morality test

[Sylvia727]

You're right that I could only kill him "after" he committed the murders. Although I think the OP takes the stance that time is fluid, since killing Hitler is assumed to protect the Holocaust victims. From my point of view, killing child-Hitler would be justice/punishment for the Holocaust, but from child-Hitler's, I'm just a psycho murderer.

However, I would be killing child-Hitler to prevent the Holocaust, not to punish him. At that point in time, he would be an innocent, and his murder would be no less reprehensible than any of his future murders.

[protege]

Another option, of course, would be to inject Hitler's mom with depo-provera a little bit before he was due to be conceived. But that wouldn't correct the tensions that led to WWII.

Exactly. The conditions leading up to WWII--Germany's defeat in WWI, the subsequent inflation and economic meltdown, plus the eventual build-up in their military were already in motion at that point. Throw in the loss of territory (the Rhineland), and things got worse. The German people were pissed, and someone (anyone) was going to pay for it.

That someone was the Jews. They were a convenient target, mainly because they came through the 1920s and '30s relatively easily. From what I understand, they didn't get hit as hard as the average non-Jewish German citizen. As a result, it was very easy for Hitler to blame them, and (eventually) rise to power.

Even if Hitler was killed before then, the conditions were already there...that someone could easily have taken his place, and committed far worse atrocities. Suppose that someone was a better general and didn't make the same mistakes--i.e., attacking the Soviets. (At the time, they were on the same side, until Hitler's surprise attack in '41) They could have easily taken over the rest of Europe...

[Slytovhand]

This might all be true regarding WWII... and a little bit earlier, but if we're going to talk about going back in time to do something, why stop at a mere 100 years or so?

What if we choose to pick someone else...Nero or Caligula for example? We're in the early stages of 'what might have happened if Hitler were bumped off early', but, in the long run, we'll never really know about that difference (cos we're unlikely to be here). So... given the last couple of thousand years, would someone bump off Caligula as a kid to prevent all that came after that? And thus, change all the time in between....

[crazylegs]

Seeing as we're all getting caught up in the 'what if' history scenario let me put it this way.

Present day. The future has yet to be written and actions now will change events in the future. You receive information that child X will commit atrocities in their later life in circumstances unique to them causing immense pain and suffering to thousands. If you kill them now these atrocities will not occur.

Now how do you guys stand?

[Slytovhand]

Good call Crazy... I was sort of thinking that as well - but went backwards instead...

Well - I'd have to find out how damn reliable that information was... and also why oh why execution or murder were the only viable options.

[Gabrielle Proctor]

No. I wouldn't do it. I am of the opinion that if the holocaust didn't happen, some kind of major genocide would have happened anyway. Just because you stopped one, doesn't mean that you would be able to stop them all.

[Flyndaran]

No. I wouldn't do it. I am of the opinion that if the holocaust didn't happen, some kind of major genocide would have happened anyway. Just because you stopped one, doesn't mean that you would be able to stop them all.

Ha. That is the biggest copout I've ever read.
I shouldn't stop the U.S. government from torturing people, because other governments would torture someone else.
Not to mention highly offensive. If you had to the power to save A. Aaronson and Z. Zelazny, but chose not to, how is that different from simply stepping over a bleeding unconscious man and not calling for help?

I wouldn't kill a baby, but I would kidnap him and place him somewhere he might get treatment for his eventual mental illnesses.

[Slytovhand]

I wouldn't kill a baby, but I would kidnap him and place him somewhere he might get treatment for his eventual mental illnesses.

Hmmm... I'm seeing an issue right there!!!

Apart from presuming a 'mental illness' is at work, rather than just a personality (though distorted from what we consider 'normal'...)

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

The movie "The Final Countdown" and an episode of "The Twilight Zone" both covered it. In TFC, the USS Nimitz went back in time before Pearl Harbor and found out that their actions did nothing to stop the disaster, but were part of the events (the famous picture of battleship row was taken from one of the E3 Hawkeyes, etc)

And the Twilight Zone Episode brought up the question. What if by your actions you actually were the one responsible for the way history turned out? An episode of the 2002 Twilight Zone entitled "Cradle of Darkness" features a time traveller (Katherine Heigl) going back in time to kill Hitler as an infant. The time traveller kidnaps the Hitler baby and leaps from a bridge, killing herself and the baby. A horrified housekeeper, who had witnessed the murder of the baby Hitler, does not tell Hitler's parents but rather bribes a homeless woman to sell her baby. The baby is then returned to the Hitler household where he takes the place of the murdered infant, growing up to become the Hitler that the world knew.

So say someone kills the baby, comes forward in time and finds out that nothing has changed. What if new DNA evidence came out that proved that Adolph Hitler wasn't related to his parents and was adopted? How would the person who went back in time feel knowing that not only didn't he prevent the tragedy, but caused it instead?

So I'm content to let the past be the past. If I had access to a time machine, I would like to witness certain events, but I could never bring myself to change them.

M