Posted on 02/23/2014 11:06:23 AM PST by nickcarraway
In almost any science-fiction scenario involving time-travel, the default action is to kill Hitler. As terrible a human being as he was, there are many reasons why this probably isn’t a good idea
If you find yourself suddenly gaining access to a time machine, what’s the first thing you’d do? If you said “kill Adolf Hitler”, then congratulations; you’re a science-fiction character. Actually, the whole “access to a time machine” thing suggested that already, but the desire to kill Hitler clinches it. Any time-travelling sci-fi character (at least ones created by Western society) seems to want to kill Hitler, so much so that there’s a trope about how it’s impossible.
That attempting to kill Hitler has become such a common sci-fi plot device speaks volumes. What about Stalin? He was arguably worse, killing 20 million of his own people to fuel his ideology. But no, Stalin went about his business unmolested by time travellers, all of whom are busy targeting Hitler.
It’s understandable. Who wouldn’t want to prevent the holocaust? It’s probably the worst thing in history. And I only say “probably” because I don’t know all of history, and the human capacity to be awful should not be underestimated. But as noble as it seems, killing the Fuhrer via time travel is a terrible idea, for real-world reasons, not just those in fiction. So should you get hold of a time machine and make plans to kill Hitler, here are some reasons why you shouldn’t.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Its because time isn’t a linear progression, as those of us traveling in the slow lane experience it. It’s actually a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff :)
Architectural school would have been better. He was good at that.
Ironically, you’d do better to prevent the election of Hoover. If Coolidge had served a second term, the economy doesn’t tank and FDR might not get elected at all.
Genesis 3:6
It says he was there with her.
keep Hitler in Art School! BUT another worse might have taken over—a communist who would have killed more? Maybe this fellow with Stalin as an ally might have won!
Well idiot, if they did we would never know about it.
I cannot believe this got to 38 comments before someone mentioned the obvious!
Some people need to read "Methuselah's Children", Time Enough for Love", "The Guns of the South", or "Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War." Heck, every other episode of Doctor Who mentions the hazards of a temporal paradox.
because sometimes God wants to see what we will do, to put some of our skin in the game.
also sometimes because God wants us to do what we can do ,and He’ll do what only He can do. it’s another different way of saying my first point.
LBJ before Lincoln. Hell FDR before LBJ.
If I could go back in time, I would relieve the mast watch on the Titanic. Then the helm would not have had enough time to avoid a direct head-on collision with the iceberg. That would have crushed the front four compartments, instead of ripping a long gouge in the side, and the ship would have floated instead of sinking.
In turn, that would have saved the lives of the bankers on board who were against the formation of the Federal Reserve Bank. Without the FRB, neither the Nazis nor the Soviets would have been funded, and their takeovers would have failed, and both WWs 1&2 could have been averted.
LOL, and the tardis is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
What I was trying to say was God has a plan, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve inventing a time machine and going back to kill Hitler
Why stop at one?
Hitler is a fixed point in time.
oh no question, to your overall point. if it could be done it would have been, it is clear God exists outside of time and can see all points in time, but we are at fixed points in time and only run forward. if people or things could go back in time they could change what God had either directly caused to occur, or allowed to occur. and that ain’t gonna happen.
Right. When Peter says a day is like a thousand years to the Lord and a thousand years like a day, he is saying from God's perspective everything is happening at once, beginning to end, alpha to omega.
well the creation of physical things demands space and time exist.
if you’re the guy creating everything, you’re by definition, larger than it, and outside of it, and not bound by its limits. unless you willingly are, as in the case with Jesus Christ, for a short time.
If you killed Hitler, then the generals who HATED the way Hitler micromanaged the war would have been able to run things their way, and maybe WWII would have been WON by the Germans.
Another negative side effect: If Hitler was killed very young, the Second World War may not have happened.
Then Europe’s industrial base would have been untouched, and Germany’s superior science would have made Europe the global Superpower.
America would have been Europe’s b*tch.
It was only because we emerged from that war, untouched, that we became such a superpower.
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