@Count:
The difference is that what happened in the past already occurred. Everything that happened throughout history was terrible, but it was because of Aku. That is Aku's fault. Not Jack. He did as much as he could to fight Aku in the past. Going back to the present to sacrifice whatever good and potential exists in the darkest timeline is Jack effectively making a choice to enact a genocide of the future. I'm not "picking and choosing" when to label Jack's actions as being equivalent to genocide, it's a literal fact that's what he is doing by going to the past of his own free will rather than defeating Aku and redeeming the future. Sure, the future would probably be better if Aku was never around. But too much has occurred and been cultivated to be destroyed simply to regain what was lost. It's better to rebuild and take advantage of both what is still left and the advanced new opportunities that Aku's reign opened up for society. The past can never be fully replaced, but that goes for the future to for what it's worth despite all the bad that Aku's done if righteous people like all of Jack's allies still exist.
You are presenting the thing as if Jack lived thousands of years and one day find the road to time travel. He has already time travelled and the way to the past already exist. So he can either stay of his own free will in a time he does not belong which means the non-existence of the future that would exist if he went to his proper time or he goes to the time he belongs to and everyone from the future he was flung into would not exist.
If you are going to consider that not existing is dying then both choice involve the death of billions. But you keep insisting that in case it is genocide but in the other it is not.
He killed the monster that enslaved his planet for centuries by killing off everybody in the entire future.
Wether he stayed or left one future would have not exist. If that means killing everybody then Jack either kill a thousand of years that suffered under Aku or a thousand of years without Aku. Yet you only acknowledge one.
That does not sound like a fair trade to me, nor is it heroic.
You clearly don't care about trading. There's nothing to make believe the universe would be less populate, less happy or even have less habitable planets if Aku did not exist. Your concern are those that would not exist without Aku reigning but that disregard those that would exist if Haku did not reign.
Jack failing in his first battle with Aku is not his fault. He did his best and got tricked into being time traveled.
Going back to the past, however, is his conscious choice.
Staying in the future would also be a conscious choice.
Hell even killing Aku is the conscious choice of creating a world where Aku is not there anymore. They would literally be living in a time created by the guy that magically showed a couple decades back and does not belong to their world. But this change to history does not matter because it's not with time travel and you did not get to see those that would exist if Jack gave up on killing Aku.
And he has to take responsibility for it by knowing that while he got rid of all Aku's corruption, he also got rid of all of the good and honest people in the future.
Should he have stayed he would have to take responsability for dooming the galaxy to at least a thousand years of Aku's corruption and erase the good and honest people that came after his death but you keep ignoring it as if Jack just invented time travel and is not already in the middle of one.
Going back to the past prioritizes dead people (that didn't deserve to die, but it already happened whether we like it or not) above lives that are still alive and relevant.
Jack did not live a thousand years, see everyone die and then decided to time travel to the past. He got flung a thousand years into the future. In 20 thousand years everyone Jack met in the time he was will be dead(except Aku). By your weird logic any non immortal being is dead. Or is it Jack presence that qualifies wether someone is alive or dead? Because they were alive when he left the present also.
And this isn't even getting into consent issues of the possibility that everybody in the future doesn't want to sacrifice themselves for dead people from centuries ago if they know about cause-and-effect (unlike how Samurai Jack conveniently ignores that until Ashi dies days after she comes back to the past for whatever reason), and yet you do it anyways. Which is still selfish, even if you're saving people in the past, because you're sacrificing the people in the future whose lives are just as valuable yet STILL alive before you travel back.
I'm curious to how many no would mean Jack can't get back to his time. A billion? A thousand? One?
I mean the guy is from from the past but he needs the permission of the future to return home, to his time and save his people. But for some reason dooming his people, staying in a time he does not belong and erasing those that would come from Aku's death require no permission and is even better.
Depends on what type of changes preventing the massacre enforces on our timeline. It's unpredictable and could likely be hazardous. And the the events that occurred due to the Holocaust could have influenced a lot of lives, even indirectly for the better over the decades. The argument still applies because if we stretch out those ten years into over seventy where the Holocaust has powerfully influenced our culture, it could have all sorts of potential ramifications.
So you would force the guy to stay in your time, let his people get massacred all so you can potentially exist under some rationalization that while sad the holocaust already happen and they are dead even when the guy is standing in front of you proving the whole it already is some BS you are giving yourself to serve your purpose. And all that while claiming that forcing this person to live in your time he did not even want to come to gives you the moral high ground.
Including possibly preventing either of us from being born, among other things.
Either? All he is doing is going back to his time. Only you are at risk.
It sounds silly and ridiculous, but time travel is not a joke to be taken lightly.
Mostly seems you decided your existence and time is more important than his.
Especially when changing major events in history. It's easy to pretend that preventing the Holocaust with time travel just winds up in having our future stay intact with all the millions of Jews still alive while all of the people in the present still live in the same way as well, but it's NEVER that simple.
I never say those from all those after gets to exist. I asked you if you would consider a jew from before the holocaust has to stay in our time so you can exist and if not doing so (and stopping the holocaust) makes him a mass murderer. You seem to think yes. You also seem to think him deciding to let the holocaust happen when he was planning to stop him in the first place does not make him a mass murderer.
I'm not sure how you do to make both idea co-exist except for deciding that your existence is more precious than those he is forced to leave to die and won't exist.
I can understand having a preference when it come to story but you are talking in the context of it being real.
And even if the person in your example can never know anything about the future past that decade, he's still technically sacrificing any births that could have occurred that are subtly linked to the Holocaust occurring due to the butterfly effect, among other things that may have been introduced in World War II linked to the Holocaust that may be aiding people a decade further like new medicine or other advancements.
Sure and staying means letting the holocaust happen and sacrificing the birth of anyone related to the death of Hitler. But you refuse to consider that becasue it would mean acknowledging it is about the existence of people you like rather than some morale high ground.
I don't understand why you're using an example of acting within the era the time travel is involved in when Samurai Jack is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.
10 years later Hitler is dead and we are trying to move forward. A thousand years in the future Aku is still alive and enslaving people. Also does acting within 10 years or a thousand change the whole changing history and making people not exist?
The only way I find changing the past to be realistically justifiable is when it's without a doubt certain that it's impossible to get overcome corruption in the future due to either lacking strength to take out some type of global oppression or most of the planet being destroyed from an apocalypse or something.
Even if Haku lasted 300 years then killed everyone and then Jack appeared 400 years in the future and went back to his time, he would still erase 300 years worth of people to make another path. So why exactly is it okay in this case but not the other?
Even if you can prove that time traveling a decade ago is worth it, whole centuries of new lives, cultures, advancements, etc, being sacrificed for the past is a completely different story.
It is not Jack past it is his present. You are asking to screw his present and future so that some far away dystopian future can happen.
There is a discussion to be have if the person is actually going to the past but when it is literally the time traveller going back to his time it is bullshit to pretend stopping him is for the greater good or some balance or not erasing people or wathever.