The evilest person who committed the most horrendous deeds, propagated the worst ideas, or was responsible for other moustache-twirling affairs.
Anyone who is currently alive does not count.
Billionaires.
Trump (yes, hoping he’s dead)
Trump and Netanyahu
Pol pot killed about 25% of Cambodias population and deserve a nomination.
Pol pot is definitely up there.
God, and probably even dont exists, that makes it more impresive.
Genghis Khan is up there. His conquests killed millions, I see estimates of up to 40 million, a significant percentage of the world’s population (possibly double-digits). It’s even theorized that so many people died that global temperature dropped as a result. You could go and argue that a large unified empire would prevent many future wars and thus could be a net positive even if establishing it is very bloody (see Pax Romana), and Genghis’ rule was reportedly relatively progressive compared to his contemporaries. But then, you need to make it so that the emprie doesn’t immediately break apart after its ruler dies, which he failed at.
Though you can always argue that he wasn’t really more evil than other rulers, just more successful. Which still makes him a “great villain”, but there are more directly evil deeds than conquest, such as genocide.
Also, let’s not put too fine a point on it, his famed virility - leading to potentially millions of people with traces of his DNA - was likely expressed (for the most part) through decades of rape in unheard of numbers.
bingo. the Mongol Empire lasted less than 90 years. A flash in the pan in terms of world history. Yeah he was great at conquering a massive amount of land mass but they sure as fuck were unable to hold it. and the 4 Khans after Genghis ruled for like a handful of years each. One of which only lasted a couple years.
He did also have a good side sort of. He also did some good, there are people who only did pure evil.
I hear Hitler treated his dog very well.
IMO, people generally aren’t pure good or evil. But that doesn’t mean that people like Hitler or Genghis Khan aren’t giant assholes.
Yeah I’m inclined to agree with this if we define “evil” by destructive power at least (and always worth remembering that we merely have general agreements on what “evil” is, usually based on what is and isn’t considered advantageous for human well-being. Absolute good and evil are religious myths.). But GK was also kinda interesting in that his conquests etc. were “honest”. He wasn’t trying to build some ideal society, he just lived in accordance to “Might Makes Right” and surprisingly indiscriminately applied that into his domain as well. Whatever one could claim for themselves, was theirs so long as they could defend it. Regardless of gender, religion, further cultural details etc.
I feel like he represents the logical conclusion of non-conservative right-wing ideals taken to the extreme. Individual power (however that manifests - raw strength, charisma) trumps everything else, so in a way, libertarian… but everything was of course to be absolutely subject to the Mongol Empire rule so, authoritarian.
If we go by ideology + destructiveness as a metric of “evil”, probably Hitler.
It’s even theorized that so many people died that global temperature dropped as a result.
I think you and I just solved the climate crisis! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J4uor3JE
Genghis Khan was the original Thanos!?! 🤯
I call him, “Rapey McRapenstein”.
While Hitler, Pol Pot, Beria, and Kissinger are all good and obvious contenders, I think these will be surpassed by someone who is alive right now.
But who? Well, it’s most likely someone who already has significant resources at their disposal. For all their flaws, I don’t think the lizards of Amazon, Google, OpenAI, and Facebook have much of an agenda beyond growing their fortunes. But I am convinced we haven’t seen the final form of Peter Thiel.
Invented CFCs like Freon, which caused the hole in the ozone layer, and then later went on to pioneer the use of lead in gasoline, which is estimated to have resulted in the cumulative loss of millions of IQ points from humanity during its use, not to mention lead-derived cancers and other illnesses.
Possibly the single greatest negative contribution to the environment and humanity.
I consider this man to be the worst individual in all of human history. Maybe the single worst human to ever live on the face of the planet.
What makes him this bad? He knew. He knew what leaded gasoline was doing and what freon would do and he did it anyway to help cooperations make a little more money.
There are some pretty bad people under the post. But this guy… Man.
Did the most damage… But I’m not sure he’s villainous. Just competently dangerous. Happy to be corrected but I thought tmjr was trying to improve the world. He just got massively unlucky… Multiple times.
The effects of lead poisoning were already very well known, 8 people died of lead poisoning at DuPont during the development and Midgely himself suffered the effects of lead poisoning after “proving” his compound was safe in a public demonstration.
He absolutely knew there would have been widescale negative health effects if they continued to push the product on the market. He also knew about widely available alternative “anti-knocking” agents they could have used but they were unable to be patented and so there was no profit.
He is absolutely a case of someone who simply did not care about the consequences of his work beyond what profit could be extracted.
CFCs are a slightly different issue because no one could have reasonably anticipate their effects on the atmosphere and he was long dead before those effects were starting to be felt.
I don’t believe he would have stopped developing them even if he did know however.
The universe got the last laugh however after he became entangled in self made contraption to help him after he developed polio, suffocating him.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure he invented freon use in refrigeration because he knew he fucked up with the lead in gasoline and wanted to do something good to outweight that.
