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Ethics & Morals
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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You are in Berlin, 1933. Somehow, you find yourself in a position where you can effortlessly steal Hitler's wallet.
This theft will not affect Hitler's rise to power, the nature of WW2, or the Holocaust. There is no important identification in the wallet, but the act will cost Hitler forty Reichsmarks and completely ruin his evening.
You do not need the money. The odds that you will be caught committing this act are less than 2 percent.
Do You Steal Hitler's Wallet? |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Im still stealing it.
My answer means nothing unless you take into account my intention.
Im stealing it. "
hahaha.thats very true ....descriptive rather than definitive.... |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Yes I'd steal it but knowing me I'd be caught and shot via firing squad. It like this week someone found pictures of Himmler when he had just died. The auction house say they will go for thousands.
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I feel that by taking it I'd have one on this horrible evil little man that talks nonsence. And even in 1933 he was spouting off about anti semitism. So I'd be within my rights.
Well that's my defence in court. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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The title of this thread is ethics and morals.
Most people say they are not theives but if they examine themselves closely they have stolen something in their adult life and felt guiltless about it.
I'd say decsions are made by taking all factors into account. All possibilities. We can't just say 'I am not a theif' as if our own ego was all that mattered.
We are obliged morally not to take the wallet IF we believe the broadly Christian value of 'thou shalt not steal' to be a dictum that should never be broken. But there HAS to be times when we break it. If I had to steal a shovel to get into a burning house to save someone I'd steal the shovel. There are times in all our lives when we have to make instant decisions that go against our beliefs.
Some people might answer that we are ethically required to steal the wallet just to give the bastard some pain .. a little shadenfruede for the theif perhaps. However we have been told that the stealing of the wallet will not change the path of history.
If I am in my own time e.g. Berlin 1933. I cannot possible forsee Hitlers rise to power and the subsequent war of 1939 and all the atrocities. In this case my answer is NO. I have no reason to steal the wallet. I have no reason to spoil his night. I would act according to the laws and mores of the time and place i am in.
If I am in 2011 and travel back to 1933. I of course do have knowledge of Hitler.WW2 and the holocaust. If I have a time machine then I WOULD steal the wallet as I am aware of the amazing value of it in the future.
Nothing will change if I take the wallet. Tra said so. But things will change for me here. I harm no one from 1933. I have a slim chance of being caught. I bring the wallet back to the future and sell it on E bay. I know there is no identification but with a few pics I take when I go back in time ( oh shit I have a modern camera ) someone sort that idea for me.....
Hmmmm okay I haven't worked out the value of it yet but the sheer satisfaction of taking the wallet knowing no one is harmed and im not caught is too much to say no to.
Surely theft became wrong as it causes untold harm to those stolen from. Hitler is only having a lousy night and knowing what he does in years to come I don't feel bad about his pain. I don't stand to save anyone .....so Yeah .
My answer is .... if im from 2011 YES I'd steal Hitlers wallet.
Before the 'holier than thou brigade' start on me... That doesn't mean i'd steal other things. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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In which case I'll rephrase the question:
With the aid of a time machine you leave the present day and find yourself in Berlin, 1933. Somehow, you find yourself in a position where you can effortlessly steal Hitler's wallet.
This theft will not affect Hitler's rise to power, the nature of WW2, or the Holocaust. There is no important identification in the wallet, but the act will cost Hitler forty Reichsmarks and completely ruin his evening.
You do not need the money. The odds that you will be caught committing this act are less than 2 percent.
Do You Steal Hitler's Wallet?
Are you morally obligated to do so? |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"In which case I'll rephrase the question:
With the aid of a time machine you leave the present day and find yourself in Berlin, 1933. Somehow, you find yourself in a position where you can effortlessly steal Hitler's wallet.
This theft will not affect Hitler's rise to power, the nature of WW2, or the Holocaust. There is no important identification in the wallet, but the act will cost Hitler forty Reichsmarks and completely ruin his evening.
You do not need the money. The odds that you will be caught committing this act are less than 2 percent.
Do You Steal Hitler's Wallet?
