NationStates Jolt Archive

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin.

"Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions." - Evan Esar.

I just stumbled upon what could basically be called the death toll of the human race. It is a list of wars and disasters throughout history, done in descending order by body count. Some of the numbers are, of course, estimates, because of the obvious unreliablity of such counts. Even so, the sense of perspective to be gained simply by browsing this list is mind-boggling. I decided to post it here because I figured that this forum of all places would prove the second quote true, despite none of us being "experts."

LINK: List of wars and disasters by death toll. <-Click (http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-wars-and-disasters-by-death-toll)

For a small taste, lets have a look at China.

36,000,000 - An Lushan Rebellion (756–763)
25,000,000 - Manchu conquest of Ming China (1616–1644)
20,000,000–50,000,000 - Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864)
1,300,000–6,100,000 - Chinese Civil War (1928–1949) This figure excludes World War II casualties
* 300,000–3,100,000 before 1937
* 1,000,000–3,000,000 after World War II

27,000,000-73,000,000[1] - People's Republic of China (1949-1975) under Mao Zedong
10,214,000[4] - Democides by the Kuomintang

87,000 - Chinese massacres of Tibetan pro-independence protestors (Tibet, China 1959)

Apparently, when the Chinese get around to killing people, they really do go balls to the walls.

36 million casualties in a single rebellion prior to 1000 AD? That's quite surprising.

Considering that WWII (which has the highest body count of any war, ever) claimed about 62,000,000 some 1200 years later, that really is quite incredible.

Cripes I must be losing it...I thought it said " death trolls " .

So, uh, massive nuclear strikes against PRC population centers probably wouldn't have that much of an effect on the PRC in the event of a nuclear war, then, would it? The Chinese seem to be excessively good at surviving mass death for some reason.

Cripes I must be losing it...I thought it said " death trolls " .

That's how I read it too.

36 million casualties in a single rebellion prior to 1000 AD? That's quite surprising.

It was a seven year long rebellion. It was more of a civil war than a rebellion. And the warfare caused a famine which greatly contributed to the death toll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Lu-Shan_Rebellion

36 million casualties in a single rebellion prior to 1000 AD? That's quite surprising.

The An Lushan rebellion killed or drove out something like over 2/3 of the entire population of China; at the time of the rebellion, Tang dynasty China had nearly 100 million people living under its rule and was the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Its capitol of Chang'an had a population of nearly one million people during the 8th century, compared to the former imperial capitol of Rome whose population was barely 50,000 at the time.

In other words, imagine a rebellion in the US that kills and exiles at least 200 million people and totally ruins the economy putting the government in to a weakened and decentralized quasi-feudal state for the next two centuries. Also imagine a city like New York City pillaged and reduced to a local industrial center for centuries.

It was that bad.

Cripes I must be losing it...I thought it said " death trolls " .

Yeah, that's his new band, The Death Trolls.

*spontaneous speed metal riff*

Yeah, that's his new band, The Death Trolls.

*spontaneous speed metal riff*

Yeah, they play one riff and then it's nothing but pain series and goatse spam for the next three hours.

Yeah, they play one riff and then it's nothing but pain series and goatse spam for the next three hours.

*vomit*

Yeah, Death Trolls: the LUE of Metal

EDIT: Well, thanks to you, I've seen the Pain Series for the first time. I'll never be the same.

EDIT: Well, thanks to you, I've seen the Pain Series for the first time. I'll never be the same.

I'm sorry...that's a truly inhuman thing to experience. God help you. :(

Be grateful it wasn't last measure, with the sound on, in a public place

edit : This happened to me

Be grateful it wasn't last measure, with the sound on, in a public place

edit : This happened to me

That's terrible yet funny.

That's terrible yet funny.

Yeah. I always wanted to do that on every computer in a computer lab...it would be epic.

And people wonder why I'm anti-war... :rolleyes:

And people wonder why I'm anti-war... :rolleyes:

Why are you anti-war?