# To Shoot or Not To Shoot \[Hypothetical alt reality "kill Hitler" question\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 12, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085 "2011-02-12T00:38:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/41 "2011-02-12T19:32:13Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > Why a round trip ticket to kill one guy? Why not unlimited trips back and forth to kill every guy who has screwed things up? Killing one guy ain’t gonna solve anything and might make everything worse. > > It strikes me that this debate is meaningless. Indeed. Why is The Voice on such a strict schedule, with the “ten minutes” and all? Why is this (apparently) a one-shot (heh) deal? Well, speak up, Voice! ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/42 "2011-02-12T19:52:31Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Indeed. Why is The Voice on such a strict schedule, with the “ten minutes” and all? Why is this (apparently) a one-shot (heh) deal? > Well, speak up, Voice! Exactly. This smacks of a trick. [Picard voice] “We won’t do it, Q. You cannot trick us into playing your little games!” [/Picard] Oh my God. \*\*Q \*\*is **Qin Shi Huangdi**! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/43 "2011-02-12T20:01:03Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Think about this: what about the billions who would exist in the new world you would create but would not because you didn’t kill Hitler and thus the Butterfly Effect caused them not to be born? They can _bill_ me! ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/44 "2011-02-12T20:26:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Instead of shooting Hitler, can we just pour acid glue on him? No. Don’t fight the OP’s hypothetical, in which Hitler didn’t trap your only child under a burning car. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2011, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/45 "2011-02-12T21:02:45Z")
## Assuming eveything in the OP I’d still go for no. Can all of the people figthing the OP’s premise simply STFU? It’s not clever or anything like that. Danke schön. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2011, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/46 "2011-02-12T21:36:38Z")
The Voice assures me that the new timeline will be better _regardless_. So if I trust the Voice, then I can improve the timeline _just by doing nothing_. So regardless of whether I trust the Voice or not, my decision is the same. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/47 "2011-02-13T05:42:08Z")
I don’t think the “twenty close friends” I could save would appreciate it. They’d lose too many of _their_ friends. Better to go into the new timeline alone. Besides, why kill Hitler in 1911? Be much more interesting to kill Karl Marx as a young man & see what happens. Or does Marx get a Messianic exemption from this kind of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/48 "2011-02-13T07:38:35Z")
I’d shoot. 6 million+ saved…worth it. To me. I truly understand those who wouldn’t think so. And I would take on the guilty burden of ‘what if’ without much of a qualm. We already know ‘what’, and it was shitty. I’d chance an alternative. I would love to live in a world where the name Anne Frank means nothing outside the circle of people who personally knew her. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/49 "2011-02-13T08:02:36Z")
> [@Taomist](#): > > I’d chance an alternative. > I would love to live in a world where the name Anne Frank means nothing outside the circle of people who personally knew her. Or… “If only Chancellor Frank hadn’t gone mad back in the 70’s and started World War Three! Imagine what the world would be like today!” ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/50 "2011-02-13T08:45:18Z")
Can I shoot the dean who rejected Hitler’s art school application? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/51 "2011-02-13T09:46:50Z")
I am far too [genre savvy](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy) to even [attempt](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlekz83hawz) such a thing. NB - The second link looks whacked-out because of an embedded punctuation character. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/52 "2011-02-13T12:39:33Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Can I shoot the dean who rejected Hitler’s art school application? Again, why shoot, why not bribe? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/53 "2011-02-13T12:44:51Z")
'Cause it wasn’t Chekov’s wallet you were given. Alternative: 'cause the OP said you’d be given an automatic pistol, not an automated teller machine. Anyway, if Stephen King is any guide (and he is) what’ll happen is you’ll shoot at Hitler and miss, but he’ll brazenly use a young child as a human shield, destroying his future political career. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/54 "2011-02-13T13:16:03Z")
I’m surprised at the number of people that are butterfly-effect-fearing. Are you similarly concerned that significant decisions you make normally might have very indirect and unpredictable consequences? “I’d better not take that promotion, because it might result in an earthquake somehow…”. In fact the OP’s interpretation of the butteryfly effect implies that just about everything we do will ripple out and create a radically different world. Why did you have to put on blue underwear today, _you monster_. But yeah, like others I’d have to be sure I wasn’t crazy first, and understand temporal physics better. (In fact, the two go hand in hand: I’d ask the voice to give me novel scientific information that I can use to make testable predictions first). If all I’m doing is moving 21 people from one timeline to another, in a multiverse where there are infinite realities both better and worse than the one we’re living in…it seems kinda pointless. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/55 "2011-02-13T13:20:04Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I’m surprised at the number of people that are butterfly-effect-fearing. > Are you similarly concerned that significant decisions you make normally might have very indirect and unpredictable consequences? Not really. First, because they aren’t that obviously important. And second, a mysterious Voice isn’t telling me to do them. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/56 "2011-02-13T14:34:46Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Not really. First, because they aren’t that obviously important. And second, a mysterious Voice isn’t telling me to do them. Both points are talking about my perspective on things, not the underlying truth of the situation. They’re irrelevant. The reason why we don’t think about very indirect unpredictable consequences is because we can’t. Also it’s not very clear how we can apply chaos theory to the world as a whole. My point was that the OP does imply a specific view of how chaos theory applies to the world as a whole: that all our actions will “ripple out”, and quickly too, if we accept that Hitler’s death changes all of the world’s births. Me picking different underwear might take longer to affect the rest of the world, but it will, eventually. If we’re going to take this weird, temporal guardian view on things, why should I think about ripple effects in one case, but not the other? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/57 "2011-02-13T17:39:15Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > I’d much rather be rid of Chairman Mao, as his stupidity was a net loss for humanity, whereas Hitler’s stupidity allowed us to finish the war quicker. We already live in the timeline in which Mao’s son died in the Korean War, and so we didn’t end up with a sixty-times larger version of North Korea. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/58 "2011-02-13T17:55:11Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I’m surprised at the number of people that are butterfly-effect-fearing. > Are you similarly concerned that significant decisions you make normally might have very indirect and unpredictable consequences? “I’d better not take that promotion, because it might result in an earthquake somehow…” Ever play Jenga? Take a brick from the top, and all you’ve done is created a superficial change that doesn’t effect much. Take a brick from the bottom, on the other hand, and the whole thing could topple over. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/59 "2011-02-13T22:46:36Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Ever play Jenga? Take a brick from the top, and all you’ve done is created a superficial change that doesn’t effect much. Take a brick from the bottom, on the other hand, and the whole thing could topple over. You can’t get much more superficial than a butterfly flapping its wings, and that’s why it was chosen as an illustration of chaos theory. Superficial differences _do_ have a huge effect on chaotic systems, eventually. (Of course “eventually” is a key word here…) I’m not arguing that we should concern ourselves with “ripple effects”. I’m saying quite the opposite: that we should weigh up actions on their predictable effects. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2011, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085/60 "2011-02-13T23:44:28Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > It also assures you the world you will create will no matter what happens will still be better than OTL. …And if you can’t trust a disembodied voice telling you to kill people, who can you trust? Can I just give Hitler one of those matchboxes with the “Can you draw Tippy the Turtle” pics instead? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot-hypothetical-alt-reality-kill-hitler-question/571085.md?page=4)