UNITEDAIR wrote:This discussion is stupid. No one is arguing about the utilitarianism of killing one baby to save 60 million or whatever. In perfect abstraction sure why not. But no one knows what would happen to history if you changed events. Slo-101 describes one possible way of events, but just one out of infinite. And no killing hitler would not stagnate technology. There is no way to predict what may or may or happen. Also, you cannot compare atrocities to diminish or enhance it. It is irrelevant if someone killed more people somewhere or somewhen.
This.
Why dwell on matters which (even though considered some of the most traumatic events in recent times by most) happened 70 years ago (and i can say the same thing about that pointless nuclear post of earlier)? As much as we can always ponder on the "What ifs?" on even the most rudimentary of things, i think we shouldn't dwell on these matters too much as things can end up being exaggerated.
We could all just sit here like a bunch of armchair generals and debate over the many possible scenarios of "What happened if we removed so-so from our timeline?" but we would probably end up with a runaway thought train full of abstract ideas...so why bother?
As for the original question itself on the topic: If i was there myself in that moment. No, i would not kill him, even if it means at the expense of my Mother's side of the family. Why? Because i am basically condemning him for the apparent atrocities he has yet to commit. At the end of the day, i also remind myself
that he, like most of us here, were once a simpleton child with a mother and father. A child which inevitably, in some form or another in all of us, becomes corrupt in some manner.
Even if you were to remove him, you must remember that it wasn't just HIM that played an important role in the Nazi Party. There was Goebbels, Goering, Himmler, Eichmann, Hans Frank, Ernst Röhm (during their rise), Albert Speer, along with many other less known influential members. Then there are other factors outside of the regime altogether such as post WW1. If Germany won that war would Nazism have been averted or just delayed? Then there is the Soviet Union, even if Nazism never came about, would Stalin have initiated an alternate WW2 by attempting to annex all of Europe in the name of "Socialism" (see how i am starting to have the runaway train of thought here)?
In the end...if you ask me, i would just leave it to historians to debate over such matters while i focus on the problems that matter to me at hand. No use dwelling on events that happened 70 years ago (as much as i recognize that such events played a big part in shaping the world today).
