Badmovies.org Forum

I posted this one on my FB page and it got a LOT of great responses (it's still ongoing, in fact).
So here goes:

If you could go back in time and prevent the untimely death of any one person in history, who would it be?

(To avoid a huge religious debate, let's exempt Jesus of Nazareth from this discussion.  Plus, he has a track record of not staying dead!)

I guess John Lennon would be an obvious answer. The Beatles were and remain so hugely influential, he could have gone on to have done amazing things that alas we'll never experience.

On the political side, I wonder if the US had taken care to protect Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan if she could have fomented a different kind of Arab Spring. Certainly Musharif and these people were not capable of anything like that. A pro democracy person who also had popular support is rare in the Muslim world.

Kurt Cobain.

similar reasons to what Lester said about Lennon.

I personally don't rate Lennon's post Beatles work that much. (that's not to say I wouldn't have liked him to live longer instead of being shot, of course)

- nitpicking here slightly, but I wouldn't class this as a philosophical question...

more of a hypothetical

Zombie-  When I saw Nirvana, Cobain catapulted his guitar about 30 feet upwards and nailed a disco ball in 2 or 3 tries. circa In Utero

Martin Luther King Jr.: he was a good man doing a lot of good. He also promoted change through nonviolence.

Due to the Law of Unintended Consequences in combination with Butterfly Effect, I would not do it. 

How do you know that by preventing that one death, something far worse (and unpredictable) wouldn't happen?

There is also God's Will.  We don't know <i>why</i> ANYTHING happens, but things that seem bad to us can, and often do, turn out part of a greater good.  It's not our place to question these things.  Humbleness before the great mysteries of the universe is, I believe, a worthy goal in life.

In reality, you are probably quite correct, Ulthar.  Have you read Stephen King's 11/22/63?
It's a whole novel devoted to the premise of someone going back in time to prevent JFK from being killed.
That being said, if we were given the capability, could we not argue that God gave us that ability so that we could use it?

As far as my choice, I bounce back and forth between Abraham Lincoln - goodness knows his wisdom and enormous political skills
would have brought a more fair and just Reconstruction than the train wreck that was the duel between Andrew Johnson and Congress -
and Gaius Julius Caesar.  Caesar did some great things and some terrible things, but I truly believe his desire was to mend the
Republic, not to destroy it.  Also, the gross unfairness of his death - an unarmed man carrying out his duties, cut down by 22 armed
men, none of whom were worthy to undo his bootstrap, politically or militarily - it just always seemed wrong, somehow.

I have not.  We have it around here somewhere.  My wife has asked me several times if I've read it yet.


Sure.  That's similar to the argument that God gave us the abilities afforded by medical science to effect change in the course of disease and injury.

But when you enter time travel into the conversation, other problems are created.  Would it be moral to save Lincoln's life if that caused another person to never be born, even if that person was just some Joe Schmoe we have never heard of?  Or, how about a variant of the Grandfather Paradox.  We don't have to "kill our own Grandfather" for the paradox to still apply; what if saving Lincoln or Caesar caused YOU to never be born to go back in time and be the one to save him?

One of the beauties of philosophical and hypothetical discussions is that there is no right answer.

In that spirit, then...how about picking some unheard of peasant that died unpleasantly of Black Death?  Or perhaps one of the Jews at Auschwitz whose name we don't know? How to pick which one?

Alternatively, picking Lincoln...we don't know that he would not have turned into a power-mad dictator by '66. (no subtext, just a hypothetical comment). 

Thorny...

[/quote]

I've always understood it that if you did go back and alter the past, you could not return to the future you came from because it would no longer exist.
Overall, with that in mind, it would probably be better to be known as "the guy that saves Caesar from the daggers" than "the guy that saved Lincoln from a pistol."

I wouldn't save anybody.  There would be an awful lot more people alive today if it weren't for all these "great men".  And these people credited with social change;  if you look at how things turned out in the end, well if that's what they call success I'd hate to see failure.

If anything I'd save some young innocent who died in a car crash or something. 

Random act of violence against a disco ball!   :smile:

My friend had tickets for Nirvana's Cardiff gig on the in Utero tour, then of course he shot himself before they were played.

Actually kurt OD'd in Rome shortly before that as well. He had self destructive tendencies, so maybe it would be pointless going back and 'saving' him, cause he'd just do it again.

I'll change my vote to Hendrix. He surely had years of musical exploration in front of him

Mozart. Possibly the greatest musical genius in history, died at only 35. Who knows what masterpieces he would have composed if he lived another 30 years? I'd be willing to gamble on unintended consequences.

