It feels kinda wrong how quickly some people say they wouldn't kill hitler if they were sent back in time and given the opportunity.

I'm using that scenario because it seems like a common example, but I'm curious about how materialist theory would approach this.

Barring the sci-fi theories around time travel and whether a new timeline is created, where I believe it's fair game to change the past (since it's a new timeline) would it be morally right to improve the world if flung into a version of the past?

My thought is that it would be a moral obligation to help with things and not just be a witness to atrocity.

Edit: I think my question was more - Is it wrong to do nothing if flung into the past when you know what is likely to happen, or is it more wrong to try to prevent or change it?

I ask because it's almost a given in media and general discussion that you don't mess with things on the chance you make things worse by interfering. That argument feels flawed and lib- brained and I don't think I would be okay with a bad thing happening in front of me just because that's how it happened in my history book. Like the idea of standing by and doing nothing in the face of suffering feels wrong especially with something as nebulous as 'affecting the timeline'

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    23 days ago

    Just existing back in time would set off a cascading Butterfly Effect, effectively erasing and replacing every human being that ever existed afterward with different sperm fertilizing those eggs and so on in an ever expanding flux of changes, so the sky's the limit I suppose since the damage is already done just by showing up.

    What I'd do with time travel since that damage was already done and it'd be up to me to make the best possible society for the new people that will now exist? Well, depending on how far back I could go and what I could bring with me, I have some strong opinions about what'd set things right and the alphabets may want to hear them a little too much. illegal-to-say