Who would you kill?

Firstly, I wouldn't go back and kill anybody because it might create a split in spacetime and the present would be different and I might cease to exist. For example no Adolf Hitler might mean no World War Two, and my parents met in 1942 in the Royal Air Force.

Secondly, the question is a bit like "If you could be yourself as a younger person, which big mistake in your life would you go back and not make?". The fact is we can't do that, we have to live with the life we've got, and it's neurotic to dwell on what might have been. The future is the part of our lives which we can influence, and that's what we should be thinking about.

I realise that my answer is kind of dull, sorry!

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contrex wrote:

Firstly, I wouldn't go back and kill anybody because it might create a split in spacetime and the present would be different and I might cease to exist. For example no Adolf Hitler might mean no World War Two, and my parents met in 1942 in the Royal Air Force.

Secondly, the question is a bit like "If you could be yourself as a younger person, which big mistake in your life would you go back and not make?". The fact is we can't do that, we have to live with the life we've got, and it's neurotic to dwell on what might have been. The future is the part of our lives which we can influence, and that's what we should be thinking about.

I realise that my answer is kind of dull, sorry!

Oh but it's sound!

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I wasn't being that deep contrex, I'm not trying to alter the space time contiuum

I'm just asking which complete bastard from the past would you like to kill?

It's not a f8cking conundrum

This is my happy face Very Happy

just in case you thought I was a bad tempered person

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All right, then, Henry VIII.

But suppose I went back in time and shot (say) George Bush 1 or 2 in their pram, supposing I had the nerve to do that, I bet I'd come back to the present and everything would be more or less exactly the same, except that President James Q Toadthrup Jr was in the White House, and someone called Lovejoy had posted on Able2know this question:

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If you had a time machine who would you go back in time and kill?

Jim Toadthrup 1
Jim Toadthrup 2
If you are British Margaret Thatcher would be the obvious choice for most people, but who would you like to go back in time and kill?

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What is it with you anti Toadthruppers ? They are a dynasty... Get used to it !

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Not to pick on you Contrex, because I'm sure you didn't think it through fully before you answered and I had the benefit of Lovejoy's later clarification, but an interesting byproduct of this question would be to address what's implied in your answer when you say, "I wouldn't kill Hitler because then world war II wouldn't have happened and my parents wouldn't have met and I wouldn't have been born..." which seems to imply that you'd go ahead and trade those millions of lives for your existence....in other words, would someone rather world disasters like WWII and injustices like slavery be allowed to stand if stopping them meant forfeiting one's own existence?

I guess that people who were alive and aware during those times who stood by and did nothing were answering in the affirmative to some extent(in other words, yes, let this happen- I don't want to risk my existence to stop it) but for those of us who were not alive, it'd be interesting to know if we'd be able to put our money where our mouths are.

(I just watched Fateless-an exceptionally beautifully shot film (every scene is really like a photograph) about the the experience of the Jews during WWII as perceived through the eyes of a fourteen year old boy. With this fresh in my mind - I think I'd be able to kill Hitler).

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aidan wrote:

I'm sure you didn't think it through fully before you answered

Don't patronise me. I promise you that I thought it through quite as fully as it needed. Anyway, it's the sort of question that comes up quite often when people are sitting around having a joint or a drink, and I have thought about it quite a few times already.

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you'd go ahead and trade those millions of lives for your existence

Yup. In a flash. I was born in 1952. They were already dead. Hard luck, sure, but I'm alive, and I would quite like to remain that way, and I would like my children and grandchildren and friends and colleagues and favourite rock bands, writers and artists to continue to have existed* too.

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....in other words, would someone rather world disasters like WWII and injustices like slavery be allowed to stand if stopping them meant forfeiting one's own existence?

We don't know that something equally bad if not worse might not take their places. I suspect a rather comic-book/Hollywood view of history is being peddled here.

I'm not getting at you, (I promise!) but I think you're talking like a "prat" as we say where I come from. There are no time machines and even if there were, I think it might be very stupid indeed to meddle with them.

* stupid phrase which just shows how juvenile and silly this discussion is.

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Some homeless guy.

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The author of this thread

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Bill Gates ....

