Post B1jiVFIMpcL6Glr1mK by aral@mastodon.ar.al
(DIR) More posts by aral@mastodon.ar.al
(DIR) Post #B1jiVFIMpcL6Glr1mK by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2025-12-29T09:25:16Z
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Funny how folks in the West will consider the ethics of going back in time to kill baby Hitler whenever the topic of time travel comes up but no one ever considers going back to stop colonialism.š¤
(DIR) Post #B1jidyv35RjY5P73gG by Gardenia@piaille.fr
2025-12-29T09:26:43Z
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@aral š¤ je vais y rĆ©flĆ©chir.
(DIR) Post #B1jiv234hlCkiNztRI by urlyman@mastodon.social
2025-12-29T09:29:48Z
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@aral the flip side of āgreat manā theory is much easier to process than Susan Sontagās ā10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.ā
(DIR) Post #B1jj4ld4bfIAgeTelc by Verna@ni.hil.ist
2025-12-29T09:31:29Z
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@aral I've been saying for a long time that I want my time machine built in a nuclear submarine for Columbus related reasons
(DIR) Post #B1jjWvSpdOXhIV78D2 by skribe@aus.social
2025-12-29T09:36:28Z
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@aral nobody wants to go back to a time before there were humans š¤£
(DIR) Post #B1jlBETWTEzjnTDkPo by impooortant@mstdn.io
2025-12-29T09:55:03Z
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@aral This works only for villains targeting "whites".
(DIR) Post #B1jlIdAb3RaMPgtc8m by TheTraveller@sw-development-is.social
2025-12-29T09:56:21Z
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@aral Wheneven I read about this topic, I start thinking about a character called 'SilverFox316' (search for 'Wiki Histoy' by Desmond Warzel).
(DIR) Post #B1jlNF3k7m2V5FtBAG by Disputatore@masto.pt
2025-12-29T09:56:23Z
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@aral wouldn't that be like trying to stop the wind with your hands? Did colonialism not stem from what were other practices in existence since the dawn of mankind? How was colonialism different from the land conquest enacted by Huns and Mongols? Did the concept of empire not exist way before what we call colonialism? Think Romans, Aztecs, Mayans, Turks, and so on. Who would you exactly kill or lock in a box and throw the key away to prevent colonialism? Maybe the first human?
(DIR) Post #B1jlRZCXBCJQi83z4i by Fettlaus@social.tchncs.de
2025-12-29T09:58:06Z
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@aral The same reason why neo fascist wouldn't go back in time to kill baby Hitler. š¤·āāļø
(DIR) Post #B1jnNTIFP22F8buW4u by davep@infosec.exchange
2025-12-29T10:19:45Z
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@aral I guess it's not quite as simple to frame as killing one person.
(DIR) Post #B1joJT3MSAo9BmbP7o by sll@pouet.chapril.org
2025-12-29T10:30:16Z
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@aral Careful what you wish for. With no Hitler we might as well have had someone less crazy more competent as nazi leader. Heydrich anyone?
(DIR) Post #B1joMozfKtRS6YTOF6 by gimulnautti@mastodon.green
2025-12-29T10:31:01Z
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@aral When colonialism is turned inward against white people itās apparently called fascism. š¤
(DIR) Post #B1jp2GosmfriHLC4Ey by rania40@mastodon.social
2025-12-29T10:37:38Z
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@aral "Because they easily confront individual evil, but avoid confronting a collective history from which they still benefit." š„ŗ
(DIR) Post #B1jpFTEhvmZ2YJZF3o by aral@mastodon.ar.al
2025-12-29T10:39:55Z
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@rania40 This. šÆ
(DIR) Post #B1jpik9q626xQoFTxQ by xChaos@f.cz
2025-12-29T10:45:41Z
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@aral yes, but killing Columbus would be still different story, than killing Hernando CortƩz and other conquistadors.Not all colonialism was equal: there were many different strategies, some of it was mostly trade and left the originals cultures almost intact, and perhaps the benefit was mutual (at least some of the trade, eg. spice trading with Southeast Asia, could be considered as such case). The spread of Christianity was sometimes much worse then trade and sometimes relatively innocent. And not all trade was slave trade. And not all colonialism was white Christian colonialism... I believe Arab expansion is more or less comparable in scale to European expansion. There was no basic difference from Europeans, when Turks conquered Balkans or Moguls conquered India. China was expanding very slowly, but still: the Han ethnic dominance on China mainland was simply result of slow conquest. Not only colonialism, but also assimilation. The exploration urge is natural, the big question was "what next"? Trade and cultural exchange seems fair, slavery and conquest definitely not.
(DIR) Post #B1jqU4NQjuJXkbAlU0 by thejessiekirk@ohai.social
2025-12-29T10:54:28Z
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@aral "Get in, loser, we're going back in time to assassinate Kipling."
(DIR) Post #B1jr5ossmzrOhlsvNg by klegdixal@social.vivaldi.net
2025-12-29T11:01:07Z
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@aral in no particular order:- when and where exactly would you travel back to to stop colonialism?- national socialism in Germany was an outcome of the Versailles Treaty. Killing baby Adolf would be unlikely to change the course of the history.- if you want to explore the "what if" time travel genre then popadantsy books are really popular in Russia.
(DIR) Post #B1jsrzF1gVq6gIm38a by thejessiekirk@ohai.social
2025-12-29T11:21:13Z
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@aral Quite an interesting idea, tho. As it's very unlikely WW2 as we know it would have happened without Hitler (ar I argue that WW2 started when Japan invaded China in 1937), killing him would radically change well... everything. No Cold War, for instance.Seeing as how colonialism is ancient and independently happened many times, how would you stop it?
