FYIGAQ, Better Of Ted edition
Imagine you are magically transported back to April 21st, 1889. You find yourself in the town of Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary. Before you lies the one-day old Adolph Hitler, unattended in his crib. You have but 30 seconds before you and you alone are magically whisked back to present day.
What do you do?
Some key constraints:
1.) The baby is no doubt Adolph Hitler.
2.) Barring intervention of some kind by you, history will precede in exactly the same manner.
3.) Non-fatal injuries may change the course of history or may not, depending on the type and severity.
How much time would it require to address monorchism?Report
31 seconds…Report
I guess circumcision would be out of the question as well.Report
I think you have a point that the undescended testicle would probably be hard to get in under 30 seconds. Too bad, too, neutering seems like a good choice.
But I wonder how much would change – maybe we would just be opening up the door for some version of “Final Destination part 72,000,000”!Report
Whoops. As Kolohe’s excellent links below point out, it wouldn’t work anyway – and my math regarding the number of Final Destination sequels included the millions that died in Asia in WW2.Report
I’d stop WW1 from happening, if I was that far back in time. The Christmas Truce had broken out: the soldiers in the trenches spontaneously arranged cease fires, sent patrols across No Man’s Land, rounded up their dead. Small Christmas gifts were exchanged.
But one decorated corporal of the 16th Bavarians, a brave man, a runner, loudly condemned the Christmas truce. His name was Adolf Hitler. He was not alone: the generals of both sides were outraged and demanded their troops cease fraternising with the enemy.
If it had not been Hitler, it would have been someone else, someone with better judgement. The Allies gave considerable thought to killing Hitler. Others thought better of it: if Hitler had been a good corporal, he was a wretched commander. Anyone else could have done a better job managing the Third Reich. Its rise was inevitable, in any event. Eliminating Hitler would not have stopped WW1 and what followed: the idiocy of France’s humiliating terms of victory, its blank defiance of Wilson’s Fourteen Points. It would not have stopped the rise of Communism or the Spanish Civil War, the warm-up exercise for WW2: everyone knew the winner of the Spanish Civil War would become the next enemy of democracy. In time, both would have their turns as a casus belli: the 20th century was defined by opposition to one or the other. It would not have stopped the Depression, which set the stage for the rise of the Fascists.
We make too much of these Hitler Types. Greatness, Napoleon said, is the combination of the man and the times.Report
30 seconds, Blaise! And you don’t control your travel! You just pop into his nursery and have 30 seconds!Report
I’d shoot his cruel stepfather. Maybe little Adolf would grow and become the artist he should have.Report
His “stepfather”? What bio did you read? Alois was his father.Report
You’re right. I’m conflating Hitler’s father Alois with Adolf. It was an awfully screwed up family. Hitler’s father died when he was 14 or so.Report
Yeah; my thought would be “damn, couldn’t they have put me next to Kaiser Bill?”Report
What a Looney Tune was Kaiser Bill. As all the royalty of Europe gathered at the funeral of Queen Victoria, it didn’t resemble a family tree so much as a kudzu vine. No branches.Report
Well fortunately we’re getting some fresh blood into the lineage with this generation. Good ol’ Kate.Report
The era of King Charles will soon roll in. His court will be a fair funfest, of pine cone salad and the Lion and Unicorn carved out of great blocks of tofu.Report
It’s highly unpatriotic of me to say so but I’m hoping his Mother out lasts him. She’s tough and he’s not eating enough red meat.Report
His mother is a tough old bird, an enigma that one. There’s a story told of her, confronted by some crazy who’d trespassed into her personal rooms, Michael Fagan, in 1982. She humoured him for some while, awaiting security to arrive. When later asked if she was afraid, she intimated she was more afraid of Prince Philip’s potential reaction than to the intruder.
Cool customer, the Queen.Report
Couldn’t agree more. Long may she reign.Report
Pretty much. The Treaty of Versailles pretty much determined that there would be very bitter right-wing Germans. The Jews would still have been scape-goated.
Now I really dark and interesting question is what if the US did institute the Morgenthau Plan at the end of WWII?
