Building a time machine . . . the Hitler quandry

Shiraz 4.99

So I've done the impossible, built a machine to allow me travel back in time to Austria say 1890, I walk into his nursery & shot baby Hitler in the face.

Judge me, am I a baby murderer or a saviour of millions ?.
Is there a definitive answer ?.

DrumSteve

Are you back in time now?

What's the weather like?

fedor.2.

Go back an hour or so and start an original thread

allibastor

no,

You should watch the film looper on that also.



Also, the logical thinking on it is it wouldn't matter.

You go back, shoot baby Hitler.
Baby Hitler never grows up.
You don't know who Hitler is, so don't build your machine.
You Don't go back and Shoot baby Hitler.
Baby Hitler grows up and Kills Millions.
You build your machine and go back and kill baby Hitler.
Etc.

Sheep Lover

Could you travel forward a few weeks and get me the winning Euromillons numbers also?

whiskeyman

Was there a clocktower in Austria that was struck by lightning, allowing you to return?

The One Doctor

If Hitler never existed then genuine grievances the German people had after WW1 (war reparations etc) would have come out some other way. There's a very good chance that you'd change European history for the worse.

Lord Trollington

I'd go back in time and sell all my junk on adverts.ie before they started charging.

Actually scrap that, I'd go back with lotto numbers, after winning I'd get a skip for all my junk.

iDave

And let Germany go commie and ally with the Soviets!!!!

Shiraz 4.99

fedor.2. wrote: »

Go back an hour or so and start an original thread

What was the answer the last time ?

Leeleather

allibastor wrote: »

no,

You should watch the film looper on that also.



Also, the logical thinking on it is it wouldn't matter.

You go back, shoot baby Hitler.
Baby Hitler never grows up.
You don't know who Hitler is, so don't build your machine.
You Don't go back and Shoot baby Hitler.
Baby Hitler grows up and Kills Millions.
You build your machine and go back and kill baby Hitler.
Etc.

Nope, there would be a new timeline and no need to go back again and kill Hitler because he already did it.

The Backwards Man

You'd be a baby killer.

The end.

RobertKK

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

So I've done the impossible, built a machine to allow me travel back in time to Austria say 1890, I walk into his nursery & shot baby Hitler in the face.

Judge me, am I a baby murderer or a saviour of millions ?.
Is there a definitive answer ?.

Could you also kill Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim il Sung, Pol Pot and I am sure the list could go on...
I would blame the people responsible for the treaty of Versailles which was to humiliate Germany, and Hitler used that among other things to gain power.

allibastor

Leeleather wrote: »

Nope, there would be a new timeline and no need to go back again and kill Hitler because he already did it.

No, unless the persons memory didn't change.

Ruu

Just make sure they don't change 'Marathon' to 'Snickers'.

The_Valeyard

Why not show them a better path?

Help Hitler improve his art work, get him accepted into the Vienna academy of fine arts.
Then students could learn all about the art of Hitler, not the mass murdering megalomaniac from history.

DrumSteve

The One Doctor wrote: »

If Hitler never existed then genuine grievances the German people had after WW1 (war reparations etc) would have come out some other way. There's a very good chance that you'd change European history for the worse.

TBF, Im not sure how much worse it could have got.

Leeleather

allibastor wrote: »

No, unless the persons memory didn't change.

Why would his memory change? He would have his memory outside the original timeline.

jimgoose

Strictly speaking by finagling around with Time for do-goodery reasons without adequate Ph.Ds in Quantum Whataboutery 'n'Hey, you've just forkbombed the Universe and sent the whole lot careering down the cosmic jacks-bowl of a spontaneously-formed ultramassive black hole. So that makes you worse than Hitler, even.

ScumLord

Hitler was just the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. If you watch films of his speeches his audience are egging him on shouting anti semitic rhetoric. Hitler jumped on that bandwagon and gave the people what they wanted.

Hitler was surrounded by other loonies too that where maybe crazier than he was.