Known by who? (And I don't mean the Doctor.)

Actions have unchangeable consequences. That's how we build a consistent memory, and therefor exist as conscious beings. Time Travel is based on the old desire to change the past...but change it too much, and how do we exist?
If Alzheimer's take's your memory...where does the real you go?

Not returning to the future (any future) does not remove the paradox.

Our present timeline: Indy did not save Lincoln because Indy was not born until the 20th century.  Indy did not exist at Ford's Theater.

Altered timeline: Indy saves Lincoln at Ford's Theater (or SOMETHING to prevent that action).  But...how did Indy get there to do that? Even if it was an innocuous act far removed from the actual shooting.  Who is your Mom?  Where were you 10 years prior?  How exactly did you just "pop up," and does no one even ask, "Hey, who's this guy?"

Once you change the timeline, the future also changes.  It is POSSIBLE in this scenario that the future does not change in a way that precludes you from going back or even existing.  But, that's not deterministic.  The problem is, what if the act of "saving Lincoln" means Indy was never born? Since Indy saved Lincoln, and now "space-time" has been altered in such a way that Indy never existed, who saved Lincoln to create the situation that Indy was never born?

The problem is not you returning to the future. It's a real paradox; it can't be solved.  The problem is the overlap of two timelines by you (someone from the future in our timeline) preventing something in the past.  The overlap is the problem.

With that out of the way, I'd be very careful about risking those unintended consequences.  What if by saving Caesar, his continued life led to mass extinction, such as pandemic during the Middle Ages or nuclear war in 1955?  Would that be worth it?  That's the problem with the Butterfly Effect; you just don't know.

But hey...no "right" answer. That's what distinguishes science from philosophy.  The latter is far happier with speculation.

I second that.  I bet he would have reshaped later music for generations.   Plus he seemed inherently less pretentious than those Liverpool guys, or Jim Morrison.

-Ed

How about this: The moment you alter the timeline, time splits - the timeline which you left continues on unabated, your absence
not affecting it in the least.  BUT, from the point you interfered forwards, you create a separate timeline, in which the consequences
of your action ripple forward, changing small things at first, and then greater and greater things, until you forge a future vastly different
from the one you left?

If I were going to be marooned in the past, I think I MIGHT prefer ancient Rome to 19th Century America.  At least, an ancient Rome
where I was a friend to the most powerful person on earth.  Plus GJC would probably have taught those rascally Parthians a lesson
in humility had he lived . . . .

Or he might have taught a whole different lesson of the divine that exists in each of us, and how we all represent Creation by our natural beauty and differences. That we should seek the divine in everything around us and not in structures built to honor religion. I wish that lesson could be taught and learned by everyone. Then we could truly love one another.

Never mind me. I just had a friend deal with Family Services because some psycho neighbor jealous of my friend decided to try to ruin her family.

I would want to be a follower of Jesus Christ in his lifetime or possibly an actor in 60's sex films they seem to really have a good time.


Re Hendrix/ Lennon et all they were musicians. Hendrix may well have ended up making bad jazz fusion or something. or had a Clapton like career arch / songs that mostly conveyed how rich he is

Lester, those are two VERY different takes on "loving your neighbor"!!!

Java - I just don't see Gaius Julius Caesar teaching the Parthians that kind of lesson.

Sorry, thought you were talking about Jesus. I suppose I should read back further.

Ceasar wouldn't have taught that kind of lesson. He'd be better at military tactics and how to undermine a country to make it ripe for conquering. He was a fairly smart cookie, from what little I know.

Abe Lincoln.
JFK.
I would kill Hitler.
I'd kill Stalin and let Trotsky take over.

Randy Rhoads might have gone on to do some great stuff if he hadn't died.  That whole blending of classical music and heavy metal guitar...would have been interesting to see where he would have taken it in another 10 years.

RC - I don't know. the legacy of Trotsky lives on in the neoconservatives, the warmongering DC based worst thing that ever happened to this country. Stalin at least was at least not an elitist.

Also, another good era would be to have been a silent film actor they didn't even have to learn lines and they partied like crazy.

Uh, dude...Stalin murdered about 20 million of the people under his power. THAT is the worst kind of Elitist...as HE is the most important thing in the world- only the tyrant's life matters.
 Other people are just pie crusts to be broken.

I'm certainly not excusing Stalin's crimes, but I think Trotsky may have actually been worse. Trotsky vs Stalin is a common argument in commie circles and I think Trotsky was more neferious in some ways. he was an internationalist and not in a good way, whereas Stalin at least mainly killed his own people

Communism itself was the main evil, IMO.

Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky - human life meant nothing to any of them.  Everyone was expendable as long as their demise
served the rise of the proletariat state - especially the lives of the proletariats themselves.  Stalin's crimes were enormous -
I think 20 million may well be lowballing the death toll he inflicted on the Russians - But Lenin and Trotsky would have
done just as bad if not worse had they been given 30 years in power.

Any ideology that regards human life as a disposable commodity is dangerous.

Sorry - not to veer this too far off the time travel topic, but can you name one government ideology that does not regard human life as a disposable commodity?

It sure seems to me that they all start with "good intentions" and some fulfill those on a small scale, but the asymptotic point all governments seem to reach is "self serving," even to the point of "kill our own."  Some take longer to get there than others, but that convergence seems common in my observation.

I will be happy to exempt our own Constitutional Republic from that "condemnation" on the grounds that it has not really been tried.  Our government began drifting from Constitutional principles almost immediately, such as, but not limited to,  Marbury vs Madison (cf here (http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/09/10/the-marbury-v-madison-mantra/) for an interesting 2009 legal discussion of that case).

I do believe a system formed by and that strictly adhered to the Constitution could be the exception.  I'd love to see THAT experiment tried. 

I think that Marbury vs. Madison is actually sound legal reasoning.  Why HAVE a Supreme Court if it is not the
final arbiter of the Constitution?

This is what I love about our crazy, eclectic community.  You start a topic and there is NO TELLING where we will
take it!  And we do it all without flaming each other.


I love you guys!!!

I think all systems eventually turn towards capitalism...everyone wants to make money....

If I got stuck in a time in the past, I'd like it to be in 1950s America...

one time I would not like to go back is the great depression. no jobs AND no booze that is mind blowing we were like a Muslim country

If I got stuck in the past, I think I'd like it to be the Middle Ages...and someplace remote enough I could be left the hell alone.

But, it would have to be with no memory of modern times...I would not want to remember that better dental care exists, for example.  That's the single biggest problem I have with romanticizing past eras...I think it would be very, very difficult to give up modern medicine and dental science.  Modern tech (cars, computers, refrigerators, etc) I could do without.  Good, relatively pain free dental care?  Much less so.

But, if I did remember modern technology, I'd know a whole heap of chemistry that might turn out useful (some of it medicinal), so that's a trade-off.  Hmmm.   :wink:

I've always thought it would be fun to take a crateful of vaccines and antibiotics back to England in the 1530's and see how Henry VIII would have rewarded the physician who cured that nasty, ulcerating sore on his leg!!!

Yeah same here.  Post-WWII America seemed pretty awesome, at least from the way it's portrayed in movies.

Ah..." Mainly killed his own people" = Lesser of two evils...kinda.

For a time to live in U.S. history I would say the Roaring 20s, except for Prohibition. I guess the my favorite period would be between the end of Reconstruction and before the beginning of Prohibition, 1880s to 1910s.

The 50s... I'd hang out with beatniks.

Actually those speakeasies looked almost more fun than bars.  Some great jazz to listen to as well.

you could speak easily there which is good

I still want to hang out with beatniks...

Good grief, L.B. Smith, I turn my back for thirty seconds and you choose that second to pose a philosophical question like this? Sheesh, man.  :bouncegiggle: But then again I think you could've guessed my answer anyway. 

Nice to see you back here, me dear!!! :teddyr:

New question.

I knew a Russian a few years ago* who said in Soviet schools they used to counter western criticisms by teaching kids that blaming Karl Marx for the wrongs done under Communism was like blaming Jesus for the slaughter of the Crusades.

Did the Communists have a valid point?


* Total perv, BTW.

Don't think so. Mass slaughter for Communist purposes fits the ideas behind Marxisim. Jesus never gave his followers permission to do that.

And my Favorite Marx is Groucho!

Apples to oranges.  Jesus preached kindness and love throughout his career; Marx was perfectly open about the
necessity of adopting brutal techniques and destroying family relationships to bring about the dictatorship of the
proletariat.  This reminds me of that quote I emailed you the other day, ER. 

Do you still have it?

Marxism as a political system is so strange. He was mainly an economist and his ideas are generally within the realm of classical economics. it does at it's base give a strong role to the state for central economic planning. At one point in the Soviet union they were slaughtering humpback whales on an absurd scale because...someone in some high post decided that number had to be killed.