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Quote:

aidan wrote:
I'm sure you didn't think it through fully before you answered

Don't patronise me. I promise you that I thought it through quite as fully as it needed. Anyway, it's the sort of question that comes up quite often when people are sitting around having a joint or a drink, and I have thought about it quite a few times already.

Okay - sorry to have patronised you. I guess we must have hung around with different people having our joints and drinks because I've actually never had this discussion before with anyone I can remember.

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Quote:
you'd go ahead and trade those millions of lives for your existence

Yup. In a flash. I was born in 1952. They were already dead. Hard luck, sure, but I'm alive, and I would quite like to remain that way, and I would like my children and grandchildren and friends and colleagues and favourite rock bands, writers and artists to continue to have existed* too.

Good to know. On the other hand, I'd think I'd trade having listened to or heard the Stones for possessing the knowledge that something like the Holocaust had been diverted. And God help me, but honestly, I think if it meant remaining childless to have averted it - I'd have remained childless (and that has nothing to do with how much I do or don't love my children).
And I hope my mother would say the same thing- that she'd have bypassed my existence to avert the holocaust. I'll have to ask her though -

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Quote:
....in other words, would someone rather world disasters like WWII and injustices like slavery be allowed to stand if stopping them meant forfeiting one's own existence?

We don't know that something equally bad if not worse might not take their places. I suspect a rather comic-book/Hollywood view of history is being peddled here.

He didn't say anything about anything taking it's place- he just asked who you would kill if you had the chance. You're the one peddling the the alternative disasters.

Quote:

I'm not getting at you, (I promise!) but I think you're talking like a "prat" as we say where I come from. There are no time machines and even if there were, I think it might be very stupid indeed to meddle with them.

* stupid phrase which just shows how juvenile and silly this discussion is.

[/QUOTE]
Yes, but you've had it (this discussion) many times before you said...and you even thought it through fully before you sat down to now write about it.
This is the first time I've ever even thought of the subject- and I will admit that I find it interesting and I'll probably even bring it up at the dinner table tonight (before we smoke our joints).
Do you often talk and write over and over about things you find juvenile and silly? Explain to me what a prat is again....

Slappy - which homeless person would you kill and why?

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cjhsa wrote:

The author of this thread

am I really worse than pol pot cjhsa? or a **** pot or a piss pot I think not my old chum Cool

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I'd also have killed Sadaam Hussein. I've been doing some reading and it's become clear to me for the first time, exactly how completely and with what pure evil and selfish intent he had terrorized and persecuted Iraqi people. I'd read everything in the media as it was occurring - but I didn't have a realistic picture until now.

This does not mean I endorse the war - I don't. I just mean that if I'd had the opportunity to kill Sadaam before he began terrorizing his countrymen and women, I would have.

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Quote:

I'd think I'd trade having listened to or heard the Stones for possessing the knowledge that something like the Holocaust had been diverted.

I'd trade it for a cup of decent coffee. However, this is a profoundly silly discussion.

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I would kill the fathers of all the girls who ever gave me the clap BEFORE they were born...

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Lucius Cornelius Sulla

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nobody. i'd be worried that somebody even worse may take the killed guy's place and that i might actually make the world an even worse place. say i killed hitler.... how could i know that WWII would not happen? Or something equally terrible or worse?

plus, i'd never feel i have any right to do anything of the sort....

(i also dislike the hypothetical dilemmas - there are so many very real dilemmas out there to ponder, which tends to be more useful to ponder... but i get that this thread is not pretending to be a serious dilemma, just a lighthearted curiosity...so nevermind that at all)

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.....from what i read here it seems we would have to kill a whole bunch of people so that they don't kill a whole bunch of people..... what would that make us?

it wouldn't be enough to kill hitler... you'd need to take out a few hundred others... those that influenced the ideas of pan-Germanism, Ratzel... the thinkers and doers in Hitler's era that were influenced by the same sources as Hitler.... there' s no reason to assume that without Hitler the Holocaust would not happen. Fascism took a few more people than just him and if he weren't there, somebody else would have been.

Same for Saddam Hussein and most other tyrants. (Still, it's a rather useless dilemma).

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cjhsa wins the prize for the best answer Rolling Eyes

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Who would you kill?

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