All too often, the dangers of a temporal paradox are whitewashed and ignored. Today, I hope to spell the problem out in a way that shows the scope. First, a paradox is the inevitable result of backwards time travel. By merely existing in that timeline, you alter it. This is unavoidable. But rather than dwell on the small parts of paradox, I will use my favorite example:
In 2040 a time machine is built. The builder decides to go back 90 years in order to kill Hitler before his rise to power. The time traveler succeeds in his goal, and Hitler's empire never came into being. But that means that in the future the traveler is from, Hitler never existed, and thus there was no reason for the traveler to go back in time to 1930. Because theres no reason, it doesnt happen, and Hitler is not killed. Hitler rises to power, resulting in 2040 a person using a time machine to go kill Hitler. Upon success he negates his own reason for traveling to the past. Due to the nonexistance of the threat, he doesnt go back to kill Hitler, who then rises to power. Then the traveler goes back to kill hitler, negating his reason for time travel, which results in Hitler rising to power, him traveling back in time, killing hitler again, which results in no reason to return to that time period, and Hitler rises, only to be struck down again as the time traveler negates his own reason for the travel, allowing hitler to rise and initiating another time travel event that automatically negates itself.
This line of thought continues infinitely. The end result is that any such event will cause the universe to cease functioning in a linear manner: Time will forever exist as a repeating loop between 1930 and 2040, with no way to undo the damage since we could not perceive of a problem. This would literally be the end of the universe.
I hope this little post has cleared up any confusion.
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