If it wasn't for Hitler Germany may have never lost WW2 either, he pushed the German military past it's limits and ruined everything they did well in pursuit of his barmy plans.

smcgiff

allibastor wrote: »

No, unless the persons memory didn't change.

It would take a parallel world to exist, but Hitler would still have got up to his nefarious ways in some world.

Otherwise, as stated, there’s a paradox.

It's only conjecture as time travel to the past is not and will not be possible (there I said it! )

allibastor

Leeleather wrote: »

Why would his memory change? He would have his memory outside the original timeline.

Because that is the point, the only thing we count on is our memory. If we don't have written accounts of things we depend on memory, and if the OP changed the past, who is to say they wont remember things differently.

smcgiff

ScumLord wrote: »

If it wasn't for Hitler Germany may have never lost WW2 either, he pushed the German military past it's limits and ruined everything they did well in pursuit of his barmy plans.

Not to mention attacking Russia. It would have been a very different war if he hadn't - but that's a different thread.

Leeleather

allibastor wrote: »

Because that is the point, the only thing we count on is our memory. If we don't have written accounts of things we depend on memory, and if the OP changed the past, who is to say they wont remember things differently.

Because they are no longer in the present, they are at the point in time where the timeline changes so they have memory of the previous timeline.

Manach

Give the teen Hitler an arts scholarship.
That was the premise of one scifi story.
So the world gains one painter and losses a dictator.

The Backwards Man

Manach wrote: »

Give the teen Hitler an arts scholarship.
That was the premise of one scifi story.
So the world gains one painter and losses a dictator.

You would still have The Treaty of Versailles and reparations though. Back to square one we go.

allibastor

Leeleather wrote: »

Because they are no longer in the present, they are at the point in time where the timeline changes so they have memory of the previous timeline.

See that's the thing though, would memory stay the same or would it change.

Unless we travel in time we will never know.

AndonHandon

It's more plausible that you could transfer into an alternate dimension where Hitler does not exist than travel back in time.

Hitler had the backing of the German people, many of whom are still alive today and/or had children who they heavily influenced who themselves are definitely alive today.

fedor.2.

Just go back a bit earlier, kill his mother before she gets pregnant, problem solved

Dravokivich

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

What was the answer the last time ?

We wouldn't have the Volkswagen Beetle.

The Backwards Man wrote: »

You would still have The Treaty of Versailles and reparations though. Back to square one we go.

Then we must make sure Franz Ferdinand doesn't get assassinated. Unfortunately it means that band would only of had a different name.

smcgiff

fedor.2. wrote: »

Just go back a bit earlier, kill his mother before she gets pregnant, problem solved

Or convert the family to Protestantism - give them a box of French letters. Millions saved.

jiltloop

Ruu wrote: »

Just make sure they don't change 'Marathon' to 'Snickers'.

Don't forget Opal Fruits too.

cerastes

fedor.2. wrote: »

Just go back a bit earlier, kill his mother before she gets pregnant, problem solved

Just dont bang his mother, then you're hitlers dad

Micky Dolenz

Don't talk to me about time machines. I am from the year 2125, I came back to kill a child who will grow up and be a major player in starting WWIII, nearly driving the human species to extinction.

Problem is my time machine ran out of fuel, it's a special fuel, which won't be developed for another 67 years. So I am stuck here. To be fair, it isn't all bad. Loving the retro music and movies.

RichFTW

Or you could wait until he was 18 and then shoot him. C&C Red Alert did it already!

Anyway if Hitler was killed, Germany would still have started another war. Without his rhetoric, German Jewish scientists wouldn't have defected and Germany would have been even more powerful. A greater level of technology and no Hitler to make stupid moves into Russia in the winter would lead to a German victory.

ScumLord

Dravokivich wrote: »

We wouldn't have the Volkswagen Beetle.

The beetle was designed and built before the war, in fact if there was no war the production wouldn't have been put on hold to make way for the military.

