If you had 10 minutes with a 10 year old Hitler....?

Question

You've traveled back in time 1899 but you only have ten minutes. You're in a room with a young Adolf Hitler. No one else is present unless you want them to be. Would you...

A) Kill him immediately before he becomes the monster you know he will become.

B) Say something to him that you hope has enough of an effect that it will prevent his reign of terror.

C) Do nothing because you realize if it wasn't Hitler, some other person could rise to power and do the same or much worse.

or

D) Something else entirely....

Answer 1

You wouldn't dare kill him, haven't you learned not to mess with the space time continuum? Consider the possible consequence. You kill Hitler as a young child, years later, say 1933, Ernst Roehm instead becomes dictator, in mid 1930s, HE decides to begin 'heavy water' experiments which lead to the first nuclear bomb built in 1939. With that device, he easiliy defeats mother russia and the allies, and the Final Solution is 'completed.' Your mistep in the space time continuum caused the death of ALL European Jewry and enslavement of half the planet...way to go!....you should'a stayed home in bed where it was safe and leave the living to others..

Answer 2

Those who hate Hitler are really hating themselves. Why else would they displace their anger so?

Let's try a thought experiment. If I told you to jump off a bridge, and you did it, would you be angry with me? What if I told a whole country to jump off a bridge? If everyone ignores me, what harm am I doing?

And this is the point. The problem was not the Hitler advocated eugenic ideas to the point of exterminating people. The problem was that people did it! If Germany had not gone along with the whole thing, Hitler would have just been some unemployed madman screaming on a corner somewhere (which is where his party originally found him).

People can't accept this because that means accepting that they are evil. So they blame the messenger. They pretend that Americans didn't lock citizens of Japanese descent into the same kind of concentration camps in WW2. They pretend that they didn't vehemently agree to throw celebrities in jail because they wouldn't turn on their friends during McCarthyism. And they pretend that they didn't vote for the politicians who wanted to close down all the 'liberal universities' after 9/11.

As long as people see things as HITLER's fault and not their own, they can continue to commit atrocities themselves. Once they accept responsibility, Hitler becomes a pitiable figure rather than a hateful one.

Further, it bears mention that if one person can travel back in time, so can another one. There is NO certainty that Hitler will do ANYTHING in that scenario... as far as you know, some other traveller is going to show up and change things more the second you leave. All you can do is react to circumstances as you find them, not as you believe that they might become.

Answer 3

I would definitely delete choice A since I would never hurt a child no matter what, because at such a young age children are just Innocent. I would also eliminate choice C since only Hitler can do what Hitler did(He might be the killer that most people think but at that time he was considered by the Germans to be there leader.). Now Choice C might sound reasonable but it ain't since 10 year old Hitler most probably did not have the mentality of OLD Hitler and thus one might not find anything to change. Even if we supposed that he had OLD Hitler mentality then what could ten minutes do. So the most appropriate choice in my opinion would be D.

Answer 4

I think I'll choose B because the words said to a younger person has much more influence than an older person. It might prevent him from becoming the monster.

Answer 5

Why stop at Hitler? I'd solve the whole problem of Man's-inhumanity-to-Man (and Woman's etc) by going back a LOT further and knocking a hole in Noah's Ark!!! (Just joking, I think... It'd be a pity about the animals, though...) :-)

Answer 6

A. It's the only sure way of stopping him from getting the chance. Sure someone else could have done the same awful things, but you would go form 100% certainty to some lesser chance.

Answer 7

interesting question. i'd probably try to talk to him or something. try and turn him around. maybe convince him to be something else entirely.

Answer 8

I'd do nothing because I don't want to screw with the past.

Answer 9

b

Answer 10

d