Also, were the Crusades so awful? How unreasonable is it for Christians in that time to want access to their holy places? what else are they gonna do besides get the plague and have dirty puppet shows

I will say that the Crusades have been misrepresented.  The fact is that the Holy Land was under Muslim rule for 300 years without any mass Christian assaults - because the early caliphs allowed Christians continued access to all the shrines and holy places, albeit for a fee.  It was when the Seljuks took over and barred all access to the Holy Sites that the Pope Urban II called for a military expedition to "liberate" the Holy Land.  However, the massacre of Jews in Europe that preceded many of the Crusades was utterly uncalled for.  To be honest, taking up the sword was pretty much against everything Jesus actually taught in the Gospels.  Of course, most people did not know that because most people back then could not read.

I do indeed, sir, thank you!

War is a really awful invention, the Crusades little exception, but people today seem to forget that Moslems struck first, invading and conquering what had for half a millennium been Christian lands. Although granted that did take place about three centuries before Pope Urban got a bee in his three-tiered crown and concocted one of history's more successful sales pitches. What puzzles me is that if you get right down to it, Jerusalem is not all that attractive a piece of real estate (harder than you'd think to find a Starbucks there, and as for a good ham sandwich...forget it)  and yet people just keep killing each other over it era after era.  At least when Helen of Troy launched those thousand ships she could, you know, offer something in return. Jerusalem just lies there like a tenth grade girl on prom night.

The world's a weird place. I'll never understand it. Or why people like Kanye West.

You run an under-paying day care business, mostly a tax write-off, and there's one little A.D.D. boy who just WILL NOT go to sleep at nap-hour, which is your own personal me-time when you sext the person you're cheating on your siggie with, so natch you put tranquilizers in the little s**t's Juicy Juice, uh-kay? By semester's end the kid's addicted and his mom can't figure out why he's getting headaches and is so cranky in the evening, clawing his face and such. (And you refuse to give him a hit of the drug to tide him over before he leaves, 'cause let's face it, those pills aren't cheap or nothin'!) Now, you know the mom's a real b***h who wouldn't shut up about the drugging and if she found out it'd be blah-blah-blah lawsuit, cops. The dilemma comes in on whether you should think up a plan to get the mother hooked on the same drug so you can control the supply and keep her docile when you tell her what you've done, or do you just let the little punk scream and puke his way through withdrawals when he leaves your class, 'cause, hey, not your problem anymore?

Discuss?

And BTW, I have a reason for asking all this...

It sounds like the person you are describing is human scum who has no business being near children AT ALL.

Sounds like a criminal act to me. Drugs and drug addiction is no laughing matter.

Let the little punk scream and puke.  The other option sounds like a Lifetime movie of the week script, but I have zero faith in it working in real life.  Of course, Jerry Springer is a millionaire...

Children, even one afflicted with A.D.D. deserve to be treated well, especially by adults who are supposed to be caring for and protecting them. This person should be shot.

Assuming it was an unchangeable, lifelong circumstance, would it be better to spend your time on this earth being thought ethically upstanding, but secretly be morally bankrupt, or the reverse, to be despised as corrupt, but in actuality be a good person, even if no one else knew it?

What, though, if the first scenario brought you lifelong happiness and prosperity, while the latter engendered misery and destitution even unto your final breath?

And finally what if there was no karma or divine punishment/reward coming to balance the scales on human behavior, and this earthly life was all there was or ever would be? Which would be better in that case: outward respectability as a villain, or secret virtue as an outcast?

That's too much to think about this early!

Here's another one for you: Will Trevor ever get clean undies?  :wink:

I would prefer to be a good person, even if no one knew and I was despised by others, with the other option, I would despise myself, no matter how much prosperity and happiness it brought me.


I agree, I now have a headache.

 

Trevor my friend, if you give me your address I will send you a package of fresh tighty whities from Sam's Club.

I understand there's a franchise opportunity in South Africa, Trevor.


http://www.redorbit.com/news/oddities/1715648/man_crosses_canada_handing_out_underwear/ (http://www.redorbit.com/news/oddities/1715648/man_crosses_canada_handing_out_underwear/)

Huh. A kinda 'Johnny Fruit of the Loom."

A good person as a person who hasn't yet had the success I want in life yet I'm happy with who I am.

 :bouncegiggle: :teddyr: LOL

As you're heading out to lunch you see the boss who refused to give you a raise fall in the decorative pond in front of your office. He flails his arms and screams, "Help me, I can't swim!" Then begins to sink under the surface. Feeling a terrible sense of conflict just before you drive away, you wonder: should you go to McDonald's for lunch, or save a buck by microwaving something at the local Quik-E Mart?

Spending versus thriftiness is an ancient philosophical conundrum. What would you do?

Let the bugger drown.  :wink: