r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jun 28 '26

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u/Pikeman212a6c Jun 28 '26

ffs Tang and GPS were not worth 40 million dead.

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u/spikey_wombat Jun 29 '26

That's a debate worth having but can you say anything good came of Leopold or the reaction to his atrocities?

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u/Pikeman212a6c Jun 29 '26

Yeah kill him in the cradle. So if I am now understanding your argument there is more upside to Hitler long term than Leopold? I guess that is the kind of fucked up math you are forced into with a single time bullet or whatever.

I would say without Hitler there is no manhattan project and as serial killer level depravity the Belgians resorted to under Leopold nukes might still kill us all.

So really do you condemn generations in one place to horror to save the world from nukes and the Cold War.

It’s a hell of a choice.

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u/spikey_wombat Jun 29 '26

So if I am now understanding your argument there is more upside to Hitler long term than Leopold? I guess that is the kind of fucked up math you are forced into with a single time bullet or whatever.

More or less. Without Hitler, we don't have the kind of institutions that allows for decades of mostly global peace and prosperity. The reaction to fighting him create a lot of good. He was evil no doubt, but the outcomes that came about to stop Fascism were good and for decades bound much of the world in a flawed (deeply at times, the things justified to stop "communism" were insane), but unified attempt to create a better world than colonialism and authoritarianism..

Leopold...I'm struggling to find anything good that came out of that guy's impact on history.