For those who don’t know, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau wanted to turn Germany into a perpetual pastoral state at the end of WWII as punishment. This was ultimately rejected as too cruel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_PlanReport
The Morg Plan would have been a disaster for Western Europe. West Germany was an economic powerhouse and bulwark against communism. If Germany had been razed it would have been a massive propaganda tool and left East Germany as the stronger of the Germany’s after the the Iron Curtain came down. In the long run there would have been no West Germany to absorb EG which would have been terrible for all of them. No strong prosperous WG would have offered less of beacon for those in the east. All of western europe would have been weaker and more divided.Report
I’m not one of those people that think major shifts in history occur because there was this one guy; so I’m not sure that fascism, a devastating World War, or even the slaughter of Eastern European Jews are all prevented by taking out Hitler. Still, what’s the harm in finding out?
So I’d snatch the the baby and take him back with me and raise him as my adopted son. I would TOTALLY support the idea of art school if and when it came up.Report
ALso – why is this a BOT question?Report
BOT question?Report
YOU ALONE are whisked back to the future… can’t take baby Hitler with you.
I’ve started watching “Better Off Ted”. There is a scene where the two scientists are arguing, as they do, and the topic of hitting a baby comes up. One says to the other, “What if the baby killed a guy?” There is a hard cut and when they return, one guy is yelling at the other, “So you wouldn’t kill baby Hitler!?!?” or something to that effect.
I believe it was episode 5 or 6 of season 1.Report
I love this show. Can’t believe it lasted only two seasons. Thank Adam Smith for Netflix.Report
The “Racial Sensitivity” episode KILLED me.Report
Yea, I got into it because of the recs on the sitcom thread. “Racial Sensitivity” had me bursting with laughter. The show really is much smarter and deals with much more complex topics than it lets on at first glance.Report
“When you leave, it goes dark.”
“Aw…how can I stay mad at you when you say things like that?”Report
“Runfuddle” by Jack Vance.Report
So last friday I played a cardgame called “Evil Baby Orphanage” where this was the premise. You’re a time-traveling Nanny who kidnaps baby versions of history’s greatest villains from the time stream to raise in your Orphanage.
Lots of silly games are light on gameplay, relying on the jokes to sell the game. But this one is pretty solid. It would be great even if the theme wasn’t so engaging.
Baby Hitler is, of course, the must have card.Report
This was EXACTLY my thought…until Kazzy nixed it below.Report
obligReport
& moreover…Report
I do nothing, yes the history we have is bad but I have no way of knowing I wouldn’t be making a worse history. As Blaise says the events that led to both world wars would have happened anyway without Hitler but what else might have happened? Maybe Hitler Mark 2 set up a team to work on the atom bomb in 1938 and got one before the Americans, maybe he was a better military planner and found a way to defeat the Red Army before engaging the US.
Only sure choice is not to choose.Report
I may be making this up, but I seem to recall reading that late in the war that the Allies debated more assassination attempts, but there was a fear that Hitler could be succeeded by someone more competent strategically; better to leave a madman in charge if you are trying to defeat his country militarily.Report
In The Dirty Dozen, they are explicitly and emphatically told not to kill Hitler.
I take all my historical cues from Lee Marvin and Jim Brown.Report
That might be where I got it then. 🙂Report
I don’t remember that in the book.
(The book, fwiw, was a lot deeper than the movie).Report
Dear lord, I would hope the book was deeper than the movie.Report
The book has haunting stories, often enough of injustice and people locked up for doing what they thought was right… what in a better world might have been right.
And an Indian who saw a silver eagle (an airplane) in the desert, and thus went off to the war.Report
After further investigation, it might have been Dirty Dozen 2.Report
Dirty Dozen 12: Things Get GrossReport
This is one of the oldest counter-factuals in the book and one of the most offensive as counter-factuals go.
I am generally not a fan of what-if/alt-history because it tends not to disservice those who suffered at the hands of various events.Report
What is offensive about it, NewDealer?Report
Um, that enormous numbers of people died in horrendous ways and that entire countries were devasted for years afterwards – and that maybe some things aren’t really appropriate for second guessing? I’m not ND, obviously, but it’s a legitimate POV.Report
I’m not disagreeing… just trying to suss out the source of objection.
These are thought experiments intended to explore deeper/big concepts. It is possible that the formulation of this one is insensitive and, as such, I can restructure it. As noted, this was inspired by a television show, so I didn’t put a ton of thought into it.Report
I’m skeptical about the utility of counterfactual scenarios in writing history, but I’ve always found it a useful exercise in unpacking the components to the particular ‘why’ question during the initial research stage. As someone who appreciates complexity over clean narratives, it can serve as a useful reminder not to cut corners.Report
Same reasons listed as DRS, Millions if not tens of millions of people suffered at the hands of the Nazi’s and through out WWII.
Plus most alt history seems to be written by Christian, White Men who often don’t understand how many minority groups suffered at the hands of real historical events. Their geeky what-if fantasies often show a like of compassion and sympathy.Report
Thanks, ND. I think you’re right that this question was sloppily conceptualized. My goal was to explore the baby-harming aspect of the question moreso than the Hitler aspect. But silly me for thinking I could mention Hitler without that becoming the prime topic of the question. I’ll have to think about how to move forward on this…Report
Use Stalin?Report
That’s a better counter-factual anyway. You can reasonably make the argument that Trotsky would have only killed millions instead of tens of millions.Report
Fewer testicle joke opportunities, however.Report
Fewer testicle joke opportunities, however.
Balls to that, then.Report
Eh…Trotsky was a True Believer.
He’s likely to have been even more ruthless…if that’s possible.Report
But less paranoid and far less likely to make Hitler the only person in the world he trusted. Fewer purges of his officer core and more sensible precautions against a Nazi double-cross add up to many million fewer Russian casualties during WWII.Report
And possibly a much stronger and more ideologically driven Soviet dictatorship…
…this is a good thing?Report
Yes. It would go boom faster. (I hope.)
Also, fewer dead is good in any case.Report
I’ve written a fair bit about Trotsky. He was a good commander of men. Trotsky would have tolerated far more dissent than the Bolsheviks, eventually leading to a far more humane and reasonable regime.
People are better defined by their enemies than their friends. Trotsky made the right enemies. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution is a far more sensible thing than is generally supposed: Trotsky knew the bourgeois and the proletariat were both needed. Had Trotsky come to power, Russia would have become the mirror image of Bismarck’s Germany. Where Bismarck grudgingly tolerated the necessity of achieving socialist goals to capitalist ends, Trotsky would have come to terms with the necessity of achieving capitalist goals to socialist ends.Report
NewDealer,
Do you mind if I shoot you an email at the address associated with your handle?Report
Go aheadReport
doesn’t this make any historical musings off limits? there’s very little that was “big” in history that didn’t often harm a great many people.Report
Let’s put it this way: go ahead and kill baby Adolph – I’ll take it as given that you can do it in 30 seconds. Then go back to the future, get out a library book and spend the rest of your life with the burden that whatever happened instead is entirely your fault. Good or bad.
Are you prepared to live with it if it turns out that a more competant Nazi-type won the war?Report
Sorry, should have been clearer: “…get out a library book of a history of Europe in the 20th century…”Report
Saving millions of Russian lives?Report
Well, like I said above: “Good or bad.” Either/or.
But taking Kazzy’s proposition as is, you’ve got a lot of counterfactualling to do in a relatively few seconds and it’s clear from all of AH’s bios that there were other people on the scene who could have stepped forward and were just as nasty as Hitler.
People like Ernst Rohm, the founder and leader of the SA, who was murdered with his top supporters during the Night of the Long Knives. Rohm was just as evil as AH and had real military skills too. He had big issues with AH’s efforts to conciliate the German Army leaders who he regarded as incompetent traitors, he wanted the SA to take over the German Army and he was starting to distrust AH personally.
There’s a counter factual for you – Rohm survives the NLK. What does he do next?Report
Eh. Stalin would have killed them anyway.Report
Hmm yes I’m with Matty. Nothing is the only ethical action to take on multiple levels:
A: On a personal level the infant before you has committed no crimes. He is innocent.
Response: But he’s baby Hitler!!
Counter response: By this scenario’s definition history is fluid. The baby before you, thus, is a free individual whose history is dictated by his choices. If this is true then the baby is not guilty of his future crimes and you’d be slaying an innocent. If this is not true and history is immutable then this scenario collapses because you cannot do anything to baby Hitler because history is immutable.
B: on a societal level as others have noticed the political, social and economic causes for WWII were already in motion; if not Hitler then someone else would have led the Nazi movement.
C: On a strategic level Hitler’s elimination could be cataclysmic. It is entirely possible that, properly managed, Germany could have won World War II. Imagine for a moment if Germany had not invaded Russia. We’re talking about probably all of Europe, the middle east and North Africa dominated by Fascist Germany (and England eventually beaten down) before America even entered the war.
