Introduction
This post, despite its name, is not about the feasibility of time travel. This post is, rather, about a common theory dealing with time travel paradoxes. People often claim that if someone time travelled to kill Hitler, for example, his parent would adopt, or someone else would come to power, and kill the six million people in an equivalent scenario. I believe that this frankly isn’t true. Brief Disclaimer: This is my opinion. I could be wrong
The problem
People often claim that if one were to do something to the past, say, assasinate Hitler, that something would occur that ‘corrected the timeline’. For example, his parents would adopt, or someone else would come to power. This, in my opinion is false for a number of reasons. First of all, if someone went back in time and killed Hitler, there is now a dead baby Hitler. The timeline has changed. What this means is that even if someone else came to power and did the exact same things, there is still a dead baby Hitler now. The timeline has irrevokably changed due to your actions. The timeline cannot simply decide that something is wrong and try to correct it. If baby Hitler is dead, then the timeline is different. There is no such thing as an equivalent scenario here. Even if the same things happened after, say, Hitler’s parents adopted, the timeline cannot simply decide that the two scenarios are equal. They may seem equal to us, but the timeline does not care about what we think.