Are you morally obligated to do so?"
Nope.. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"The title of this thread is ethics and morals.
Most people say they are not theives but if they examine themselves closely they have stolen something in their adult life and felt guiltless about it.
I'd say decsions are made by taking all factors into account. All possibilities. We can't just say 'I am not a theif' as if our own ego was all that mattered.
We are obliged morally not to take the wallet IF we believe the broadly Christian value of 'thou shalt not steal' to be a dictum that should never be broken. But there HAS to be times when we break it. If I had to steal a shovel to get into a burning house to save someone I'd steal the shovel. There are times in all our lives when we have to make instant decisions that go against our beliefs.
Some people might answer that we are ethically required to steal the wallet just to give the bastard some pain .. a little shadenfruede for the theif perhaps. However we have been told that the stealing of the wallet will not change the path of history.
If I am in my own time e.g. Berlin 1933. I cannot possible forsee Hitlers rise to power and the subsequent war of 1939 and all the atrocities. In this case my answer is NO. I have no reason to steal the wallet. I have no reason to spoil his night. I would act according to the laws and mores of the time and place i am in.
If I am in 2011 and travel back to 1933. I of course do have knowledge of Hitler.WW2 and the holocaust. If I have a time machine then I WOULD steal the wallet as I am aware of the amazing value of it in the future.
Nothing will change if I take the wallet. Tra said so. But things will change for me here. I harm no one from 1933. I have a slim chance of being caught. I bring the wallet back to the future and sell it on E bay. I know there is no identification but with a few pics I take when I go back in time ( oh shit I have a modern camera ) someone sort that idea for me.....
Hmmmm okay I haven't worked out the value of it yet but the sheer satisfaction of taking the wallet knowing no one is harmed and im not caught is too much to say no to.
Surely theft became wrong as it causes untold harm to those stolen from. Hitler is only having a lousy night and knowing what he does in years to come I don't feel bad about his pain. I don't stand to save anyone .....so Yeah .
My answer is .... if im from 2011 YES I'd steal Hitlers wallet.
Before the 'holier than thou brigade' start on me... That doesn't mean i'd steal other things. "
Perfectly sensible post ...I like it .. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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What is significant about the 40 Reichmarks?
What or who was he going to pay for with it, that he couldn't do if I pinched his money?
Can't be arsed to google what he was up to in 1933 |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"How would stealing his wallet completely ruin that evening for him? "
Because he'd have a condom in his wallet and if I stole it would not be able to have his way. But he did only have one ball wonders if he could still get up with?
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Presumably if I've travelled in a time machine back to 1933 I would know all about the 2nd world war holocaust etc.
In which case I would not steal his wallet.
I would shoot him in the head."
This man speaks sense and 61 million people would not have perished through the war. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"oh yes
And the moral incentive is ?...
morals? what are they some kind of mushroom ?"
Fungi...animal tranquility and Faustian decay..and pictures of malice ....dunno you tell me .. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"Whats the moral incentive then ?..."
The incentive was in the question..The Opportunity to ruin Hitler's night..nothing else.
Given what you know what will be coming in the future and the fact that you can't change the course of history the only direct thing you can do to Hitler is piss him off.for a couple of hours. there is very little or no monetary gain just the chance to upset him. Given what I know comes later I'm hardly likely to NOT steal the wallet because I consider stealing morally wrong. I'd take it. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I would choose not to steal the wallet because his bad mood could translate to something much worse for those around him and I would not want to be resposible for that. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"I would choose not to steal the wallet because his bad mood could translate to something much worse for those around him and I would not want to be resposible for that."
I don't remember reading about the night where he extracted teeth with pliers cos someone stole his wallet so I consider it safe to nick it ..... Im NICKING it...... |
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But would it piss him off for a couple of hours. What has he lost. You say no identification so i assume that means no personal photos and letters ect. So all he has lost seems to be a wallet with maybe some insignficant things in it |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"I would choose not to steal the wallet because his bad mood could translate to something much worse for those around him and I would not want to be resposible for that.