He might have lead to Boomers being such psychopaths, including the later greatest villians.
He DID do it on purpose too!
He was just a feckless chemist, better to blame the DuPonts, GM, and other moneyed interests who have depended on such useful idiots and the corruptability of the US government since its earliest days.
To address both you and the person below you: he deliberately gave himself lead poisoning on national television by inhaling the concentrated vapor of leaded gasoline for over a minute. He did this not because he was ignorant of the health dangers of lead (he had already had lead poisoning TWICE BEFORE), but because he was purposefully misleading the public.
I didn’t mean to say he was innocent of anything. His crimes are well known; but they were done in service of moneyed interests who were the real decision-makers behind it all.
This is definitely a moustache twirling villainous affair.
I would like to nominate Diego de Landa, burner of the Mayan books. And a lot of Mayan people. The Mayans had books, like normal paper booms filled with Mayan writing. Histories, religion, presumably everything a society would write down. There are only four Mayan books left now. It’s all gone. It’s a tragedy that particularly boils my blood and I’m making him the final boss of a Mesoamerican-themed Pathfinder campaign I’m about to run, because I want to live out a fantasy where he gets fireballed to death or something.
Ronald Reagan
Great choice
Ea-nāṣir, merrily flogging low quality copper to unsuspecting punters. The rotter.
And just look at what that has lead to.
Shirō Ishii
What did they do?
Surgeon General Shirō Ishii (Japanese: 石井 四郎, Hepburn: Ishii Shirō; [iɕiː ɕiɾoː]; 25 June 1892 – 9 October 1959) was a Japanese biological weapons specialist, microbiologist and army medical officer who served as the director of Unit 731, the largest biological warfare and chemical warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Ishii led the development and application of biological weapons at Unit 731 in the puppet state of Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945. This included the Battle of Changde, the Kaimingjie germ weapon attack, and the planned Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night biological attack against the United States, which intended to spread a weaponized bubonic plague. Ishii and his colleagues also engaged in human experimentation, resulting in the deaths of thousands of subjects, most of them civilians or prisoners of war.
Ishii was later granted immunity in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East by the United States government in exchange for information and research for the U.S. biological warfare program.
Ah yeah, that’s a pretty good contender.
Commander of Unit 731, the Imperial Japanese Army’s biological and chemical weapons “research” unit.
If you don’t know the details of their crimes, I strongly urge you not to do any research into them. Suffice to say they committed the most brutal and callous forms of torture imaginable on many thousands of people, including babies.
Belgian Congo/Jewish Holocaust is right up there. I wouldn’t say a specific person but innumerable people involved.
King Leopold and Hitler were THE authority, so ultimately they signed off on the death and suffering of millions of Congolese and Jews (and other minorities) respectively.
For the Congo: imagine a father staring at the severed hand and foot of his five year old daughter. That’s a photograph searchable online, and needs to be seen to understand the violence and dehumanism of colonialism.
For the holocaust: we have all seen at least one picture. But imagine a baby being smashed against a wall because it wouldn’t stop crying. Pretty women (maybe even underage girls) being raped. To say just a small part of the atrocities of the holocaust.
Well, I haven’t even included Unit 731. General Shiro Ishii.
Now, what to say about today in 2026? Who’s to say these atrocities are not being repeated?
Hitler and king Leopold are great answers. The things they perpetrated are very difficult to stomach. I consider myself someone who is fairly desensitized, especially growing up during the wild west of the internet. Unit 731, though? I can’t. Absolutely the most vile humans to have walked the face of the earth. Humans aren’t born good or evil, but rather have potential for either. The fucking shitstains of unit 731 found a way to maximize the human capacity for evil. Naming anyone in that group is the correct answer.
Israel and USA seem intent on first place in the atrocities contest.
Ottomans were quite vile as well. My grandmother grew up watching ottoman soldiers slicing open pregnant women’s bellies because they were Greek and laughing.
Quite vile is an understatement, that’s one of the worst on the list.
Since I’m personally connected, I don’t want to use superlatives. But yes.
Don’t forget Churchill.
Which leopold ? First or second
Laventiy Beria was the head of Stalin’s NKVD. He may not be the greatest villain, but more people need to know about this motherfucker.
Stalin introduced him as “My Himmler”. Despite all the spying and torture you’d expect from the secret police, Beria found time to be a prolific rapist as a side hustle.
I think you’re underselling just how evil he was…
They found lots of bones from women and girls when excavating the torture chamber beneath his former mansion, and Stalin distrusted him so much that he dropped everything when he learnt his daughter was alone with Beria.
Most people in this thread were either evil in their career, or in their personal lives, but Beria managed to excel separately in both.
My favourite scene in The Death of Stalin is when the rest of the Poliboro decided that they’ve had enough of Beria’s shit and have him shot after a ten-second “trial”.
I sorta don’t want to go down the rabbit hole. To find the answer you would literally need to compare attrocities. Im aware of quite a few but watching the actual footage of the aftermath and such is literally sickening. I’ve heard pol pot.