Nope, inaction, is to my mind the only ethical course.Report
I couldn’t steel myself up enough to kill a baby in thirty seconds even if afterwards I’d wish I could have taken out Baby Hitler. At this point, he’s a baby. Every neuron in my body is the product of millions of years of evolutionary imperative, and every ounce of my moral constitution, hard-wiring my default programming to protect and nurture babies, not kill them.
Even if I could overcome those basic impulses, taking Hitler out of the equation — but leaving the economic and political pressures that threw Europe back into total war — could produce something even worse than what actually happened. Maybe it all could be avoided and things would turn out just fine. But. A chance of history turning out with Stalin triumphant? Or Goebbels in charge of Germany? Or a superior-quality military leader like Dönitz? Or maybe Hindenburg or someone else can keep a lid on it all? Or without Hitler around to scare the piss out of FDR, Joe Kennedy becomes President and makes an alliance with Germany and three-term PM Neville Chamberlain smiles approvingly from the safety of the stale relic of the Empire and no one finds out that Reichschancellor Göring is herding away all the Jews until the early 1960’s because he’s doing it all quiet-like? I can’t think through the probabilities of all those gambles in the thirty seconds allotted.
So I let the 30 seconds tick away and spend the rest of my life wondering if I blew the call.Report
Kill the baby.
1. This is fairly simple from a utilitarian ethics standpoint. The “there could have been something worse” arguments all fail as they do not take probability into account. Based on historical examples of better and worse regimes, the probability that something even worse than causing the deaths of nearly 21 million people–not including battle deaths!–could have happened is very small.
2. You’ll be whisked back to the future so you don’t have to worry about punishment.
3. Hopefully the baby will be crying, so it will be easier to pull the trigger.Report
if you can’t carry anything back with you presumably nothing comes with you as well so you have to kill baby hitler in the nude with your bare hands, no?Report
This was my understanding of the scenario as well. Changes things a bit, no? I wouldn’t know, but the only way I can think of to reliably kill an infant in under thirty seconds with no particular tools would be to twist the neck. I’m pretty sure that whatever I say now, I wouldn’t in the event make the decision and carry it out in the thirty seconds.Report
You don’t read enough fantasy with graphic descriptions of barbarian behavior. Five seconds is plenty.Report
Throwing a baby with considerable force at a wall will likely kill it.
I have read too much about the Holocaust.Report
Hadn’t thought of that one. I might have an easier time doing that.Report
Also, if you’re talking newborn, just smashing its brain in with a punch would probably kill it.Report
Based on historical examples of better and worse regimes, the probability that something even worse than causing the deaths of nearly 21 million people–not including battle deaths!–could have happened is very small.
Well, aside from the fact that it happened twice more that century. Though yeah, I think the more likely alternative would have been a German Mussolini.Report
I do nothing. Has no one here heard of the Prime Directive?Report
Someone needs to watch “Patterns of Force” again.Report
Hide the baby. That’s the flapping of my butterfly’s wings.Report
I imagine the thought in your head if you killed him only to find out that his actions contributed to you being born would, for the seconds before you dematerialized into nothing, be amusing.
This is still funny, btw.Report
Thanks, I had read that before but forgot how funny it was.Report
2.) Barring intervention of some kind by you, history will precede in exactly the same manner.
I’d use my thirty seconds to mentally flat-out deny that this constraint could in fact be in place as a matter of physics. And I wouldn’t kill anyone.Report
The question seems to imply we’ve learned something actionable from a single experimental trial that was conducted without a control.
I’m not sure that we have.Report
I’m just concerned that this poor kid ended up with a name that’s disturbing similar to that of Adolf Hitler, a guy who is going to do some pretty messed up things over the course of young Adolph’s life, and that a time-traveling illiterate sociopath is even now standing over his crib contemplating murder.Report
Doh!Report
My answer is to agree with North, especially his point A.
Here’s a counter-hypothetical: suppose someone from the future arrives today for 30 seconds and sees a newborn baby. This person states, truthfully and we know he or she is speaking truthfully, that this baby will grow up to be the next Godwin-esque dictator of your choice. And this person has the added advantage–which we don’t have in your hypothetical–that things will indeed work out better if, well, you know, the person from the future does what you’re asking us to consider doing (or justify not doing). How would we feel about the justice of that action?Report