Killing baby Hitler is a thought experiment in ethics and theoretical physics which poses the question of using time travel to assassinate an infant Adolf Hitler. It presents an ethical dilemma in both the action and its consequences, as well as a temporal paradox in the logical consistency of time. Killing baby Hitler first became a literary trope of science fiction during World War II and has since been used to explore these ethical and metaphysical debates.
Public debate around the question of killing baby Hitler reached its height in late 2015, after ‘The New York Times’ published a poll asking its readers the question. 42% said they would kill baby Hitler, 30% said they would not and 28% were undecided. Advocates of killing baby Hitler included Florida governor Jeb Bush and film actor Tom Hanks, while comedian Stephen Colbert and pundit Ben Shapiro were counted among the opponents of the policy.
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The Daily Omnivore 