# If you could go back in time and kill one person, who would it be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 8, 2001, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093 "2001-10-08T12:02:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/21 "2001-10-08T18:53:40Z")
I think I’d just step on a butterfly. (Thanx and a tip of the hat to Ray Bradbury) ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/22 "2001-10-08T22:23:24Z")
Hitler. But I like **Hazel’s** idea of just altering his life to prevent him from ever coming to power in Germany. I truly believe the world would be a better place if he had been killed off before he hurt anyone. ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/23 "2001-10-08T23:00:34Z")
[simpsons] Homer is hard at work at the power plant. Well, he’s at the plant, anyway, listening to the radio. Announcer: … FDR is in the White House. An ice cream cone costs a nickel, and a hot new tune by Benny Goodman is hitting the charts. The year is 1939. [Benny Goodman’s hot new tune plays] Homer: Nineteen … 1939! Oh, my God, I’ve gone back in time! I’ve got to warn everybody about Hitler – and get to the ice cream store! ``` [Lenny and Carl walk into Homer's work area] ``` Lenny: Hey, Homer, what’s all the hubbub? Carl: Let me guess. You travel back in time again? Homer: Shut up. You haven’t even been born yet. [/simpsons] ---
**Author:** ![Osip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4491bb/32.png) [@Osip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osip)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/24 "2001-10-08T23:07:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mersavets \* > \*\*I’d probably have gotten Mao. Only Stalin rivalled him in number of victims. Stalin was necessary because despite all the evil things he did, he did beat Hitler. It’s too much of a gamble to entrust anybody else with that task. Stalin is the only one we _know_ could do the job because he was the only one who did. > \*\* Oh I think Trotsky would have done just fine. Stalin did murder off many officers whom could have provided a great improvement over the way Soviet Russia fought in the early part of their involvment of WW2. Trotsky IIRC was a general himself during the revolution. I think Trotsky would have been able to beat back Hitler. Of course, would Trotsky have signed the treaty in the first place with Germany? I might not be able to remember my soviet history during WW2 well, but I do not agree that Stalin was the only one who would have been able to beat back the germans. What if Karl Marx had been taken out at a young age in a Bizzare fishing accident? Osip ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/25 "2001-10-08T23:10:24Z")
- - - I would kill myself ten seconds before I died of other causes anyway. I figure that’s got to lead to something interesting. (-I know the usual is ice-your-grandfather, but apparently you end up living in a big cornfield with a psychic brat ten-year-old, and I can’t dig that.) - MC ---
**Author:** ![Osip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4491bb/32.png) [@Osip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osip)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/26 "2001-10-08T23:21:12Z")
Ack! responded before reading all the thread. So, Erasticity wants us to leave Marx out of it. I can see that, where is the line between the philosopher who brings forth ideas people reacet upon and religious figures. So, what if we were to take out Mr Romanov before he gave the orders to have Demitri son of Ivan the Terrible murdered? Oh yeah forgot, Demitri died in Uglich when he had an epeleptic fit while holding a knife :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/27 "2001-10-08T23:49:31Z")
mohammad atta, on sept 8th 2001 i wonder how that would have disrupted the whole plan? teddy roosvelt’s father that woulda stirred up shit teddy kennedy’s grandfather hummmmm? that would be an odd one of course, the big “H”-- i think this is the difinitive answer given vinnies rules where is richard dawson when you need him? (im not taking this too seriously, as i still have alot of work on the time machine yet to finish, but what does it matter, a day or 40 years?) ---
**Author:** ![lenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3bc359/32.png) [@lenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lenin)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/28 "2001-10-08T23:51:54Z")
Ooh! Communism! Fun fun fun! Killing off Karl Marx… That would SERIOUSLY fuck up history as we know it. Remember, Marx’s ideas weren’t just used in Russia and such. During the industrial revolution, the German Social Democrats focused on his ideals and took a standing position in the government. Worker reforms began, which in turn led into unions. If trade unions had never been developed, there would be no such thing as minimum wage, OSHA, etc., etc. So what’s my choice? Obvious. **Jack Ruby.** ---
**Author:** ![Solomon7t](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Solomon7t](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solomon7t)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/29 "2001-10-09T00:00:34Z")
I know Im not a key historical figure but I would kill myself, just to find out what would happen. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/30 "2001-10-09T00:41:07Z")
‘Lenin’ said: > [@](#): > > Killing off Karl Marx… That would SERIOUSLY fuck up history as we know it. Remember, Marx’s ideas weren’t just used in Russia and such. During the industrial revolution, the German Social Democrats focused on his ideals and took a standing position in the government. Worker reforms began, which in turn led into unions. If trade unions had never been developed, there would be no such thing as minimum wage, OSHA, etc., etc. In that case, I’d definitely have to vote for Karl Marx. But the problem is that ‘Lenin’ is making some amazing leaps of logic, that the German trade union movement led to OSHA and minimum wage laws. Can’t buy that. If we are talking about just going back and saving as many people as possible, then I’d have to vote for whoever I would have had to kill to prevent the rise of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union. Lenin, probably. No ideology is responsible for more deaths of human beings than Communism. If Lenin is dead, would Kerensky have held power, or was that early social democratic movement doomed to failure anyway? How would the world have turned out if the Soviet Union had been a socialist Democracy instead of a totalitarian Communist state? For one thing, I imagine that Hitler wouldn’t have stood a chance - a Democratic Russia would have been a LOT stronger than the miserable Communist screw-up that it really was. But hey, we got through the last century without blowing ourselves up with nuclear weapons. I’m not sure I’d want to change ANYTHING, because the result might have been infinitely more horrible than what did take place. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Goo_Fee)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/31 "2001-10-09T01:44:35Z")
