# Kill Hitler or Prevent Meth? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 12, 2018, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309 "2018-04-12T18:09:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/21 "2018-04-12T19:21:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If I kill Hitler, I think Stalin would have started WWII, and he wasn’t any better than der Fuehrer. > Regards, > Shodan It is interesting to consider the Russians attacking Europe without lend lease. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/22 "2018-04-12T19:30:32Z")
I’d kill Hitler because without meth some other drug would’ve come along and done the same amount of damage. There are dozens of ampetamine like drugs out there, if it hadn’t been meth it would’ve been something else. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/23 "2018-04-12T19:36:44Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If I kill Hitler, I think Stalin would have started WWII, and he wasn’t any better than der Fuehrer. > > I would pick meth, in part because it would have fewer wide-ranging effects. It’s horrible to say, but WWII ended the Great Depression and colonial empires in general. And discredited ant-Semitism once and for all, at least among the civilized. > > Regards, > Shodan Yeah but if that had happened, then eventually the USSR would’ve lost WW2. Even with lend-lease and the allies providing them with tons of supplies, they lost tens of millions of Russian citizens due to military mismanagement. I’m assuming/hoping any war with the USSR would’ve been over in 2 years or so, just because of Stalin killing his officers, lack of military hardware and mismanagement. So had the USSR fallen then maybe the soviet states would’ve adopted market capitalism instead of centrally planned economics, and as a result in 2018 they’d all be richer than they are now. Which means global levels of development and science would be higher than now. Many ex-USSR states saw their economies quadruple in size pretty rapidly after the soviet union fell. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/24 "2018-04-12T19:38:07Z")
Hitler was addicted to meth so why not both? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/25 "2018-04-12T19:47:35Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t think he would have. Stalin was a coward. He never took chances that he could avoid. That’s one reason he killed so many people; he’d kill anybody who might pose a threat to him rather than take the chance that they didn’t. > > War’s always a risk. I don’t think Stalin would have worked up the nerve to start one. He invaded Poland at nearly the same time as Hitler, and had previously invaded and conquered Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Although the USSR got kind of embarrassed by their military’s performance in Finland, even though they eventually won. I believe their poor performance was one of the things that encouraged Hitler to invade the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia would probably not have posed much more of a challenge - maybe less. Would he have invaded Germany? Don’t know. Without the military buildup of the Reich, maybe, and maybe even won. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/26 "2018-04-12T19:48:25Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Hitler was addicted to meth so why not both? That wouldn’t have made a very interesting thread. “Let’s kill Hitler and eliminate meth!” \ \ \ \<\\> ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/27 "2018-04-12T19:51:58Z")
You gotta look at the big picture man, sure killing Hitler might save millions of lives, but if you stop Meth from being a thing you’ll never get to watch Breaking Bad on TV. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/28 "2018-04-12T19:56:00Z")
> [@pool](#): > > You gotta look at the big picture man, sure killing Hitler might save millions of lives, but if you stop Meth from being a thing you’ll never get to watch Breaking Bad on TV. One must, after all, be aware of one’s priorities. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/29 "2018-04-12T19:58:01Z")
> [@pool](#): > > You gotta look at the big picture man, sure killing Hitler might save millions of lives, but if you stop Meth from being a thing you’ll never get to watch Breaking Bad on TV. Well, I never watched it anyway, so I wouldn’t miss it. And maybe that creative energy could have been poured into a re-imagined Babylon 5, without all the crap that cluttered up the last season… ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/30 "2018-04-12T20:23:50Z")
Hitler. The victims of the Holocaust didn’t really have a choice in the matter (though I sometimes wonder why more Jews didn’t get the hell out of there, life was pretty miserable even before they started gassing them). Meth users have some responsibility for their own problems. I would pick Hitler even if more people died of Meth. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/31 "2018-04-12T20:26:33Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Meth users have some responsibility for their own problems. True, but they also have victims. The kids, spouses, parents of the addicts pay a hefty price for doing nothing wrong. And I get to deal with the aftermath… ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/32 "2018-04-12T20:41:14Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > True, but they also have victims. The kids, spouses, parents of the addicts pay a hefty price for doing nothing wrong. And I get to deal with the aftermath… I’m pretty sure the death of 6M people left a little bit of an aftermath for a lot of other people. And that’s just the Jews. I don’t buy that you shouldn’t kill Hitler because it could hypothetically make other things worse. That act, especially if it happened early before he had any influence, would have a huge butterfly effect that I don’t think one could possibly predict. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/33 "2018-04-12T20:49:20Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > I don’t buy that you shouldn’t kill Hitler because it could hypothetically make other things worse. That act, especially if it happened early before he had any influence, would have a huge butterfly effect that I don’t think one could possibly predict. Oh I have no problem killing Hitler. Taking him out would clearly be a public service, even if it resulted in an alignment change and loss of experience points. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/34 "2018-04-12T21:02:27Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > I’m somewhat conflicted here. Hitler was probably the biggest monster humanity has ever produced, responsible for previously unimaginable evil. This is an artifact of better record-keeping in the modern era. Hitler can’t compare with Genghis Khan in terms of percentage of the world killed, and, frankly, given how many times the Bible shows God commanding genocide, our modern distaste for it seems a bit exaggerated in broad historical terms. Secondly, Hitler was the best thing that ever happened to the Allied war effort: The man was a horrible leader, a micromanager who knew practically nothing, a politicker who let politics get in the way of sound doctrine, a petty tyrant who was so feared by his subordinates it directly aided the Allied landings on D-Day, and, yes, addicted to amphetamines. Knock Hitler out, and there’s still a post-WWI German far-right, there’s still other demagogues who see the potential for leveraging the German political ferment and street violence into personal power, there’s still German business and traditionalist elements willing to cozy up to extremists who promise to help them fight far-left elements, and, maybe, someone who actually knows how to run a country and run a war ends up dictator, instead, so instead of a relatively straightforwards WWII, where Germany beats itself to death against the USSR, the UK, and the US, all at once, it launches a few brief irredentist campaigns to “reclaim lost lands” but otherwise acts as a bulwark against Soviet expansion and inaugurates a Cold War where Germany is left alone to quietly persecute and destroy minorities unopposed. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, I deal with people affected by meth almost every day. Not just the users–they are largely responsible for their own actions, but also the spouses, parents, and especially the children. Nothing I’ve ever encountered can absolutely destroy a life so quickly. I wish it could be magically purged from the face of the Earth. You don’t want to purge amphetamines from the face of the Earth, you want to destroy illegal meth labs making a toxic product in toxic conditions, impoverished meth users who can’t seek treatment outside of the prison system, and the criminal cartels who run the labs and keep the addicts supplied. Were this 1928 instead of 2018, you’d be wishing for alcohol to be removed from the Earth, and citing practically all of the same things I just mentioned, transposed to stills making wood alcohol, blinded and mentally-devastated alcoholics who drank that alcohol, and, again, criminal cartels running things behind the scenes. We know what got rid of illegal alcohol production in this country. That much is a simple matter of historical fact. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/35 "2018-04-12T21:12:00Z")
Kill Hitler. I rather like speed, though so did he. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/36 "2018-04-12T21:20:18Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Hitler. The victims of the Holocaust didn’t really have a choice in the matter (though I sometimes wonder why more Jews didn’t get the hell out of there, life was pretty miserable even before they started gassing them). They couldn’t take their property with them. Bribes were required to leave. Of course after the killing began, they couldn’t leave. The US had immigrant quotas, I don’t know about other countries. Some families probably didn’t have enough money to leave Europe. Some moved to other countries in Europe which were taken by the Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/37 "2018-04-12T21:34:18Z")
If you land back in time and find a living hitler in power, i think you have already failed to prevent the existence of Methamphetamines, they are already there ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/38 "2018-04-12T21:42:45Z")
Reluctantly, I choose to kill Hitler. This means altering history, which usually turns out to be a Bad Thing in time-travel fiction. However, preventing methamphetamine (or any chemical) from existing would mean somehow messing with the fundamental properties of the elements, which is practically guaranteed to result in a world without life, at least as we know it. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@MonkeyCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyCat)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/39 "2018-04-12T21:49:12Z")
I’m not entirely sure they’re largely responsible for their own actions. I’ve learned more about the underbelly of the world in recent years, and I’ve come to find there’s a point in which drugs cease to be a choice and start being an absolute controlling compulsion overriding all others. That said, why meth? Why not heroin? Crack? I agree that the advent of drugs has resulted in unspeakable evil, countless lives lost. I cannot be sure which side I’d choose. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309/40 "2018-04-12T21:51:07Z")
> [@Ignotus](#): > > However, preventing methamphetamine (or any chemical) from existing would mean somehow messing with the fundamental properties of the elements, which is practically guaranteed to result in a world without life, at least as we know it. I can’t speak for the OP, but the hypothetical could easily keep the chemical order of things intact by just saying that meth would never be discovered. Nobody would stumble upon the recipe or formula for it and it wouldn’t occur to anyone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-hitler-or-prevent-meth/812309.md?page=3)