I consider myself something of a history buff so I’m very excited to dive into these responses about the biggest blunders in human history.
Because I’m pretty well versed in 20th Century U.S. and European history, but I literally know nothing about ancient history or the Medieval period, etc.
So we’re gonna learn a whole lot of new information today!
AskReddit users talked about what they believe are the biggest mistakes in human history.
Let’s see what they had to say.
1. Scary.
“Creating nuclear weapons.
No more needs to be said we created a weapon that destroys everything for miles around and leaves it uninhabitable for decades.”
2. Business mistakes.
“Yahoo made some GARGANTUAN mistakes! Like:
Not buying Google for $1 mil in ‘98
Refusing to buy Google for $5 bil in ‘02
Refuses to be bought by Microsoft for $40 bil in ‘08
Sells to Verizon for $4.6 bil in 2016.”
3. Just one turn.
“Franz Ferdinand’s driver.
If he literally took a different turn, then WW1, WW2, the Holocaust, and the Cold War probably wouldn’t have happened….for at least another 40 years.”
4. What could have been…
“The priest that saved a 4 year old boy from drowning many decades ago.
That boy was Hitler.”
5. The big shift.
“The agricultural revolution.
Seriously, we went from doing 20 hours a week hunter gathering likely living stress free lives to backbreaking labor and men getting powerful by owning land that crops grew on.
Owning crops led to a disparity gap which led to slavery which led to modern society.”
6. A different life.
“Invention of cars. We would be fine with trains and bicycles.
Our lives would be planned for to be easily accessable with the transportation available.
We wouldnt miss it one bit.”
7. Bad move.
“One of the biggest mistakes I’ve heard of was China’s communist leader, Mao Zedong, who ordered the eradication of the sparrows because they are too much grain and this was setting back the Great Leap Forward.
Long story short, millions upon millions of sparrows were k**led and the years that followed brought insect infestation that decimated the crops and caused mass starvation. Because sparrows did eat grain and also ate insects, lots and lots of insects.
Official numbers are 15 Million but has been estimated to be as high as 78 Million.”
8. Military history.
“The Eastern front should be considered the worst decision in military history. It led to the d**th of tens of millions of people and ultimately the end of the war for Na** Germany.
Not to mention invading the Soviet Union was done mostly out of Hitler’s hatred for communism.”
9. Slavery.
“It’s the slave trade.
The USA still hasn’t recovered from it. Minorities are still held back.
And they keep doing what they can to stop minorities from voting.”
10. Is this progress?
“The industrial revolution.
I know it technically brought us the glory of the internet but without it we wouldn’t have global warming or plastic in the ocean and the entire planet is more important then having access to Reddit.”
11. What was lost?
“The destruction of the Library of Alexandria
Think of how many centuries we were set back in European, North African, and Middle East cultures because of the knowledge lost.”
12. A turning point.
“Probably pressuring Chernobyl until it exploded.
5 million people d** ever year from air pollution and hundreds of millions of people might d** because we completely shifted focus to fossil fuels instead of developing nuclear energy.”
13. Took a lot longer…
“The Roman soldier who stab**d and k**led Archimedes. They were under orders to find him and take him back to Rome.
Dude was likely a couple of years away from developing Calculus.
Instead we waited another 2,000 years for the math that would one day take us to the moon.
Who know what the word would’ve become if he had another 15-20 years to work. Likely with unlimited Roman resources to work with.”
What do you think?
Let us know in the comments.
We’d love to hear from you!
