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From a leftist standpoint, what is the right thing to do if you were sent back in time? (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The relative positions of the US vs the USSR after WWII were dramatically different. Fascism, as capitalisms guard dog, had demolished the Western USSR. The US got incredibly rich selling guns. The riches of the colonies of the world were still in the pocket of the imperialists. Even if you convince them to fight, there's a real chance they lose. The gains of communism and socialism in the third world would be lost. The current resurgence of fascism would have happened decades ago, in more culturally friendly territory pre-1968.

What you need to do is knock some sense into the CPUSA and get them to push harder before McCarthy and agitate harder against the Taft act. Let the Soviet people chill, they've earned it. And maybe give FDR some heart meds, he was the only one with any level of mutual trust with Stalin.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

And don't let them swap VPs