Perhaps better to go back to the end of WW1 and actually invade Germany and defeat them properly? Reparations unnecessary as we could have split the country between the Allies. No doubt some lunatic would have done something though - don't they always?
Been quiet for a while in Europe, perhaps Putin can heat things up? Anyway, reckon the world needs a cull - Europe probably not the best example for this - presumably Asia. The middle East just does not start massive wars and we are all bored of it by now. Africa just gets ignored. South China Sea seems most likely.

Red and Blue Army!

I suppose a more interesting and practical hypothetical is who you would kill in the present day.

That might also give one better insight into how difficult it might be to kill an innocent baby in 1889.

Edited by Hrolf The Ganger (23 Jan 2019 2.11pm)

But you would have to be worried about the butterfly effect.

Otherwise, why would you be worried about killing Hitler in the first place based on his future behaviour?

That would make no sense Einstein.

Give me strength.

Yes, you know what letting him live would allow but you don't know if killing him might make matter worse.

You don't have to know specifically how it might be worse, just that you could be responsible for say World War 3 in the '50s.
Killing him just because you don't like him would, therefore, be as dumb as you can get.

I suppose it also asks a question about the inevitability of events when a civilization achieves a certain level of technology.
Do personalities really make much difference or are we doomed to endure destructive wars and genocide no matter what?

One has to imagine that the answer is probably yes.

I'd like to believe that the Fermi Paradox is a little pessimistic but clearly, it is very unlikely that any civilization will last for eternity. It is easy to imagine that levels of technology on any planet would be based on a similar discovery timeline to our own with space exploration and weapons of war being closely linked.
If I was being ultra optimistic, I would speculate that some species may be less inclined to kill each other than ours and therefore get the technology without the war but of course, war is only one way to destroy yourselves.

Getting back to Adolf. It is fairly clear, given what we have discussed, that killing a baby would only change the details of events but not avoid the negatives.
As I suggested earlier in the thread, Planet Earth and it's inhabitants are doomed regardless of the details and so any retrospective action would be kind of pointless in the grand scheme.
Baby Hitler is safe in my hands but I might instead return to visit him in the bunker, kick him in the bollocks a few times and tell him how his plan for the dominance of his master race has probably caused the exact opposite to occur. That would be quite satisfying.