If you could change the past... should you?

[ledboots]

I like that people are pretending to know how time travel works....

Only those of us who come from the future.

 

[FortyTwo]

Well, there are the natural laws to consider.

And like I said... nobody can know because it's physically impossible. That's why it's annoying to hypothesize about changing the past, because it's so impossible.

 

[kibbleforlola]

No. You should've not made shitty dicisions the first go 'round. But now that you have, instead of living in a shoulda/coulda/woulda world, deal with it and move on. So in short: suck it up, buttercup; life is too short do dwell on that ****.

As for changing other things, like Hitler, you can't know what ramifications you're decisions would make. Maybe someone worse would come along, or who-knows-what. Instead of focusing on the past, isn't it more sensical to focus on the present and the future? Preventing things like that from happening again would be more useful, I think.

 

[nog]

Underlined: Yes.
Bolded: No.

Meh, I suppose if effects can precede causes doesn't mean that space-time is destroyed (since that's how we understand it, it seems to be, etc) and then the universe as we know it is gone then I just don't know.

Though I suppose it's a futile point to argue, considering we're never going to do it anyway.

Oh, but people argue all sorts of things they may never do or know about.

 

[Ansciess]

As for changing other things, like Hitler, you can't know what ramifications you're decisions would make. Maybe someone worse would come along...

Highly unlikely.

Yes, if I could change highly negative things in the past, I would. Who cares if "family lines" are changed. People who aren't born will never know it, and if I can prevent something like the Holocaust, of course I will, and take a chance on something else (highly unlikely something worse will happen).

 

[kibbleforlola]

Highly unlikely.

Says who?

I don't think any of us (myself included) are smart enough to claim we know what's best/what the ramifications would be were we to change the past.

 

[Ansciess]

Says who?

Says history. It's very rare if not impossible, to find a "worse" leader than Hitler.

 

[kibbleforlola]

Says history. It's very rare if not impossible, to find a "worse" leader than Hitler.

I can think of plenty of people who committed genocide/atrocities. Besides, the climate at the time was highly unstable/anti-Semitic/take your pick. Terrible people are born everyday (and good ones, too!). They just need the right kind of environment to foster their development.

ETA: Obviously Hitler was a TERRIBLE person, and there is NO justifying what he did. I don't want it to seem like I'm saying "ho hum, would have happened anyway". I'm saying he had the right environment for his terribleness to have a platform and had the right kind of manipulative personality for people to be taken in.

Terrible things, like the Holocaust, have happened. It's mind boggling that things like that could even take place. But they are in the past, we can't change them. So we can sit here and speculate about what we should have done, and what might have happened, and be stuck in our own heads; or we could get out there and educate people, help people, make sure things like this don't have the vehicle to happen again. I think that's far, far more important than "let's kill Hitler" scenario games.

 

[Ansciess]

So we can sit here and speculate about what we should have done, and what might have happened, and be stuck in our own heads; or we could get out there and educate people, help people, make sure things like this don't have the vehicle to happen again. I think that's far, far more important than "let's kill Hitler" scenario games.

It seems like the premise of this entire thread really bothers you.

If I weren't sitting here speculating about this, it's not like I - or you - would be out there doing anything else useful. And if you would be, go do it. I work hard for social change, and when I'm on message boards sometimes I'm trying to educate, other times I just want to shoot the ****. Does the lounge bother you too?

 

[kibbleforlola]

No, what bothers me is people who don't think critically about their actions (or in this case, actions they could take if time travel were possible - which it's not). People who think Bad Must Be Stopped - but stop there. I agree that terrible things need to be stopped, but I also know that I am not smart enough to know the consequences that me time traveling would have. I'm not necessarily worried about the aborted timelines of babies that would never be born because Hitler's WWII would never have happened*. I'm worried about much more terrible things that could have happened due to my intervention. And as you yourself demonstrate, people cannot concieve of someone like Hitler ever being born, either before or after. But genocide has happened before Hitler, and it's happened as recently as the massacre of 800,000 Hutu's and Tutsi's in the 90's.

And if I'm not smart enough to forsee what consequences my actions have, neither does anybody else in this thread. (I kid, I kid )

*I say Hitler's WWII, because it's quite likely another WWII would have occurred without Hitler, who knows if it would have been better or worse in terms of lives lost.

 

[Envy]

Would Israel exist if the Holocaust never happened?