(DIR) Post #B1jtL8QAdLRRY8sxsm by CazzPhoenix@social.vivaldi.net
2025-12-29T11:26:25Z
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@aral I've thought about the baby hitler thing enough that I'm fairly certain it would only delay specific atrocities a little. Now stopping colonialism... there's a real idea! First, we go back to the beginning of life and when that first creature crawls out of the primordial ooze, we stomp on it. Problem solved!...?
(DIR) Post #B1juotVsj1JXxIJM7E by alihan_banan@mastodon.world
2025-12-29T11:43:10Z
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@aral I think that's due to colonialism being a complex system that benefited a whole lot of people and to stop it, means to to change the course of history in a scale comparable to nuking Rome in 486 or something.Yeah, and killing hitler wouldn't prevent nazi crap for same reasons
(DIR) Post #B1k1JaLWdYz7DCU7lI by cetsch@famichiki.jp
2025-12-29T12:55:50Z
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@aral The intent of the post is easy enough to understand but the logic is pretty flawed. Stopping one person at one point in time vs. changing mass social processes across different countries over centuries. One very simple proposition vs. an impossible proposition.
(DIR) Post #B1k7KQhmZDuXKEgIl6 by NuclearOatmeal@beige.party
2025-12-29T14:03:20Z
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@aral My pet project, given a time machine, would be to stop slavery from ever starting up in the U.S.A.A) I assume I've got infinite funds, because hey, time machine. B) I understand naval logistics to a small degree, based on experience. C) I'd be able to change my plans as slavers true to change theirs.How do? Mine the slaver lanes with lots of explosives, constantly. Any that got missed, could be taken care of retroactively.D) Explosions are cool. šA general approach to the question of "Why....?" regarding human behavior is "Because $$$." So, if you make it too expensive to run a slave trade because all your ships heading East become toothpicks, captains sometimes survive telling ghost stories of people appearing out of thin air and causing havoc before the ship became toothpicks. After a while, people aren't going to invest money in making slavery profitable. Also deal with anyone who decides to switch to indentures.What this does, going forward, I'm not smart enough to say. Is agriculture in the South profitable enough that landowners would still invest in and be able to produce large amounts of goods at a profit if they have to pay their workers? Dunno. U.S. slavery gave us the Senate and the civil war. Jim Crow laws gave Hitler ideas. Underlying it for me though is that people shouldn't own people.Colonialism is a much bigger picture that I don't have enough of an understanding, big picture wise, that I'd feel comfortable taking on by my lonesome.
(DIR) Post #B1k8WsODYx0WcH1r7o by renwillis@mstdn.social
2025-12-29T14:16:34Z
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@aral where would one even start? thereās just too much of it all the time.
(DIR) Post #B1kALIvtFZOVN6OAHw by isaackuo@spacey.space
2025-12-29T14:37:02Z
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@aral Sadly, one of the things I do ponder is to inform of the cure to scurvy. This would directly save millions of lives, but I think a side effect would have been to accelerate colonialism.
(DIR) Post #B1kG5HWrIiZc6rQJzk by JSCybersec@infosec.exchange
2025-12-29T15:41:18Z
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@aral I blame the cartographers that stopped putting "here be monsters" on their maps.
(DIR) Post #B1kIobRAKTkOnFV0bo by thomasjwebb@mastodon.social
2025-12-29T16:11:58Z
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@aral Hitler is a person but colonialism isn't. I think an equivalent might be would you kill Christopher Columbus (which wouldn't be sufficient to stop colonialism, but would have saved many Taino lives). It's just so easy to kill a baby. Like no one talks about going back to stop antisemitism because that's a much broader thing.So I think the real issue is that stopping evil never actually looks like killing a baby. It's always a lot more involved. Hitler didn't even start the Nazi party.
(DIR) Post #B1kPr39kwMOr1NTCLI by staringatclouds@mstdn.social
2025-12-29T17:30:44Z
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@aral Everyone kills Hitler on their first triphttps://reactormag.com/wikihistory//
(DIR) Post #B1kYSJ2TeRRId0LE9Y by moriel@chaosfem.tw
2025-12-29T19:07:02Z
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@aral And no one, absolutely no one, ever thinks about going back in time and giving Hitler's father a condom, or just kidnapping baby Hitler and raising him up as your own child to become a decent person. Maybe the solution to people who kill and isn't killing them instead.
(DIR) Post #B1lbmTlvwuy4jEsFoO by Qybat@batchats.net
2025-12-30T07:19:15Z
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@aral It's a badly posed question anyway, because there are non-lethal options to do with baby Hitler.You could mildly maim Hitler so he would be exempt from WW1 service for example. Or you could abduct Hitler and relocate him elsewhen to be raised as just another abandoned baby.There may be unexpected consequences though. Hitler did not invent fascism: Without him, it's possible the war may happen, but Germany could be lead by someone with more military competence.
(DIR) Post #B1pGB0H9KhZs7wbUOW by VioletBackpack@mastodon.social
2026-01-01T01:35:58Z
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@aral ever since I read The Years of Salt and Rice by Kim Stanley Robinson I have added the scenario of āgoing back to give the Native Americans/Australians more technology fasterā to my scenarios. If the Europeans had met technological equals when they landed, itād have been a different story.