I don't remember reading about the night where he extracted teeth with pliers cos someone stole his wallet so I consider it safe to nick it ..... Im NICKING it......"
Good for you, but if he made the waiters family disappear or something in a fit of pique, thats the sort of thing I mean.  |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"I would choose not to steal the wallet because his bad mood could translate to something much worse for those around him and I would not want to be resposible for that.
I don't remember reading about the night where he extracted teeth with pliers cos someone stole his wallet so I consider it safe to nick it ..... Im NICKING it......
Good for you, but if he made the waiters family disappear or something in a fit of pique, thats the sort of thing I mean. "
What Bloody Waiters ?? Which story did you read ??  |
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By *orestersCouple
over a year ago
The Forest |
Given the precise parameters of the scenario, I would steal his wallet. If nothing else was going to change in the future because of it, then just the chance to give him a small amount of punishment for what he was going to do in his future would be worth it. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"Given the precise parameters of the scenario, I would steal his wallet. If nothing else was going to change in the future because of it, then just the chance to give him a small amount of punishment for what he was going to do in his future would be worth it."
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I am wondering why it would suddenly cross my mind to steal a wallet when steeling wallets is not something which usually crosses my mind.
That aside… for every action there is a consequence. What is the consequence of Hitler being pissed off that evening? What if as a result of being pissed off now, when in our history of that moment in time he wasn’t pissed off before, he makes a different decision? What if as a direct result (or indirect result) of his altered mood, later someone dies who hadn’t died in our history or just doesn’t meet someone they were destined to meet? What if we have just indirectly caused the premature death of the grandfather of the person who eventually finds the cure for cancer?
What if the small amount of money in the wallet was going to be used to buy some flowers. The florist needed just a few more marks to be able to afford to buy a train ticket for her son, who was in danger of being arrested as a political enemy. As a result of steeling the wallet Hitler now can’t buy the flowers and is too pissed off to ask to borrow the money. The florist can’t help her son to escape that night and the next day he is arrested… later being tortured to death. What of the florist’s son was the great grandfather of the person who invented the time machine?
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"Well then I wouldn't have had a time machine , wouldn't have gone back in time and wouldn't have stolen the wallet. So all's well. "
But you would have the time machine to get there, that has already been invented in your history.... you probably wouldn't have it to get back though, as you would now be in a new history. You'd be stuck in 1933 in Germany. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Nope. If I had the time machine before history was altered. I'd nick his wallet and then come back in the machine before he noticed the wallet had gone.
Im back in 2011 , he sees the wallet gone. Murders the inventor of the time machine.
It's at this point that I can't explain how I am in posession of a time machine that no one invented.
That really doesn't matter. I have the wallet and im safe. Doesn't matter who he kills - all the moralisers don't even care who is killed in their street let alone an assoc. of Hitler some 80 years ago.
Never mind parallel universes i'm now imagining a helix ...
Change of answer.
NO IM NOT A THEIF. ( so much easier ) |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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By linking the inventor of the time machine to the act committed by the time travller you have created a paradox:
The crime of the theft of hitler's wallet prevent the florist's son from escaping Nazi Germany and he perishes, thus not fathering the father of the inventor of the time machine, which in turn prevents the time machine from ever being invented which means nobody ever went back in time to steal Hitler's wallet, which leaves the florist's son with enough funds to escape Nazi Germany to go on and father the father of the inventor of the time machine.
This is why time travel will never be possible. Now, or at any time in the past. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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there never was a florist..or a gun..or hitler in person..or himmler..the parameters of the question are set. if it says all that will happen is hitler will get pissed off..that's all that happens. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Presumably if I've travelled in a time machine back to 1933 I would know all about the 2nd world war holocaust etc.
In which case I would not steal his wallet.
I would shoot him in the head.
This man speaks sense and 61 million people would not have perished through the war. "
Changing history can be dangerous.
Schindler saved 6,000 Jews from extermination. Today, the direct descendants from those 6,000 people number 36,000.
Multiply 61 million people by the same factor and there would be an extra 360 million people in the world today - one of which may have risen to power and pressed the nuclear button.
Very dangerous to play with history. |
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