tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post6272654800593463810..comments2024-02-24T03:34:18.060-05:00Comments on Stealing Commas: Would you kill Hitler?chris the cynichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06872875475212333027noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-991376944310507392012-12-06T16:01:30.823-05:002012-12-06T16:01:30.823-05:00That would be a different question, but perhaps an...That would be a different question, but perhaps an interesting one: is there anyone whose removal from history (at any point, your choice) would be an unambiguously good thing?<br /><br />Hitler? Probably yes, even though I'm disagreeing with myself earlier. Other people would have made Nazism happen, but he had that charisma that made people willing to follow him back when it was risky.<br /><br />Kaiser Wilhelm II? Very probably...Firedrakenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-15788007759002788002012-12-04T19:08:22.504-05:002012-12-04T19:08:22.504-05:00As it turns out, I think that the key would be in ...As it turns out, I think that the key would be in Versailles too. Assuming World War I has already come to pass, that's where it all went wrong.<br /><br />But the time travel morality question always seems to be about killing Hitler. (Possibly because it's easier to imagine doing that, lone gunman or what have you, than changing Versailles.)chris the cynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06872875475212333027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-34513936330917121352012-12-04T18:45:21.262-05:002012-12-04T18:45:21.262-05:00It seems to me that suffering is the key here.
If...It seems to me that suffering is the key here.<br /><br />If I cause events that wipe out every [to a first approximation] human being and replace them with a similar number of other human beings, and there's no cry of fear, no world-wide panic, no moment of "oh sh-"... well, that may well be better than the alternative. If the overall suffering is reduced. (Depending on the methodology of time travel, even I may not be aware of it.)<br /><br />Not that, I think, killing Hitler necessarily achieves this. Even without the NSDAP, <i>something</i> is going to go horribly wrong in Germany under the Versailles limitations; it's simply not viable as an economy.Firedrakenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-30447077293750985652012-12-03T20:14:53.830-05:002012-12-03T20:14:53.830-05:00Oh god, the errors.
Paragraph two should read:
If...Oh god, the errors.<br /><br />Paragraph two should read:<br /><i>If you can't shuttle back and forth or look through a wormhole or something to see what the future is as <b>your</b> every action or inaction changes it, the future is as unknown to you then as it is now.</i><br /><br />Paragraph four sentence two should read:<br /><i>If you find yourself standing around in 1918 then everything after <b>1918</b> is as unknown to you as everything after 2012 is now.</i><br /><br />Those seem to be the major ones.<br /><br />Another thing is that, even with knowledge of what was going to come to be before your presence in the past started having ripple effects, you're still just one person, so can you really change the world?chris the cynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06872875475212333027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-84586753747963112942012-12-03T16:54:49.570-05:002012-12-03T16:54:49.570-05:00Setting aside the "big ball of wibbly wobbly....Setting aside the "big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff" theory, your presence in what you consider the past in itself, even if you try as hard as you can not to change history, may cause everyone you've ever known or loved or hated or felt less strong feelings toward, or been indifferent to, as well as everyone you've never known but existed in the same world as, to cease to exist.<br /><br />If you can't shuttle back and forth or look through a wormhole or something to see what the future is as you every action or inaction changes it, the future is as unknown to you then as it is now.<br /><br />It's just that what falls into the category of "The future" has been expanded, and now 2012 is included in it.<br /><br />If you can't see the future, you can't see the future. If you find yourself standing around in 1918 then everything after the future is as unknown to you as everything after 2012 is now. You've got better guesses than most people of what might be coming in the broad strokes, but you don't know any better than anyone else in 1918 who will be born in the latter half of the 20th century, and that includes yourself.<br /><br />-<br /><br />That's my view of it anyway. But the possibly crushing levels of guilt and/or terror and/or worry are pretty much unavoidable anyway. The weight of the world, and of history, and everybody who ever lived in both, is on you.chris the cynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06872875475212333027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3889388775673754833.post-18927364145365368802012-12-03T16:39:13.463-05:002012-12-03T16:39:13.463-05:00As a human being you deal with what's in front...<em>As a human being you deal with what's in front of you, not what may one day be. If you find yourself stranded in the past then you fight to make it right and history can go fuck itself. You don't let the people in front of you die just so your world can maybe one day come to be.</em><br /><br />I'm not so sure of that myself. Whenever I contemplate it, I come to the conclusion that I don't know what I would do. Every option involves high, possibly crushing levels of guilt and/or terror and/or worry.Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18034585577015417306noreply@blogger.com