Let's look at a hypothetical scenario for your consideration.

[DogOnPorch]

As I said: There are plenty of causes leading up to WW1. Shall we go back as far as Napoleon losing @ Waterloo? How about the 100 year War as it led to the birth of Nationalism.

[GostHacked]

As I said: There are plenty of causes leading up to WW1. Shall we go back as far as Napoleon losing @ Waterloo? How about the 100 year War as it led to the birth of Nationalism.

Well, I am glad you in the end, agree with me.

[DogOnPorch]

Well, I am glad you in the end, agree with me.

GH: You think WW1 started with an assassination?? There are many other reasons that contributed to the start of WW1.

Me: It did start with the assassination.

Like you could describe Napoleon's effect on WW1 without yon Google.

Edited January 25, 2012 by DogOnPorch

[Guest Manny]

I'll try to comment without looking up any history books or online references. The Duke gets shot by a Serbian. Next, Austro-Hungary attacks Serbia. Seems fair enough, although the assassin probably did not represent his entire country. But there had been many other problems between the two leading up to that point. No World War yet though. I would say WWI actually began when Germany suddenly attacked France. What was the rationale for attacking France? This took the problem beyond the assassination incident itself, and spread the conflict to two other countries. Then as they say, all hell broke loose.

Surely, that shot was heard around the world could not be the singular reason. Had it happened in isolation from all of the other events, it wouldn't have caused the world war.

[DogOnPorch]

Most historians say the need to follow railway timetables by ALL sides in order to mobilize and move troops to their staging areas set off a chain reaction that could not be stopped by mere human diplomatic efforts.

[Bonam]

For me I would take the chance that it would be a better future and by whatever means deny their right to existence.

Yes but who are you to take it upon yourself to make that decision? How is it that you consider yourself to have the necessary wisdom to decide which possible future is better? Can you see all the potential consequences? There are a countless many scenarios far worse than what happened in WWII.

Let's say you killed Hitler, and the Nazi movement didn't happen when it did. But the social and economic factors that were pushing Germany in that direction (economic problems, treaty of Versailles, etc) remained in place. 10 years later some other leader leads a similar movement, taking control of Germany, and plunges the world into a different version of WWII 10 years later, when nations have had another 10 years advance their technology and industry.

The US, never having partnered with Europe to fight Germany in the 40s, never fully recovered from the depression, and has become even more isolationist after having fought some battles with Japan in the pacific, and is in no mood for another war a mere 10 years later. It leaves Europe to its fate. Meanwhile, German scientists have invented nuclear weapons by the 1950s, and, since they had never been used before and no conventions yet ban their use, use them as a means to conduct an even faster version of Blitzkrieg, annihilating the major cities of their enemies and then moving their armies in. Before the radiation effects are realized and people think twice about using these weapons, Paris, London, and Moscow have been reduced to radioactive piles of rubble, and Germany rules most of Eurasia, implementing its program of racial purity unopposed, and the death toll mounts to hundreds of millions.

That is but one possible scenario out of an endless number of possibilities. I'm sure any one of us could come up with many possibilities, some they think are better, some worse.

The fact is that the world today is what it is because of the events that have preceded today. And the world today is a pretty good place. Any significant alteration to the past will greatly change the way the world is now. And there is absolutely no way to know that it would be any better. And who, really, has the right to judge whether a different version of today's reality would be better? Maybe 6 million more Jews would be alive, but maybe they would still be living under the pall of antisemitism, suffering ever worsening pogroms in Europe. Maybe 60 million would not have died in WWII, but maybe the Soviet Union, never having expended its blood and resources in the war, gains greater power and communism wins out and holds strong for another hundred years, plunging billions of people into lives under brutal dictatorship for another century. Maybe with the Nazi ideology never having put the lie to the idea of eugenics, it would still be popular in the West, and every country would have mass sterilization centers for individuals deemed unworthy of procreation by a government agency.

Fortunately, our best understanding of the laws of physics today very strongly suggests that time travel to the past is impossible. Our civilization will never be practically faced with these choices. But if somehow it ever does become practically possible, I am confident that travel to the past and attempting to alter it will wreak greater havoc on our civilization than any of the wars, genocides, and atrocities that have otherwise happened.

[DogOnPorch]

Fortunately, our best understanding of the laws of physics today very strongly suggests that time travel to the past is impossible.

Agreement. Heck, even getting humans to Alpha Centauri (et al) will be quite the trick shot.

[Moonlight Graham]

It's a strange fantasy.

Why not just go back a little earlier in time and prevent the future parents from meeting, or interrupt them at the moment before conception ?

If I had time travel abilities, I would probably just enjoy myself with them.

Exactly. 8.5 months before their birth just kidnap the dad for a month, or just offer him a business trip alone for that time...or otherwise interrup the conception (you won't know exactly WHEN they will conceive), and you're good to go. No killing needed.

Or you could divert their life path somehow, or sabatoge their rise to power in the case of the leaders.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Moonlight Graham

[Bonam]

Agreement. Heck, even getting humans to Alpha Centauri (et al) will be quite the trick shot.

Well, actually, I strongly believe that getting spacecraft to nearby star systems is not only possible but is a definite possibility within the next hundred years. There is nothing in the laws of physics that prevents interstellar travel. It just makes it a bit hard.

A spacecraft that could travel to the nearest star system in ~40 years at 0.1c is essentially designable today and can be built with existing or near term technologies, it would just be immensely expensive to build.

Time travel to the past, on the other hand, seems directly prohibited to our best understanding. All the theoretical investigations I've seen suggest that closed timelike curves are an impossibility in the type of spacetime that describes our universe, just as fundamentally as a straight line cannot exist on the surface of a sphere.

Time travel to the future, though, is easy. You just need a spacecraft that can travel close to the speed of light and work the effects of time dilation on you.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Bonam

[Guest Peeves]

Yes but who are you to take it upon yourself to make that decision? How is it that you consider yourself to have the necessary wisdom to decide which possible future is better? Can you see all the potential consequences? There are a countless many scenarios far worse than what happened in WWII.

Let's say you killed Hitler, and the Nazi movement didn't happen when it did. But the social and economic factors that were pushing Germany in that direction (economic problems, treaty of Versailles, etc) remained in place. 10 years later some other leader leads a similar movement, taking control of Germany, and plunges the world into a different version of WWII 10 years later, when nations have had another 10 years advance their technology and industry.

TRUNCATED FOR BREVITY>

Fortunately, our best understanding of the laws of physics today very strongly suggests that time travel to the past is impossible. Our civilization will never be practically faced with these choices. But if somehow it ever does become practically possible, I am confident that travel to the past and attempting to alter it will wreak greater havoc on our civilization than any of the wars, genocides, and atrocities that have otherwise happened.

A very thoughtful and comprehensive answer.

We have a review going on (Canada)regarding Pickton's murder of 49 women.

There was evidence that police should have arrested him after half that number.

Also there was a family member that apparently had found sufficient reasons to conclude he was indeed killing women, including a family member.

Were I she, I would consider the fact that law enforcement was not about to stop the murder of more women.

Morally I would or could not allow his continued depravity. I would kill the sonnabitch.

Or I'd never be able to live with myself each time another woman disappeared.