Germans had stamp books that they bought stamps for to put towards buying a beetle, but then Hitler decided to take all their money and spend it on the war instead.

fedor.2.

cerastes wrote: »

Just dont bang his mother, then you're hitlers dad

I would've raised that boy right

ScumLord

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Problem is my time machine ran out of fuel, it's a special fuel, which won't be developed for another 67 years. So I am stuck here. To be fair, it isn't all bad. Loving the retro music and movies.

Have you tried using a banana skin and the end of a can of coke?

Tony EH

smcgiff wrote: »

Not to mention attacking Russia. It would have been a very different war if he hadn't - but that's a different thread.

Attacking Russia was the whole point of the war.

But yes, it's a different thread.

cerastes

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Don't talk to me about time machines. I am from the year 2125, I came back to kill a child who will grow up and be a major player in starting WWIII, nearly driving the human species to extinction.

Problem is my time machine ran out of fuel, it's a special fuel, which won't be developed for another 67 years. So I am stuck here. To be fair, it isn't all bad. Loving the retro music and movies.

So you didnt invent your time machine and you're just the pilot or was it set on auto pilot and you are just an assassin, because it seems kinda foolish to go back in time or anywhere without sufficient fuel to return, it is beginning to look like some kind of one way mission, possibly history has been hidden from you and they already know you didnt succeed and sent you back anyway, maybe you should be looking for the ancestors of the people who built that machine or sent you back in the first place, let them have it before they screw you around.
Unless of course you are happy to be here because the future is a post apocalyptic deathscape, you brought the lottery numbers back with you, right?

smcgiff

Tony EH wrote: »

Attacking Russia was the whole point of the war.

Controversial - may be worth a thread in the military forum.

Micky Dolenz

kinda on topic, and this will make some of us feel old.

When Marty went into the future in Back to the Future 2, the year was 2015 :eek:

smcgiff

Maybe time travel exists, and letting Hitler live was the best possible outcome achievable.

But, again, if time travel were possible how come they let Simon Cowell live.

It's the Simon Cowell Paradox :pac::D:pac:

Tony EH

smcgiff wrote: »

Controversial - may be worth a thread in the military forum.

Um, it's not controversial at all. Hitler's entire war was primarily about Russia. everything else fell into place after Britain and France declared war on Germany on the 3rd September 1939.

If there's no war declared by Britain and France, Hitler still invades Russia.

99% of Hitler's pre war rhetoric is anti Russia/Communism.

lanos

backwards timetravel will never be possible because if it was (or will be ) dozens of people would have travelled back with the benefit of hindsight and cured all the worlds ills or enslaved us all.
q.e.d

cerastes

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

kinda on topic, and this will make some of us feel old.

When Marty went into the future in Back to the Future 2, the year was 2015 :eek:

But, its 2014
And why didnt Marty or Doc go back and kill hitler or his mother, they had a damn time machine, and were knocking bout in the 1880's

smcgiff

cerastes wrote: »

But, its 2014
And why didnt Marty or Doc go back and kill hitler or his mother, they had a damn time machine, and were knocking bout in the 1880's

Not many laughs in your movie then.

SEPT 23 1989

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

kinda on topic, and this will make some of us feel old.

When Marty went into the future in Back to the Future 2, the year was 2015 :eek:

October 21st 2015

darkpagandeath

This did not end well in the Red alert series..

Wossack

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

kinda on topic, and this will make some of us feel old.

When Marty went into the future in Back to the Future 2, the year was 2015 :eek:

thats just a possible future, and now hasnt happened

if we've no hoverboards, and self lacing Nike runners next year, you can blame that git McFly for feckin over Biff

SEPT 23 1989

cerastes wrote: »

But, its 2014
And why didnt Marty or Doc go back and kill hitler or his mother, they had a damn time machine, and were knocking bout in the 1880's

how would they get the time machine from Hill Valley to Austria?