Would You Kill Someone, if You Could Get Away With It?

[Guest]

They say some people are only alive because it's against the law to kill them. And they're 100% correct.

But anyway, here's one for the "under no circumstances" crowd:

You're briefly transported back in time with the option to kill Hitler before his rise to power. You've no opportunity to do anything else but kill or not kill. You don't get to talk him out of committing genocide or warn anybody of his plans (like they'd believe you anyway, future boy). Just a binary option. Do you or don't you?

[David]

Probably not, no. There's every chance that someone else would have risen to power in his place. Germany was ripe for that shit after the Treaty of Versailles, and they may have installed someone just as evil but less mental and less prone to making the mistakes that eventually led to his own downfall.

[Brewster McCloud]

16 minutes ago, Uncle Zeb said:

They say some people are only alive because it's against the law to kill them. And they're 100% correct.

But anyway, here's one for the "under no circumstances" crowd:

You're briefly transported back in time with the option to kill Hitler before his rise to power. You've no opportunity to do anything else but kill or not kill. You don't get to talk him out of committing genocide or warn anybody of his plans (like they'd believe you anyway, future boy). Just a binary option. Do you or don't you?

Stephen Fry had an interesting answer to the old killing Hitler conundrum; Hitler refused to use Jewish scientists and as a result the nazis didn't develop nuclear weapons, Jewish scientists being smarter than the average kraut boffin. Or something like that. As David said, though, Germany was fertile ground for a similar despot, killing one potential figurehead wouldn't do much to change history. 

And what do you mean, "nobody would believe you" - many people knew of and were terrified about what was brewing in Germany in the 30s. 

[Carbomb]

7 minutes ago, Brewster McCloud said:

Stephen Fry had an interesting answer to the old killing Hitler conundrum; Hitler refused to use Jewish scientists and as a result the nazis didn't develop nuclear weapons, Jewish scientists being smarter than the average kraut boffin. Or something like that. As David said, though, Germany was fertile ground for a similar despot, killing one potential figurehead wouldn't do much to change history. 

It was actually a little more complex than that. 

Basically, it was a result of discrimination in academia and the social values that fed into it. Until the early 20th century, the way physics was taught and perceived was vastly different to how it is now, with practical/applied physics being considered "the cream" which only the elite could study (i.e. "too good for Jews"), and theoretical physics considered the namby-pamby, woo-woo stuff for people with crazy ideas (i.e. "that's alright for Jews to study").

Fast-forward to WWII, and all of sudden, people are realising that, actually, theoretical physics is the realm of the true elite of physics, especially when they're having nuclear bombs dropped on them developed by said elites.

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Brewster McCloud said:

And what do you mean, "nobody would believe you" - many people knew of and were terrified about what was brewing in Germany in the 30s. 

I didn't specify the '30s.

Anyway, these are cop-out answers, knowingly avoiding the point I'm trying to make, so since it's all hypothetical let's adjust the parameters:

Say you somehow know that killing Hitler will spare millions of lives (and not inadvertently cost millions more). Now make the moral, binary choice with the implications that are clearly intended here.

[The King Of Swing]

1 hour ago, David said:

I'm as critical of Trump as the next guy, but you'd group him and the likes of Pence in with people like al-Assad, who has reportedly committed war crimes that have been called "the worst since Nazi Germany"?

Given them to time. Trump's in particular is probably always one bad tweet away from igniting WWIII.

Doubt I'd kill someone. But I would gladly spend 12 hours kicking Boris Johnson in the nuts.

[David]

1 minute ago, The King Of Swing said:

Given them to time. Trump's in particular is probably always one bad tweet away from igniting WWIII.

If given the option, I'd rather we were talking about Trump making a fool of himself and talking about his Twitter than discussing what Clinton could have been up to.

[Maverick]

It's a weird one working as a journalist over here in Northern Ireland. You're dealing with people who have killed someone or been involved in the planning pretty much every day.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

2 hours ago, David said:

droning the fuck out of entire families 

You are certainly the expert on droning David. 

 

I know for myself that if it came to murder that I couldn't do it. I used to work in a show that used a gun to fire blanks. Even knowing they were blanks I still couldn't pull the trigger, so there is no way I'm killing someone.

[David]

19 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

You are certainly the expert on droning David. 

[Weezenal]

8 hours ago, David said:

Physically impossible, but I welcome the advice nonetheless.

Watch your back, in a mirror.