Instigator / Con

ultramaximus2

1500

rating

debates

0.0%

won

Topic

#6337

Baby Hitler

Status

Voting

The participant that receives the most points from the voters is declared a winner.

Voting will end in:

Parameters

Publication date: 06.23.2025 11:06PM
Last updated date: 06.28.2025 01:47AM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 3
Time for argument: Two days
Max argument characters: 1,000
Voting period: One week
Point system: Winner selection
Voting system: Open

Contender / Pro

KobayashiMaru

1500

rating

debates

100.0%

won

Description

Baby Hitler: To kill or not to kill? (I will take the position that we should not to kill baby Hitler)

Rule: I pass the first round. You pass the last round.

Round 1

ultramaximus2

06.24.2025 02:16AM

Con

Pass.

KobayashiMaru

06.24.2025 03:24AM

Pro

Hi Ultramaximus.

Given a different life path he may have been a character of no wider consequence but as a baby Hitler is an innocent.

Baby Hitler will instigate a war resulting in 70-85 million lives being killed.
Killing Baby Hitler would result in unknown consequences.
Due to the proximity of his birth to WWII his null cone would be relatively narrow and therefore the spread of the unforeseen consequences would be narrow in the short term. It is unlikely someone as bad as him would immerge within the scope of his null cone.
The 70-85 million also have null cones which will be impacted.

Negative utilitarian - minimize suffering.

Consequentialist - consider consequences of actions.

Point 4 means the long-term effects are random however we know that in the short-term great suffering can be avoided. Given the unlikeliness of another psychotic rug rat emerging as a result of his killing under both negative utilitarianism and consequentialism we should not hesitate. Kill em.

Round 2

ultramaximus2

06.24.2025 03:44AM

Con

As bad as Hitler was, he was a very significant person when it came to the historical timeline. Killing baby Hitler would alter the timelime so significantly such that the overwhelming majority of people alive today would never have been conceived. Sure, other people would have been, but it wouldnt be us. Stated differently, most all of us would be erased from existence if baby Hitler was killed.

I dont know about you, but Id rather not be erased. And for what? For people who are already dead or who never existed in the first place? Non-existent lives don't matter.

Baby Hitler must remain untouched. We cannot destroy the timeline.

KobayashiMaru

06.24.2025 04:37AM

Pro

Given the timeframes I disagree that most people would no longer exist if he was killed. Even ceding this point I would hopefully weigh my life against the known deaths of 70-85 million and still pull the trigger.

'For people who are already dead or who never existed in the first place?'

You have assumed time travel rather than has precognition of the future. The people who died as a result of Hitlers actions are in the future at the time of his birth; we know that they will/do exist and will suffer. We have good reason to believe that we can alleviate that suffering.

'Non-existent lives don't matter.'

We show they do matter by our actions. Consider a person who places a bomb in a city which will explode in one hundred years' time. None of the people blown up exist but we are aware that they will and can suffer.

We are morally responsible for the anticipated outcomes of our actions. This responsibility is not restricted temporally.

Round 3

ultramaximus2

06.24.2025 08:57PM

Con

Pro disagrees as to the number of people who would be erased but offers no reasoning to support that position. Hitler’s impact is like ten billion times the butterfly effect. People aren’t going to meet like they did before. Even the ones that do, conceptions will be at different times, gametes, and food consumed by the mothers to grow the fetuses.

These erased people is an enormous cost. Billions alive today gone, sacrificed. That matters. It matters a lot more any benefits which come from killing baby Hitler.

The only thing potentially substantial enough to offset the cost is the fact that other people would replace us in the timeline. But these lives don’t exist. This is what I was referring to by non-existent lives. A bomb going off 100 years in the future is destroying lives that are going to exist in the future. Curious Pro makes such an argument, as killing baby Hitler is a bombshell in the timeline that would erase us.

Reminder: Pro to pass final round.

KobayashiMaru

06.25.2025 12:58AM

Pro

Pass

ultramaximus2

06.28.2025 01:47AM

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@Lemming

Your conduct here sheds a lot of light on the other voters. You know, they're representing that they think it's the right thing to do to sacrifice themselves and everyone they know and love at the altar of moral superiority. I do not believe that they would actually do those things. It strikes me as far more likely that casting votes the way they did is a way to virtue signal selflessness to their perceived community.

Lemming

06.26.2025 08:37AM

I hate time travel and multiverse theory.
. . .
Hm, shoehorn. . . What if I imagined fact that humans have memories, memories change get forgotten/buried. I have existed once, and will again, unless X changes then I would exist as X. Would I change X aspect of myself, to prevent future X?
Also, title might have been better as 'Kill' baby Hitler.

Con Round 1
Descriptions says they pass the first round.

Pro Round 1
Argues less suffering overall if we kill baby Hitler.
Claims it is unlikely another psychotic rug rat would emerge.

I'm not 'so sure of that myself, I 'think antisemitism was pretty high back then, Germans pretty unhappy about WW1 terms, some countries wanting to get back together, Russia problem, Unstable Germany, some argue many atrocities came about from ground level decisions of soldiers and generals doing what they 'thought Hitler expected.
Hard to say.
I skimmed this earlier, and I recall Con made an argument valuing the future/present that one has. 'Might be enough, but they'd do better to back their arguement with arguement of possible worse future as well.

Con Round 2
Argues the importance of the existent, over the nonexistent.
Well, it is 'an argument.
And until debate is further expounded, it's a bit value this or that.

Pro Round 2
Man I hate time travel.
Pro makes a decent argument for valuing 'currently non existent lives.

Con Round 3
Con makes an interesting argument, in how many people will be effected, and 'not be.
It 'was a world war, lots of people moving about, meeting people they would not have met otherwise.
. . . Course, , Then people are, , Wouldn't there be some future with a maximum number of people created? Should we only aim for that future?
Con argument makes sense from purely self interested and accepting of 'current self and people, but then what is 'now?
I hate time travel.
. . .

I'm not going to vote, I think.
. . .

Personally, even if it improved the so called current timeline, I would not do anything to change it.
I'm selfish,
I like myself, even any bad stuff in my life, it has made me, me, and I accept myself, love myself.
. . . Also, time travel is confusing, and I don't believe in time travel to the past.

ultramaximus2

06.25.2025 03:30AM

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@Barney

Doesnt look like an accurate representation of my argument to call it selfish because the preservation of lives in existence today - almost all of which are people we do not know - is the value which is being argued for.

Umbrellacorp

06.27.2025 09:18PM

Criterion

Con

Tie

Pro

Points

Winner

1 point(s)

Reason:

Maximus argues from a timeline perspective. If he is talking about time travel: If you go back and kill him you won't be born therefore no one will be there to go back to kill him therefore you get born and grow up to go back and kill him and so on... Boring paradox. Solution: Don't kill.
But then kobayashi argues from a moral standpoint. And he is right. You would spare a lot of suffering.
But that would mess with the timeline so i cannot in my full consciousness agree with kobayashi because i am a fundamentalist. Even in a hypothetical scenario because traveling back in time is not possible.
However....... Let's not pretend that maximus did not have a selfish motive. He did. He did not even make the argument of the paradox. That was me. And i won't vote to my own decision but according to the arguments presented.
So, between both arguments-selfish and heroic- both being moral positions, the hero wins.
Unnecessary long comment for this debate.

Barney

06.25.2025 02:22AM

Criterion

Con

Tie

Pro

Points

Winner

1 point(s)

Reason:

Pro argues for preventing the deaths, con argues we should selfishly preserve ourselves at the expense of those deaths... Not a lot to go over, as an altruist more lives living and not suffering is best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxG3vv2-sOE