If you could get into a time machine and go back in time...

[southernleftylady]

and hold the baby Hitler in your hands... you KNOW that there is NOTHING you could do that would change the outcome ... he WILL grow up and kill millions....
could you kill that ONE baby to save millions of lives?
again.. there is NOTHING you could do to change the outcome...

(saw this on a twilight zone one time and thought it was an interesting question)

[mopaul]

1. i'd see to it that barbara never humped that chimp

or g.w.h. bush never did, either one.

[Bunny]

2. I'm confused.

You want to know if I would kill baby Hitler, but at the same time state that there is nothing I could do that would change the outcome? Why would I kill baby Hitler, then? :shrug:

[southernleftylady]

5. if you did NOT kill the child the outcome no matter

how you raised him diffrently or did anything diffrent (besides killing him) the outcome would be no diffrent

[eternalburn]

3. Roald Dahl had a similar story in Kiss Kiss........

...his collection of short stories. Also this question came up in the movie The Dead Zone.

I could never kill a child. I have the everlasting hope that fate is not set and if brought up with love, kindness and compassion a child would not turn into a monster.

But that's just me.

[Wabbajack]

4. Well I disagree

you COULD give him to others to raise instead of his mother, no one is born evil.

In any case I wouldn't change history expect maybe recent history cause the changes would be too profound.

Say one of the people killed by Hitler would have had a son who would have married my mother instead of my father. Or say one of the soilders who died in the war would have gone on to become an even worse dictator.

[ashmanonar]

6. heh, you ever play the old pc game Red Alert?

they played on that notion: by some scientists going back in time and killing hitler when he was a young man, stalin came to power without a hitler to defend against him and basically invaded the rest of europe. the whole game is about the war to hold stalin back/war to take over the world.

i think that history should remain set: who knows what would happen if even the slightest thing is changed? would america perhaps have nuked russia, starting a nuclear war? there are just so many variables that even talking about it is kinda pointless.

[Terran]

7. Newt Gingrich (yecch) wrote a novel

in which America never got involved in WWII (or possibly there had been no war at all, not sure which), and one side-effect of that was not good (he probably thought it was): there was no period of liberal progress in post WWII America, and thus no liberation movements for Blacks, women and gays. America remained the conservative racist nation it was in the 1920's and 30's. I think the rationale he gives is that Americans were not exposed to the horrors of Hitler's Holocaust and thus did not have a liberal reaction against their own conservatism (and racism). An interesting premise, actually, although from a vile man.

[ashmanonar]

9. well, yes, from a vile man.

harry turtledove does historical fiction revision quite well. he's got some great novels. and, you know, they aren't from a republican shill.

[Terran]

12. Don't worry, I didn't buy the book!

I'd never actually do anything that would support that bastard. I just read a review of it somewhere and thought the idea was interesting.

Unfortunately, I think Harry T. is basically a sucky writer, so I haven't read any of his alt history (I gave up on him after the first WW2 alien invasion novel).

[Yupster]

15. Funny - I like the WWII lizard series

by Turtledove, but agree that he has some really weak efforts too.

I gave up on the post-Civil War series, and I've really never given his magic type stuff a chance.

I do think his best written book is the "Guns of the South."

I think his best premise for a book is "A Different Flesh."

[Mutley]

11. so newt tells us how he really feels, eh?

[American Tragedy]

8. Nope. Because you just never know.

The effects on history and on human lives would be absolutely impossible to measure, even with the benefit of hindsight and excellent historical record. There are literally billions of ways that the outcome could turn out similar or worse that we don't even realize, if there is even a legitimate criteria for judging such a thing. As my Ethics professor said, in his wonderful Ghanan accent, maybe this is the best possible world.

Hell, I might even violate my own causality in the process. It's not that far fetched, the more I think about it. If the War doesn't happen in the way that it did, my grandmother probably doesn't move to New Orleans. She doesn't marry my grandfather. Consequently neither my father nor I exist. Thus I don't go back in time to change history in the first place! What a fun paradox.

[zbdent]

10. Not kill, buy one of his paintings

. . .

[Book Lover]

13. Flawed premise

If Baby Hitler had a different childhood; shit, if some of the prostitutes in Wein fucked him instead of taunting him, the war would have been different and possibly not have occured.

[Yupster]

17. The movie "The Boys From Brazil"

covers this premise well.

Some Nazi doctor (Gregory Peck?) clones Hitler and plants him throughout the world. But now 15 years later, when he comes to meet his new Fuhrers, he finds boys who look the same, seem clever and committed, but not at all to the stuff he wants them to be committed to. An interesting story.

[Book Lover]

18. Read the book, saw the movie

"Eh, Herr Hertz' problem." :-)

[tx_dem41]

14. It seems like a true liberal would want to correct the environment

that made Hitler grow into a monster, instead of taking a life.

[pdx_prog]

16. I would take him

and lay him at the steps of the Bush household...lol