Red pill or White pill...

[Radar]

I thought you could kill someone in the past, but become someone alive right now?

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by Radar

I thought you could kill someone in the past, but become someone alive right now?

That was the general idea.

[mitheral]

I'd take the white pill, assume Bill Gates, and then as him give all his stock to the actual me. That'd do two things. First I'd reposition Microsoft along Google's philosophy of doing no evil. Second I'd do something better with the money than building 50,000 sq. ft. mansions.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Second I'd do something better with the money than building 50,000 sq. ft. mansions.

C'mon now, he makes a million dollars an hour, times 14 hour days, times 6 or 7 days a week. That house cost less than a weeks pay, $63mil if I heard right.

[richlevy]

BTW, to clarify history here. The total was 6 millions Jews. While jews were the largest exterminated group, the real total was closer to 13 million, including 7 million 'others' such as gypsies, criminals, political prisoners, and homosexuals.

We just had the distinction of being the largest group.

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by richlevy

We just had the distinction of being the largest group.

True, but the Jews also had the courage and the visibility to speak up afterwards and make the world face the truth.

The sum total of Nazi-caused deaths will never be known, especially in places like Russia, where ALL of the inhabitants died or disappeared and there was no one left to tell. It's believed that over a million died as a result of Hitler's invasion of Russia and the Seige of Stalingrad. It's also believed that Idi Amin wiped out a half-million of his own countrymen and other African strongmen have pushed that number far over the million mark since Amin's times, in places like Rwanda, Sudan, and the Congo. At least 25 million indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands and Mexico were exterminated within 80 years after the discovery of the Americas and the administration of these lands by the Spanish. Millions of blacks were sent to die miserably in the jungle plantations of Brazil, many times the number that were ever sent to the British Colonies which later became the USA. It is difficult to say if the removal of any one leader at the time could have prevented any of these atrocities, because the nationalistic, tribal, and religious differences between the killers and the victims were already unresolvable in their minds before the slaughter topped it off.

[Rock Steady]

White Pill, I would become Gwen Stefani. I would divorce the slim Gavin, marry Rock Steady and both of us would live happily ever after.

Originally Posted by Tonchi

It is difficult to say if the removal of any one leader at the time could have prevented any of these atrocities, because the nationalistic, tribal, and religious differences between the killers and the victims were already unresolvable in their minds before the slaughter topped it off.

Couldn't agree more with all you wrote, Tonchi! And the reason why I said six million PLUS in my original response is exactly because we will never know the exact number who died thanks to the Hitler regime.

I picked Hitler to kill because there would have been a chance that the atrocities (at least not on that level) might not have occurred without him. He seized power by guile and force. He did not win the popular vote in Germany to begin with. Thus, there is a chance that Germany and its people might have chosen a different and better path had Hitler not been on the scene.

By comparison, killing Christopher Columbus would not have helped the indigenous people of the Americas any. Someone else would eventually have jumped in a ship and discovered the "New World."

[wolf]

There are reasons I'm not taking either pill ...

Consider, for a moment: The forces of history move things forward, and certain things happen at certain times. Each of these people and events has a web-like interaction with the other. If one strand gets pulled, movement occurs elsewhere.

Now, ask this (or your own question):

How many might Stalin have killed if he hadn't had to fight Hitler?

Arguments like this, though, are pretty much fruitless ... since you can never really answer the "What if" questions.

Sci Fi writers have a blast with that stuff, though!

Actually, this has been an interesting question to think about. We can all pretty much agree that Hitler and Stalin were evil. It is interesting to speculate if they were inevitable evils. Columbus was inevitable. Stalin - I admit to not knowing enough about the forces behind his rise to power to hazard a guess, either way.

Was New Orleans inevitable, given the factors at work in the US in the 21st century? Would the same fiasco have been just as sure to happen under the administration of a different man in the White House? Sure, there would have been a hurricane, no matter what. But given the make-up of present society in the USA, the thinking of the people, the attitudes that are prevelant, would NO have been doomed no matter what?

What if you had taken the white pill, and REALLY been the head of FEMA when Katrina struck? Do you think you could have made a better outcome happen, Wolf? Just curious.

[Rock Steady]

Originally Posted by wolf

There are reasons I'm not taking either pill ...

Consider, for a moment: The forces of history move things forward, and certain things happen at certain times. Each of these people and events has a web-like interaction with the other. If one strand gets pulled, movement occurs elsewhere.

Now, ask this (or your own question):

How many might Stalin have killed if he hadn't had to fight Hitler?

Arguments like this, though, are pretty much fruitless ... since you can never really answer the "What if" questions.

This is a very good point. The further back in the past you pick, the cloudier the outcome.

Given that, I would knock off Justice Clarence Thomas during the Clinton administration. Now that would be good clean fun!

[mitheral]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

C'mon now, he makes a million dollars an hour, times 14 hour days, times 6 or 7 days a week. That house cost less than a weeks pay, $63mil if I heard right.

I'm a firm believer that no CEO should be making more than 20-40 times more than the lowest paid employee including all benefits. 50,000 square foot houses are just the most visible proof of the over compensation. And janitors, night watchmen, cafeteria workers, etc. that have been contracted out still count as an employee for these calculations.

Bill is hardly the only CEO who is over compensated but I've got a burning personal hate for all the evil that Microsoft has done. It'd be nice to spend Bill money correcting some of it and making the world a better place for all rather than just MS.

Anyways even if I died the week after Bill got his body back it would be a hoot to transfer all that wealth

[wolf]

Originally Posted by marichiko

What if you had taken the white pill, and REALLY been the head of FEMA when Katrina struck? Do you think you could have made a better outcome happen, Wolf? Just curious.

The real differences come in on the level of city and state government, not just before the storm hit, but over the last 30 years, when the money to strengthen the levees and improve the pumps went into "other <s>pockets</s> projects."

The evacuation could have been handled a lot better, too.

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by marichiko

I picked Hitler to kill because there would have been a chance that the atrocities (at least not on that level) might not have occurred without him.

I'm not inclined to be so hopeful as to believe murder, however high-mindedly applied, would be a solution to any problems. Stuff like that can backfire, and how can you know that a worse horror is not unleashed as a result of your choice to eliminate that person? The fate of the world or any group in it rarely hinges on just one person at one time, and what seems obvious to us from our 20/20 hindsight is not what people of that time believed and may not be evaluated the same way in the future either. In other words, WE are not by any means fit to choose solutions. We prove that over and over again throughout history. Suppose the guy who tried to kill Pope JPII had been successful? He (or the people who sent him) believed that to be the best solution. The very foresightful CIA arranged to kill the legally-elected President of Viet Nam, as the best solution to all the problems he was causing them. Our government will make sure that we never know who believed that only the death of JFK would make things come out better somehow; maybe they even thought it would be better for "US", God forbid, because instead we got Lyndon Johnson and you know how many deaths that was worth.

If somebody could start a thread where we would list all the BENEFICIAL murders which occurred throughout history, I think it would soon become apparent that they are few and far between. For that reason, I believe that the little white pill has the potential to accomplish more in the long run. And regardless of which pill you want to try, please use those powers to do something about GWB!

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by Tonchi

I'm not inclined to be so hopeful as to believe murder, however high-mindedly applied, would be a solution to any problems

I can't think of too many serial killers, serial rapists or child predators whose premature death would not have benefited society.

Sometimes, the right thing to do is just the right thing to do.