If I knew (1 Viewer)

[Canell]

Recently I watched a movie called "The Last Supper". Anyone?

Now I see this:

[video=youtube;5nBJ2RIW-G0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=5nBJ2RIW-G0[/video]

So, if you had the chance to change history and hence the world, if you knew Hitler was about to become what he become, would you kill him?

 

[lizzie]

That's a good question, and my tendency is to say that no, I would not. Since we can't see what the future holds, we would be committing murder based on a fear of what the future may hold, which imo, is not an acceptable mode of action. It's like asking myself if I would change any of the stupid things that I have done in my lifetime, and after much consideration, I came to the conclusion that I would not, because I would not be who I am today, without those experiences.

 

[joG]

Recently I watched a movie called "The Last Supper". Anyone?

Now I see this:



So, if you had the chance to change history and hence the world, if you knew Hitler was about to become what he become, would you kill him?

'Never liked the twerp.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

That's a really hard question.

On one hand, doing it will insta-kill every living person in the western world born after WWII. They would be replaced by other people from different combinations of things. Also, we don't know if something much worse could've happened in that alternate timeline.

On the other hand, if nothing major happened, many, many more people would be alive today, ,so you'd be kind of selfish not to do it.

I think I would sooner pick the former. I don't know what that alternate universe looks like, so I'd be subjecting the human race to possible major danger, and I, nor anybody I knew would be alive.

 

[specklebang]

Recently I watched a movie called "The Last Supper". Anyone?

Now I see this:

So, if you had the chance to change history and hence the world, if you knew Hitler was about to become what he become, would you kill him?

The Last Supper is a truly great film. Tomatoes anyone? Hysterical.

Paradox preludes killing Hitler. It would eliminate me since throwing my parents lives off by even a second might result in a different sperm arriving and my not being born. If I'm not born, I can't use my time machine to kill Hitler. The only sensible use of a time machine is the movie PRIMER. Claustrophobic maybe but time travel done correctly.

Everything you do today will change the future. Leave your house 2 seconds later and you change the world.

If PRIMER is the right way, then BUTTERFLY EFFECT is the wrong way and shows why killing Hitler is a big no-no.

 

[Fisher]

So, if you had the chance to change history and hence the world, if you knew Hitler was about to become what he become, would you kill him?

What makes you so sure you wouldn't bring small pox back with you and kill half the planet?

 

[Dittohead not!]

If it were possible to go back in time and change something important, like the existence of Adolph Hitler, or perhaps the invention of the atomic bomb, that would no doubt change the present in ways that are difficult to predict.

But, would this reality still exist? How do we know that there is not an infinite number of parallel universes, perhaps one in which Hitler did not, in fact, live to adulthood? Perhaps there is one in which WWII was won by the Axis. Change something in history, and it may be that you don't change the present at all, but simply create yet another universe that is different from this one, and then take that fork in the road of space time and live in it.

But, of course, that is all just wild speculation, much the same as wondering what would happen if you could go back in time and kill Hitler.

 

[Surtr]

So, if you had the chance to change history and hence the world, if you knew Hitler was about to become what he become, would you kill him?

Absolutely not. Adolf Hitler being who he was set in motion a series of extremely important events in human history. Without Hitler, there would be no Cold War, and without a Cold War, there would be no NASA, the medical technology we take for granted today would be severely limited or nonextant, communications technology would suck by todays standards, energy, plastics and textiles, architectural design, all of it would be significantly affected in a bad way. Our species develops because of conflict. Just look at the huge boom in technological advancement since 2001. Huge leaps in technology created because some dickheads wanted to blow **** up. That's how we evolve. Peace is a static state, where there are no problems to solve, leaving no justifications for governments to pour billions into advancing our capabilities. Hitler was a dick, but the world greatly benefitted from him being the piece of **** that he was.

 

[Canell]

Hitler was a dick, but the world greatly benefitted from him being the piece of **** that he was.

:shock: So, technology is more important than human lives? I cannot accept this.
Btw, we cannot know, may be mankind would have invented the same or similar technical devices anyway.

 

[Canell]

What makes you so sure you wouldn't bring small pox back with you and kill half the planet?

I didn't say I would go back and kill Hitler.

 

[ashurbanipal]

My answer would be no, but not because I would be worried about paradoxes or radically changing the history which has led us to this place, as such. WWII has had quite a deleterious effect on our world, and if there were a way to retroactively prevent it, I think it should be prevented.

The problem is that Hitler was the product of a particular "wave" (for lack of a better term) in history. He was not an extraordinary man, so much as a man who was in the right (if you can call it that) place and time. If he were to be killed, there would have been another fuhrer, and the holocaust, WWII, and all the appurtenant horrors, would still have ensued. Indeed, it was Hitler's own megalomania that made it possible to defeat Germany in the first place. Had he not insisted on personal control of the panzergruppen leading up to, and on, D-Day, the AEF would have very likely been thrown back into the English Channel, and any forces coming up from Italy stopped in cisalpine Gaul.

So, as much as I would like to kill him, I would leave him alone. I think my efforts would be better spent trying to convince more people to not buy into the antisemitism and jingoism of the day. If there would have been just a few more like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Hans and Sophie Scholl, fewer people might have met a horrible fate.

 

[rhinefire]

Stalin's Russia would have ruled Europe without Hitler.

 

[Fisher]

I didn't say I would go back and kill Hitler.

I didn't say you said you will kill Hitler. If you go back in time, you may would bring things back with you that should not be brought back regardless of what you did.

 

[Ikari]

Recently I watched a movie called "The Last Supper". Anyone?

Now I see this:



So, if you had the chance to change history and hence the world, if you knew Hitler was about to become what he become, would you kill him?

Do I have knowledge of what the CH Lange could bring? For instance if I stop Hitler only to give.rise to Super Hitler, it may not be a worthwhile endeavor.

 

[TiredOfLife]

Kill Hitler? Sure. Better still to go back much farther, and kill Eve.

 

[Surtr]

:shock: So, technology is more important than human lives? I cannot accept this.
Btw, we cannot know, may be mankind would have invented the same or similar technical devices anyway.

Technology that has drastically changed and advanced the course of humanity? Absolutely.

 

[rhinefire]

Hitler's dad married three times after his first two wives died young. Had one of then lived Hitler would have never been born.