this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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45
From a leftist standpoint, what is the right thing to do if you were sent back in time? (hexbear.net)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by Cammy@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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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'

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[–] cmhickman358@hexbear.net 14 points 4 months ago

I would do kind of a reverse Bill and Ted, where instead of collecting historical figures and bring them to the present, I would take my assembled crew farther into the past. I'm thinking I would pick up people like Marx, Lenin, Mao, you know, the fun crew, and bring them farther back to a time where we (I say we but honestly I would be about as much use as Bill or Ted with them) could avert the capitalist hellscape that exists today. As for when we would land I'm not quite sure, but I'm thinking if we could mobilize a people's collective sometime during the 1000-1400 range we could prevent most of the tragedies that combining the Industrial Revolution with capitalism caused, and be in a much better position to either solve or even avoid the ecological and climatological (if that's a real word) issues that face the modern world.