime, education, demographics, housing, and environment in Russia.

datacommons.org

- Obviously, the population of Ukraine 43.7M is adversely affected by this "special military operation". Having another country invade has disrupted the life of every Ukranian. Would this have happened without Putin? I'm doubtful of this.
- Farther afield, Russian gas shenanigans have adversely affected the lives of all the folks in Western europe relying on their energy.

Russia in the European energy sector - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

All these countries are also jacking up their military spending to levels they wouldn't have considered 5 years before. Without an external looming threat, that money could have easily been spent elsewhere.
Are they as negatively impacted as Ukrainians or the folks in the DPRK? Of course not.


DPRK
This country is only 26M. Except for a few thousand folks (the ones who get the benefit of all the crypto thefts and keep the country operating by keeping the worker bees in line), life is far shittier there than in Russia.
His actions threaten another 51M people in South Korea (ROK)

Kim Jong-un's Inner Circle

While Kim's entourage is in constant flux, there are some indicators of the people whom Kim trusts most.

www.cigionline.org

If the metric for Worst Person Alive is "total number of people adversely affected by your actions", I think Putin wins.
If the metric for Worst Person Alive is "your life is terrible and would not be so if this guy wasn't around," I'm inclined to revise my initial thought and go with Mad Mikey's suggestion of Kim Jong Un.

 

[XR7-4.6]

I have some bad news about the company formerly named Auto Union and “those Germans” s4gunn

 

[gunn]

I have some bad news about the company formerly named Auto Union and “those Germans” s4gunn

Yeah, I'm 3 for 3 on Axis cars: Audi, Toyota, and Ferrari.

Audi had concentration camp "employees" in WW2... some making Tanks and aircraft https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-car-maker-audi-reveals-nazi-past/

Toyota made military trucks for WW2 - one-eyed trucks b/c of shortages - https://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/vehicle_lineage/car/id70000002/

Ferrari built engines for small training aircraft for Il Duce and later ball bearing machine tools (copying german designs)

Ferrari during WWII - TNF's Archive

Ferrari during WWII - posted in TNFs Archive: The life and work of Enzo Ferrari, before and after WWI, is probably one of the most extensively studied topics in the world of motorsport. However, his activities during the conflict do not deserve any kind of particular attention in most of the...

forums.autosport.com

Allegedly, he also mfg caltrops and repaired rifles for partizans during the war; anything to make sure his factory stayed intact through the war

Enzo Ferrari Barely Survived WWII

Learn how the cunning racecar driver turned industrialist successfully navigated a war-torn, fractured Italy…

www.motorious.com

 

[Green T]

His name is Jeff and he lives in Canada.

 

[XR7-4.6]

His name is Jeff and he lives in Canada.

Gunn makes some very compelling points, but ultimately I have to agree Jeff is worse than Putin

 

[Grog6]

My corner office was nicer.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Gunn makes some very compelling points, but ultimately I have to agree Jeff is worse than Putin

View attachment 3886

Classic!