Poll: Would you time-travel and kill Hitler?

[Joepow]

Like everyone else said before me, too unpredictable. Even small changes can have huge consequences in the future, which only get bigger as time passes.

 

[imnot]

If it wearnt for Hitler I proberly wouldnt be born.
And I hate paradoxs.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

Probably not. War is a terrible thing, but it also stimulates technological progress. Who knows, if WW2 had never happened, our technology may be something on par with the 50-70's.

That has got to be the single worst reason ever to allow a war and genocide to happen.

Not really. How many lives have been saved thanks to advances in technology? How many illnesses are now treatable? I'd wager that in the last 60 years, these advancements have saved as much or more lives than were lost.

I voted no. WWII was a terrible, terrible thing. The atrocities committed by the Nazis were unforgivable.

But, without WWII, the Great Depression would have lasted much, much longer. The cold war could have escalated more quickly. The country of Israel would never have been founded (thought that might seem like a downside, given the wars there now).

If we change it so it never happened, we could end up with someone worse, or the world would have ended up in a worse state.

 

[Kair]

Without Hitler and Nazism there would be nothing preventing the US from fully turning to Fascism.

 

[BoogieManFL]

As horrible as it was, WW2 taught humanity some valuable lessons.

 

[Weslebear]

No, because then we wouldn't have a website about cats that look like Hitler.

 

[Flamezdudes]

I'm too scared of the consequences to what might happen to our world, who knows... the whole war might of affected my birth maybe.

 

[tj236]

Just because you have a time machine doesn't mean you become all Commander Sheppard and are just able to waltz up and kill Hitler.

You would probably die instead. Unless your time machine holds more people than there was in the Allied forces.

EDIT: I always love the time machine scenarios. It's always as if they grant specials powers or extreme bonuses in charisma and persuasion.

I'd love to go back the time of the caveman. Caveman bashes my head with a club because I look different. DEAD

I'd really like to go back to the time of the dinosaurs. Eaten by a T-rex. DEAD

I'd love to go back and see the creation of the Earth. No atmosphere. DEAD

Maybe I could go back and see Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa. Leo wonders WTF you are doing in his house and invents a gun with bits of scrap lying around. DEAD

It's really enjoyable.

 

[0986875533423]

I love how whenever anyone asks this question it's automatically assumed that you would be capable of killing Hitler, and not, for instance, gunned down by his bodyguards as soon as you stepped out of your time machine.

 

[0986875533423]

Maybe I could go back and see Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa. Leo wonders WTF you are doing in his house and invents a gun with bits of scrap lying around. DEAD

C'mon. if you could get a word in edgeways and explain the time machine you KNOW Leo would be fascinated and follow you around asking you to tell him more.

That is, of course, assuming you can speak rennaisance-era Italian. If not you could draw him a nice picture and hope he understands.

 

[Crazycat690]

Knowing that the jews themselves went on and committed genocide on the arabs in Israel my answer is no, I share no sympathy for them whatsoever. Yes there was other people there but If I stopped it all then we'd not have any of those WW2 games!!! And let's face it USA needs to blow of steam on something so they might have nuked the world if it didn't happen.

 

[derelict]

I wouldn't do it. Believe it or not, Hitler was not the worst person who could have assumed power. Under his leadership, the Nazis were terribly disorganised, and spent a great deal of their energy on in-fighting. If Hitler was dead/had never been born, the power vacuum would be filled by someone else, and they would possibly be even worse than he was. (A level history FTW!)

This. Hitler was a leadership retard. He had charisma but not actual skill in picking or commanding his legions of misguided folk. If someone had gotten into power that realized the Panzer IV was sufficiently ahead of allied technology and much easier to manufacture/deploy/maintain (than the Tiger tank), we might be all speaking German right now.

 

[thest3alth]

No, as horrible as it is, war is one of the best ways to advance technology, something which is essential to human survival.

 

[Ghostkai]

Must I refer to it?

Command & Conquerer: Red Alert

It toys with this very idea, but in the newly created alternate timeline, Stalin is the big bad of WW2... and it results in a far bloodier war.

 

[Agrael]

I wouldn't ... I would go back and help him out.
Because, well, this world is sufficed to say - messed the hell up.

And I would like to know what would have happened...

 

[Wolfram23]

As the title suggests, this is a hypothetical situation here.

Lets say you were offered the chance to time travel, only once, and only to the beginning of World War 2, to kill Hitler. After the job was done, you would snap back to your own time, although it would be altered due to your actions. Would you take this opportunity? (and before anyone tries to get cute, if you refuse to kill Hitler when you time travel, you automatically go back to your own time, and receive a kick to the balls for wasting everyone's time)

Remember, time travel is a VERY complicated business. Killing Hitler would have DRASTIC effects on the future, in ways you couldn't possibly know.

Perhaps without Hitler, another tyrant would assume power, and do things even WORSE than Hitler. Maybe taking Hitler out would completely avert the war. Maybe without Hitler... you do not exist. Do you take the chance to save countless lives, without knowing the potential consequences?

You would actually do a LOT more to simply go back in time and kill the assassin who killed Franz Ferdinand before he managed it. You would prevent TWO WORLD WARS by doing that. If you don't know why... well, politics.

Of course that said, the world might be in a worse place if they didn't happen (but I doubt it)

 

[Sharky200]

I couldn't do it. I don't think i could kill another human not even that guy.
also like many said here. WHO KNOWS what that woudl do to our future.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

If I could I would go and make him focus on a non militaristic renascence of Germany.

As for someone worse replacing him I doubt you could get worse than an psychopathic amphetamine addict...

 

[RJ Dalton]

It sounds nice to say "I'd kill Hitler" but the thing is, Hitler is the reason why the allied forces won the war. Hitler had no mind for military tactics and despite having vastly superior technology at the time, he ran the campaign into the ground with his tactics, causing Germany's defeat. He was doing so bad, his own generals tried to assassinate him.
And Hitler wasn't the mind behind the holocaust, he just sponsored it heavily; he had support from all his major generals and it was based on ideas coming out of the US. Killing him wouldn't have stopped the holocaust, but it very well could have caused us to loose the war.

 

[s0p0g]

no, i'm pretty glad i was born, i guess, and killing klein adolf most certainly would have prevented that

and also, what all the others said: even worse/smarter/more successfull replacement for him, although... i am curious what the world would look like if the nazis had won the war, for example, by making stupid mistakes like attacking russia during winter (duh!)/at all, building more submarines when it's known that the allies had the equipment to surely detect them, fighting within their own ranks, the list goes on

wasn't there a game where the soviets invaded america instead of going on witht he cold war? gotta play that... thanks for the thread!

As for someone worse replacing him I doubt you could get worse than an psychopathic amphetamine addict...

what about psychpathic amphetime addict who still had some brains and makes smart decisions that would work out as planned? ^^