For the sake of all humankind for all eternity, I would go back in time and kill Jesus Christ. By killing Christ, I would single-handedly remove the catalyst for the most destructive, hateful, vicious, deadly cult ever invented by the sick mind of homo sapien. (Just for the record-- I don’t have any problem with Jesus-- after all he taught his followers to “love one another.” Unfortunately, they took that to mean, “persecute and kill anyone different from you.”) Imagine the paradise-- one bullet, NO Christians! mmmmmmmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Goo_Fee)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/32 "2001-10-09T01:46:51Z")
Vinnie as for your rule of “secular persons only.” I consider Jesus Christ to be a secular figure. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Stewart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Dave\_Stewart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Stewart)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/33 "2001-10-09T02:40:26Z")
I can’t believe that someone would want to shoot FDR. Many non-Americans consider him the best US president ever, for his role in WW2. My problem with this is scenario is that it depends _when_ you shoot your victim. Shoot Hitler when he was a youth, and one might argue that Goering would have brought the Nazi party to power anyway. Shoot Hitler during the battle of Stalingrad, though, and the generals who failed in the coup would have seized power and achieved peace with the Allies. Shoot Marx, and you still have Engels, or anyone else who was unhappy with the harsh oppression of the workers by capitalists in 19th century Europe. Shoot Stalin during the battle of Stalingrad, though, and Beria might have come to power, and might have tried to achieve peace with Germany. FDR’s death at the end of WW2 didn’t stop Truman from dropping the bomb on Hiroshima after all. History usually just seems to play itself out, regardless of the actors, unless you get to key events when the characteristics of the actors determine the way events unfold. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/34 "2001-10-09T02:52:19Z")
When you’re through putzin’ around, give **Uke** his due. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/35 "2001-10-09T04:03:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > Clearly this tampering with space/time is more complicated than it at first seems. I’m sorry, but i have to hijack the thread to laugh at this. BWAHAHAHA Thank you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Frink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Mr.Frink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Frink)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/36 "2001-10-09T04:07:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > \*\*Guess I have to go with _FDR_. Without the socialist ball he got rolling, Johnsons programs may never have seen light of day. This country would be soooooooo much different/better had Rossevelt not been President. > \*\* Just wanted to point out that killing Roosevelt might have lead to a world you might hate more. With growing leftest sentiments in this country due to the Great Depression–Roosevelt might have been the one thing standing between the US and a communist/socialist revolution. Roosevelt’s New Deal absorbed a lot of socialist ideals…while also firmly guarding the capitalist open market system. He kept a delicate balance between both extremes in this country. At a critical time in our history – neither Fascism and Socialism ever took root in the United States due to **FDR** ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Stewart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Dave\_Stewart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Stewart)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/37 "2001-10-09T04:16:31Z")
Squishing a butterfly in the Jurassic leds to the election of a warmonger and phoenetic English. Good one Ray. I like instead the Hallowe’en episode of the Simpsons, in which Homer sneezes on a horrible prehistoric beastie, and comes back to the future to find that his children are horribly nice and polite - he goes back to the past to change things back to the way they were, and doesn’t hang around long enough to see that reality has changed so that the sky now rains donuts. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/38 "2001-10-09T04:17:56Z")
Reelect Smith/Wallace in '36! ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/39 "2001-10-09T04:43:46Z")
\<\\> Hey, wait a minute…Roosevelt died, of a sudden unforseen medical condition, after _most_ of the “important” stuff happened in WWII, but slightly before one of the last “biggies” that he should been responsible for…Did anyone else suddenly get the sinking feeling that someone got to him before us? 😉 Nick Gaston ---
**Author:** ![schplebordnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@schplebordnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schplebordnik)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2001, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093/40 "2001-10-09T04:55:09Z")
You gotta go back earlier. Kill Julius Caesar. Before he crosses the Rubicon. Preserve the Republic. Prevent degradation of the Empire via successively corrupt and/or incompetant Caesars. Eventually, the empire becomes more enlightened, outlawing slavery, spreading Pax Romana for millenia (OK, maybe they keep the gladiatorial arena for long enough for us who liked the movie to see it for real). The Dark Ages never happen, so there is no need for a Renaissance, as the empire has far exceeded that. And as an added bonus, Latin really is the Lingua Franca. Of course, absent him, you don’t kill Jesus, you kill the people who transcribed his teachings in a way that went “off message” by throwing a lot of judgmental moralizing on top of the underlying message of peace, love and sacrifice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-one-person-who-would-it-be/86093.md?page=3)