I’m a bit of a history buff so I’m very excited to dive into these answers about the biggest blunders in history.
I’m pretty well versed in 20th Century U.S. and European history, but I literally know nothing about ancient history, the Medieval period, or a bunch of other eras.
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. He was right.
“Voting for people based on what side of the political spectrum they’re on.
George Washington himself advised against political parties because he thought they would cause too much division in this country.
Unfortunately for everyone, he was right.”
2. The coup.
“I don’t know about the entire history, but the coup to depose the democratically elected leader of Iran in the 1950’s to increase oil profits was very bad. It lead to:
An authorian and oppressive regime with no legitimacy.
An revolution opposing that regim lead by clergy.
A theocratic and anti-western Iran.
A Iran that opposed western democracies attempts at a democratic foreign policy, including the World Trade towers’ attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Proxy war in the middle-east against Saudi-Arabia, which in turn made it possible for ISIS to emerge and created the need for millions of people to leave their homes and become refugees.
All because an oil company wanted to keep profits.”
3. Hmmm…
“Imperial Germany not hanging V.I. Lenin and his cohorts in the Black Forest.
Instead they were returned to Russia.”
4. Brexit.
“David Cameron promising a Brexit referendum to prevent losing voters to another single issue rival party.
Whatever your thoughts on Brexit, I think it’s pretty clear that Cameron only did this because he thought he could easily get a Remain result and maintain the status quo.
So he essentially accidentally lost the country its EU membership.”
5. Agriculture.
“Agriculture.
Led to a population boom and now we have huge amounts of people rather than hunter gatherers.
The amount of human suffering borne of agriculture is unsurpassed.”
6. The workweek.
“Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which established a five-day, 40-hour workweek for many workers.
The 5 day work week that came with the Fair Labor Standards Act, while pivotal because it brought minimum wage, overtime, and Child Labor laws, was the beginning of over-working in America.
Despite many health benefits (both physically and mentally) of the 4-day work week, we’re way too far gone as a country (America) to ever get past an archaic mindset that benefits employers more than employees in today’s times even though more time off with 4-10’s has shown to improve productivity and company wide morale along with fewer sick days.
So not really a “mistake” because it brought OT, minimum wage, and other things, the 5-day work week is a mistake that has grown into an unstoppable monster.”
7. Some say that’s how it happened.
“Barack Obama mocking Donald Trump at the Correspondents Dinner led directly to his 2016 run…”
8. Uh oh…
“Social Media.
Humans are not wired to have that many social interactions and maintain that many relationships.
Plus the echo chambers it allows people to create for themselves, no matter how conspiratorial or vile their beliefs, means that stupid/evil people are no longer shunned into changing their mind.
Not sure it was worth being able to see what a celebrity had for lunch or what new “dance” your younger cousin and her tween friends are doing.”
9. Never ends well.
“Invading Afghanistan.
Every. Single. Time. It. Has. Been. Tried.”
10. Bad business move.
“Blockbuster not buying Netflix.
They had Netflix nearly defeated with their mail dvds.
Then the new CEO said “F that, let’s improve our stores”.”
11. Mo’ money, mo’ problems.
“It f**ked the Romans, f**ked the Chinese, f**ked the Americans, Europeans and it will f**k the next big superpower and it will continue to f**k 8,000,000,000 people for the pleasure of roughly 1,000,000.
It is the main and root cause of misery in all the world in EVERY AGE we have history for for an untold millions of years of collective human years.
Allowing money in politics.”
12. Started WWI.
“The wrong turn Franz Ferdinand’s driver made that went right in front of Gavrilo Princip.
Imagine you’re Gavrilo Princip. The as**ssination plot you and your friends had been cooking up for about the last year or so has been a complete and total disaster, just a monumental f**k-up of the highest degree.
You’re staked out at this deli thinking maybe, just maybe the car will pass by, and by some stroke of sheer luck, it does.
If you’re Princip, this is nothing short of serendipity.”
13. 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.”
14. 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.”
15. 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.”
16. What could have been…
“The priest that saved a 4 year old boy from drowning many decades ago.
That boy was Hitler.”
17. The big shift.
“The agricultural revolution.
Seriously, we went from doing 20 hours a week hunting and gathering likely living stress-free lives to backbreaking labor and men getting powerful by owning land with crops.
Owning crops led to a disparity gap which led to slavery which led to modern society.”
18. 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.”
19. 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.”
20. 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.”
21. 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.”
22. 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.”
23. 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.”
24. 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.”
25. 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!
