For example, some people will say one Adolph Hitler. But Godwin's Law aside, the guy may have been bad but the size of his empire and length of its existence were not that impressive.

The largest land based empire anyway, we know who that belongs too but the universal leader of the mongols, though he had lots of genocide annihilations planned, he had advisers that thankfully managed to prevent those atrocities.

For an example of a long standing Empire, people like to point to little boots, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus however it is said and he was definitely insane by most modern standards. But can we in good conscious fault him for his actions because he had moods he really could not control?

Perhaps conventional leaders are not where we should be looking? Could their be a "business man" or "crime lord" whose influence and depravity surpasses even the most notable chiefs, politicians and royals? How about those guys who made agent orange?

Well, I will ask you the tropers. We will be judging the leaders of the world that we know based on the amount of power they commanded and the amount of evil they committed against their own species. Who has the greatest combination of both, who was the text book example of Power Corrupts, who was the most powerful evil ruler ever?

Mentions of Obama will be thumped.

I cannot see this going well. inb4 lock.

Oh come on, I don't even see this. It's a fun thread.

What about Stalin and the Soviet Union?

As an Eastern European Jew whose family just barely survived the Holocaust, I'm going to have to go ahead and say Adolf Hitler.

Although in all seriousness (and I sure hope I don't get hate glares for this) I personally think Edison was one evil motherfreaker.

Walt Disney. The most evil ones of all hide behind the most altruistic of purposes.

Well, as of now I would say no. But I guess being in control of the most powerful nation of the world he could build an orbital laser, use it to destroy congress and declare himself President for life. Until he goes to some comparable extreme I could not take a Barak Obama suggestion seriously, but I guess he could be on a list of

People with the potential to become the most powerful evil ruler in history!

I am sure Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim, Larry Page, Stephen Page, Wen Jiabao and Oprah could be potential future candidates. The Russian Mafia is apparently the world's biggest mafia and MS 13 the world's largest gang(Google will not tell me what the difference is) so I guess they could produce someone too but that is a thread for the future. Any already proven examples anyone want to argue? Should Monsanto take the blame for Agent Orange? Who was in charge then?

The old man who walks his dog around the corner every Saturday.

Don't trust him as far as I can throw him.

Wait, I've got it! Christof from The Truman Show!

Henry Ford was pretty damn racist. Not a world leader, but I still don't like his guts.

His spleen objects to your dislike.

EDIT: I don't want to create a potential problem for the mods by setting off a "who was the worse dictator" argument. My post probably wouldn't have, but I'm not in the market for setting off forum drama.

edited 5th Dec '12 7:50:08 AM by GameChainsaw

The fun potential for this thread is outweighed by the could-go-wrong-in-a-big-bad-terrible-way potential.

It's on the short list and will be locked and nuked at the least sign of trouble.

edited 5th Dec '12 7:40:54 AM by blackcat

The correct answer is Doctor Doom.

Well, the greasiest evil world leader is definitely The Burger King.

I will do one for fictional characters later. I suppose they cannot get much more evil than the real life people(but they do not need any of those pesky "redeeming qualities") but their scope of power would be a debate in of itself.

Only real life people for now, and only those with a proven history, not just those who could be become such.

Come on, we can do better, we can we not make more cases against more people? King George The Third, and the others in charge when "the sun never set on the British Empire?" The opium wars, the slave trade, rampant piracy, forcing foreigners into naval service?

Richard Nixon. Both in Futurama and in Real Life.

Timur the Lame. Romanticised in the west as Tamurlane. Mass murdering evil fuck.

I object to the premise of this thread. Primo, it's impossible to actually find an answer, since 'power' (in the political sense) is a subjective concept and 'evil' even more so. Secundo, there's a nasty streak of sensationalism and misplaced awe inherent in a "search" like this.

Your argument is invalid.

Well, that actually illustrates my point quite nicely.

I find it hard to find the right words... but there's some kind of subtext to discussions like this: 'Ooh, look at how spectacularly, awesomely evil this guy was!' 'Pff, that's nothing. This other guy killed a million people more! And in really horrible ways, too!' 'Wow!'

It's perfectly okay to feel that way about fictional villains like Palpatine, Voldemort, Ganondorf or what have you - but not about Real Life. Stalin and Hitler were real people with millions of real victims. Please don't go searching for a 'greatest' among these tyrants and murderers - they really don't deserve it.

This is a really stupid thread.

What illustrates your point? That I just wanted to post an UNLIMITED POWER video?

Well, as you should know, holding on to political power is a difficult thing to do, all the more if your subjects, or even your neighbors, think you are evil. This is why most "distopia" novels are unrealistic.

I want to see just how much power people have realistically been able to maintain while being what most would call evil, even if it is only in a modern context. So they had real victims? So we should just forget about those victims and the crimes we have done to ourselves in our past? If you feel that way that's okay but I do not. I am honestly awed by people who are not only unapologetic about their deeds but shameless or clumsy enough to let their garbage out into public view. Even more so when they find great success despite their transgressions.

"Evil" may have degrees of subjectivity but the last United States Of America President(and for that matter, governor of that state where those movies get made) declared his "enemies" were "evil". Declared it on internationally broadcast television for the world to see. The current President Of Egypt is dismissing his detractors by stating his latest power grab is necessary to root out the "evil" in his country. These guys were legitimately elected by over half of their nation's populations, not sure how controversial this topic really is to many people.