Would you tell Hitler's mom to have an abortion?

[Ebowed]

An interesting question from the other abortion thread.  I vote no.

[Nation]

If it would prevent the Holocaust, then sure.

[John Dibble]

No. I think I'd tell her what her son would do, and what would be necessary to change the course of events leading to his rise to power so that it wouldn't happen and maybe he'd end up a decent person. Of course, either way, it would seriously screw up the timeline, and many of us possibly wouldn't be born ourselves, so the best option is to leave the timeline be.

[Gabu]

Hard to say.  The question, "What if Hitler never rose to power?" was the premise of the game Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and anyone who's played that game knows that the outcome there was none to great.

[Jake]

No.  Like I said in the other thread, Hitler made good, bad, and awful things happen to the world, but that's how history happened, and I don't want to think about changing it.

[PBrunsel]

Another guy would have rose in Germany. The Weimer Government was corrupt and the Communists were not wanted.

[Dave from Michigan]

no

[J. J.]

What, and screw up the timeline!!!!  NO!!!!

[ian]

HECK YES!  One unborn foetus for 6 million living people?  Think about it.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Due to chaos theory if the Holocaust hadn't happened I wouldn't be born. Ignoring  that, the answer would be yes.

[J. J.]

HECK YES!  One unborn foetus for 6 million living people?  Think about it.

Or a substantially more ruthless Heinrich Himmler becomes Fuhrer, and 6 million more people get killed, or England gets invaded.

[Hitchabrut]

Another guy would have rose in Germany. The Weimer Government was corrupt and the Communists were not wanted.

Nice point. Israel would never become independent and the chance of screwing up history would be too great.

[Akno21]

I have no clue how I would be born. 1/4 of me would still be in Europe.

The scary part is how big of an influence one man can have on world history.

J.J., how is Himmler more ruthless than Hitler? How is anyone?

The way history turned out was favorable to us, living in the USA now. If changing it would help people who Hitler murdered, but hurt us, what do you do? I'm undecided.

[angus]

if I knocked her up, yeah.

otherwise no.  it's her business.

by the way, the bitch was known to  jews.  what a whore.

[angus]

ash, I always forget to say.  I voted no by the way.

[Rob]

I agree with angus. It would be her business. And as was said earlier in the thread, it could possibly lead to something much worse happening.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I agree with angus. It would be her business. And as was said earlier in the thread, it could possibly lead to something much worse happening.

So if we have the oppurtunity to kill Osama, we should decline, because it could possibly lead to something much worse happening?

[Citizen James]

Hmmm.... Reminds me of the dead zone. (great movie if you ever get the chance to see it.).

I suppose an underlying question is how chaotic the flow of history is (that is how much a relatvely small change in the right spot can disrupt the timeline), and if there are certain things which have a degree of inevitibliltiy to them.

Germany was is a very tough situaton, with runaway inflation and crushing war debt from WW1.  It is possible that a different charismatic extremist could have come up in his place.  Pograms had been widespread throughout Europe for over a millenia. Ultranationalism was already springing up elsewhere in Europe - places like Italy and Spain, and Japan still had their own imperial aims at the time as well.

A retroactive abortion ala the terminator movies might have delayed WW2, and possibly averted the worst of the Holocaust, or it might not have.   A different leader might also have sought to take England before double crossing Russia, putting things in dire straits.

Still for all the horror there are some good things that came out of the second world war - A highly public exposure of exactly how evil racism is and a brutal example of how bad mans inhumanity to man can become, a strong warning against blindly trusting government and leaders, the United Nations, and, of course, jfern.

A similar notion could be applied to curent day.  A masive split in the potential timeline occured because of the errors of a minor government official in Florida in 2000.   I'm sure more than a few science fiction authors (and quite a few amatur hacks will have a stab at how things might have unfolded differently - for better or worse.

Some might say that we were due for some reactionary backlash.  It happens now and then through the ebb and flow of history.  The social conservative's tinkering doesn't tend to last (the 18th amendment for example), and usually ends up driving the next counter-reactionary slide of the opposite extreme as we swing back and forth to an average a gradual progress which leaves some people uncomfortable and others yearning for more.

So I figure, it would be more likely to have a slightly postive effect, though I doubt it would have prevented ww2 entirely - so let's go ahead and send Arnie back to do the deed, and add a list of secondary targets of other infamous nazis too - just make sure he skips his father, that would make for an annoying paradox.

[Beet]

That would be cost nothing, save 60 million people, if it is pre-consciousness, cost 1 life, save 60 million lives, if it is post-consciousness.

The war in Iraq on the other hand, is cost 100,000 lives, create pseudo-sovereign democracy.

[Ebowed]

HECK YES!  One unborn foetus for 6 million living people?  Think about it.

Actually closer to 11 million.  He killed 6 million Jews, but then there are the Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the handicapped, the homosexuals, and several other groups of people.

[Beet]

HECK YES!  One unborn foetus for 6 million living people?  Think about it.

Actually closer to 11 million.  He killed 6 million Jews, but then there are the Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the handicapped, the homosexuals, and several other groups of people.

Ahem... see 60 million above. We have forgotten about a few little things such as the invasion of Poland, blitzkreig, the Battle of Britain, and most of all, Operation Barbarossa. With the League of Nations weakened, the USSR no threat, and the British and French unable to defend their Pacific assets, the Japanese naturally saw a perfect opportunity to knock out their last remaining competitor in the Pacific. Overall, the casualty estimate from WWII is about 55-60 million.

[12th Doctor]

Due to chaos theory if the Holocaust hadn't happened I wouldn't be born. Ignoring  that, the answer would be yes.

You are thinking of "Butterfly Effect" which is acctually the opposite of Chaos Theory.

At anyrate, the answer is no.  Not only do I not condone abortion, regardless of what the person might end up to be, I also think that things might have acctually have turned out worse without Hitler.

Without Hitler, the Great Depression would have dragged on in the US for quite a few more years, resulting in the possability for the rise of an "American Hitler" or a socialist regime.

Without Hitler, Germany might have fallen to communism through internal presure.

Without Hitler, there would have been no one to challenge Stalin when the Soviet Union became a super power.  Stalin would have rolled over Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, easily conquered a weak Germany and moved on to take over France and Italy.

Hitler, like all other people, was created innocent, regardless of his deeds in life, until he acctually did something, no person woul dbe justified in taking his life.  If I could do something to change the course of history, by changing Hitler, I would wait until 1937 or 1938, when there would finally be just cause for his death (or the invasion of Germany).

[12th Doctor]

Actually closer to 11 million.  He killed 6 million Jews, but then there are the Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the handicapped, the homosexuals, and several other groups of people.

Catholics

[Beet]

Ahem, I take issue is the idea that Hitler did not help Stalin make himself more powerful. The Soviet Union became a superpower only because of Hitler's massively stupid miscalculation in invading Russia and allowing the Russians to completely take over half of Europe, while at the same time winning over enough converts in the U.S. to steal nuclear technology. Before Hitler's invasion putting the Red Army into the ultimate crucible, the Russian army could not even defeat Finland, so destructive were Stalin's purges and the atmosphere of terror. After the war, communism became x3 more powerful than before.

I also take issue with the idea that the Great Depression would have continued past 1937, because by that year, the economy was larger than it had been in 1929. By 1937, there was virtually a full economic recovery except a slightly higher unemployment. By 1940, unemployment was heading down again and clearly returning to normal while the GNP was significantly higher than 1929 and growing.

[12th Doctor]

Ahem, I take issue is the idea that Hitler did not help Stalin make himself more powerful. The Soviet Union became a superpower only because of Hitler's massively stupid miscalculation in invading Russia and allowing the Russians to completely take over half of Europe, while at the same time winning over enough converts in the U.S. to steal nuclear technology. Before Hitler's invasion putting the Red Army into the ultimate crucible, the Russian army could not even defeat Finland, so destructive were Stalin's purges and the atmosphere of terror. After the war, communism became x3 more powerful than before.

By 1945, Stalin would have has a fomidable military machine that the other nations of Europe would have had a hard time matching.  The Japanese were already planning to invade the Soveit Union before their pact with Germany.  This would have had a similar effect on the Soveit Union as the Nazi invasion.  The only difference is that it would not have weaken the Soviet Union nearly as badly.  Stalin wanted to be the military power of Europe, of that there is no question.  Without the Nazis in place, he would have used his influence in the 30's and early 40's to trigger communist revolutions all over Eastern Europe.  A war with Japan would also have meant Soviet expansion into Manchuria and Korea and Stalin's support for a communist over throw of Chinese government, perhaps as early as 1943.

Remember, Hitler took power in 1933, from that time on Germany sucked momentum away from the Soviets.  The reason Stalin could not over-take the Finns was because they were being supported, both by man-power and material, by the Nazis.

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1937 was the same year that war production began in earnest all over the world.  The global economy was imporving, because everyone, including the US, was building weapons.