 

[Ansciess]

No, what bothers me is people who don't think critically about their actions (or in this case, actions they could take if time travel were possible - which it's not). People who think Bad Must Be Stopped - but stop there. I agree that terrible things need to be stopped, but I also know that I am not smart enough to know the consequences that me time traveling would have. I'm not necessarily worried about the aborted timelines of babies that would never be born because Hitler's WWII would never have happened*. I'm worried about much more terrible things that could have happened due to my intervention. And as you yourself demonstrate, people cannot concieve of someone like Hitler ever being born, either before or after. But genocide has happened before Hitler, and it's happened as recently as the massacre of 800,000 Hutu's and Tutsi's in the 90's.

And if I'm not smart enough to forsee what consequences my actions have, neither does anybody else in this thread. (I kid, I kid )

*I say Hitler's WWII, because it's quite likely another WWII would have occurred without Hitler, who knows if it would have been better or worse in terms of lives lost.

I think the Holocaust and WWII were bad enough events that I'd take the chance that something else could maybe possibly somehow be worse (and history dictates this to be unlikely), and the nonexistence of it would be better.

Likewise if I could make it that Henry Harlow (the infamous primate torturer) never existed, I'd do that too. If I can make a terrible situation not happen, it only makes sense for me to do it. Unless I don't think the situation is that terrible. It really depends on how intolerable the thing is, for one to want to change it and take their chances on something different. It's certain that the terrible thing won't happen (as it happened in reality), not certain what would replace it.

 

[nog]

Highly unlikely.

Yes, if I could change highly negative things in the past, I would. Who cares if "family lines" are changed. People who aren't born will never know it, and if I can prevent something like the Holocaust, of course I will, and take a chance on something else (highly unlikely something worse will happen).

I don't understand the "highly unlikely something worse will happen." Are you saying when something bad happens things only get better or are about the same, but bad things never happen after something bad has happened?

Perhaps you're saying that nothing bad has happened since Hitler? (not that it's necessarily true that if Hitler is killed, it would change what happened).

Things don't continually get better.

 

[das_nut]

There's the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics - which says that basically everything that can happen, has happened.

So there's a world where a baby Hitler drowned in the tub, a world where a young Hitler was fatally shot during his combat experience in WWI, a world where a slightly older Hitler became a famous artist, and our world where Hitler ended up triggering the genocide of millions.

As nutty as this sounds, the theory is rather mainstream, since it neatly solves a lot of problems with quantum physics.

 

[AeryFairy]

If I went back in time to kill hitler, then hitler would not have done those things and I'd have no reason to go back in time to kill him, so I wouldn't go back and then he'd exist again.

 

[Blues]

Well I think if you could change the past you could change the future ....what a mess that would be .

Although I read somewhere ,this lady said she could see her future incarnations and changed her will and left her estate to someone who was not yet born, who in her mind was going to be her reincarnated .

Plenty wanted to knock Hitler off .There were 42 (assassination)attempts , mainly by his own country men and in the end he topped himself , the irony of it .

From my personal observation living with regrets of the past and worrying about the future is meaningless and wasted energy .

 

[SummerRain]

People are taking a hypothetical situation very seriously!

My first thought was... no! What if I stopped ME from existing? I guess I am just self centred!

It's always Hitler. Never Stalin or Mao. Why is that?

I would harbour a guess that it's because that's what most people get taught about in school. I did the second world war many many times in school, but I learned about Stalin or Mao zero times. (Although I stopped learning history at 14/before GCSE so perhaps they covered one of them then... but I don't think so)

But literal response aside... it is... almost idealistic the way that we (most of western society) focus on there being one Bad Guy of history/Bad Time in history and everything else gets forgotten about (or confined to so long ago it "couldn't happen now" like slavery). I think it's easier to think about there being one truly awful thing that happened in recent history that admit that actually things like genocide repeatedly happen, and that truly awful things are still happening now.

 

[FortyTwo]

By deleting WWII, if you live in Europe (or even anywhere else really) and weren't around before it happened, you are very likely deleting yourself.

Paradox.

Then nog's point about ripping time and space apart becomes quite a bit more of a point.

 

[Envy]

Well I think if you could change the past you could change the future ....what a mess that would be .

Although I read somewhere ,this lady said she could see her future incarnations and changed her will and left her estate to someone who was not yet born, who in her mind was going to be her reincarnated .

Plenty wanted to knock Hitler off .There were 42 attempts , mainly by his own country men and in the end he topped himself , the irony of it .

From my personal observation living with regrets of the past and worrying about the future is meaningless and wasted energy .

So he already know time travel?

 

[Muggle]