Topic: If you had time machine, would you go back and kill Hitler or buy bitcoins? (Read 2226 times)

Sockpuppet is probably harsh, but I agree that seeing a political leader as a mastermind has no honest reasoning behind it. They may be exceptional people who are fit for the purpose of influencing masses but there is no real requirement for them to be something other than that. So yeah, he was a brilliant man, but not irreplaceable.

It's obvious. Buy bitcoins.

Going back and killing Hitler would result in a paradox that could destroy the universe. Talk about irresponsible!

you are forgetting that the third reich with all its atrocities might have had some positive effects on history.

Hitler might have kept the russians busy just to set them back long enough to make the cold war the loss/loss situation it really was.
Then think about the economic growth that happened in the 60's and 70's. those are mostly due to people having to rebuild stuff. And the US profited a lot on that.
A totally other question is how would world population look today with 56 million people and their descendants? Not saying those had to die, but war is one of the last measurements of population control that exist for the human race.
And finally, think about black people in america - would they still be as equal as they are today, if they didnt have the change to get their feet into society by beeing needed due to the war?
And then again, think about all that knowledge that was exported out of germany after the war. Would the US have been able to land on the moon without having wernher von braun? would the germans have shared the concept of nuclear energy(or nuclear weapons) with other nations? would a democratic government have used the powers and responsibilities that come with such a game-changer wisely enough?
last but not least, think about all that basic technology, that all parties in the war developed during the war to keep up with each others. Without the war there would have been far less need for such technology, and thus less government funding for the respective research. our world today might look a lot less civilized as it is with the war.

definetly kill Hitler. Odds are pretty good that doing so would alter history in such a manner that Bitcoin may not even 'need' to exist. Though some might argue that the lack of one particular evil being would just leave room for another.

that question is stupid. Hitler was, like most people in the newbie section, a sockpuppet. I mean really, think about it. When hitler was jung, he had jewish friend, some of them he publicly stepped in for. Hitler never planned to kill all jews. besides, if you read his book, you know he probably wasnt the brightest. And THAT GUY is supposed to be a brilliant mastermind that started a war, and organized to kill 6 million jews? Seriously, if you ask me most of the evidence points to some guy/group of guys who pulled the strings. I dont think hitler had the brains to do all the stuff that was done in his name. Lets not forget he fucked his cousin and lived as a gay hooker in his youth...

Why not just go back and buy tickets for a $300M powerball lottery or two? Then invest it in AAPL back in 2004 when it was $11/share, and cash out today at $600/share. You can buy a lot of BTC for US$16B

I guess it really depends on the kind of person you are.  Would I have loved to get in on bitcoins when they were like $0.0000002 per coin? YES!  Buy 10,000 coins for $2?  Sure!  Sell 10,000 coins for 200,000?  HECK YEAH!  But, killing hitler?  Changes the world.  Literally.  Gotta do it.  Makes you wonder what the world would be like without the holocaust.

I wouldn't call it a feeling, what you are stating is obvious. Hitler is a cult of personality. I'm glad allies are finding it as useful as the Nazis did.

Buy bitcoins for sure. Yeah, Hitler was an evil dude, but really it was an idea. You can't kill an idea. If it was not for Hitler doing what he did, plenty of other countries would have fallen to the same idea sooner or later. That's just how I feel about that.

Sure, killing someone is really easy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_attempts_on_Adolf_Hitler

Buy bitcoins, of course. As all time-travellers ought to know, it is impossible to alter history due to the Novikov self-consistency principle. Though that doesn't mean that killing Hitler is impossible, as long as you do it in a way that doesn't alter history:

If there's was no return ticket I'd stick around, work hard and invest my savings in electronics and semiconductors.

One-use time machine.

well with a time machine you can do both lol

or if you can only do one thing, i would go back and steal the time machine 

Damn, I'm the first to vote for taking out Adolf? Nuts!

Lol, thought of that xkcd too.

Not to veer off from OP but if you killed Adolf Hitler and he never became Hitler, why would you go back to kill him?
Just wondering if there's any way to escape that loop.

Lol at 1 (Hitler) vs. 16 (Bitcoin)

Seeing as the market cap for bitcoin isn't really all that high in the scheme of things, you'd be able to do a lot better than going back to buy bitcoins. So if you're going for greed, I'm not sure that's the correct pick.

But no one would be upset at you for picking Hitler, so do that. Unless you're going to do this, of course: http://xkcd.com/1063/

What if by killing hitler you delay world war 2 by like 10 or 20 years and then it start with nuclear weapons? It will be much much worse

Lessons would not have been learned if not for the Holocaust.

When you look at it from a strictly academic point of view, Hitler was actually a very smart man.

disclaimer: I am Jewish and in no way support what he did