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Isn't the issue here that they are describing the methods through which they are trying to determine time travel. In effect, telling anyone in the future exactl
by awjr 13y ago
Isn't the issue here that they are describing the methods through which they are trying to determine time travel. In effect, telling anyone in the future exactly what not to do.
Let's also assume that somebody had a reason to travel into the past, say to kill Hitler. Our timeline would record that an Austrian artist was murdered in the 1920s. We would not consider this historically significant.
I think time travel is inherently very difficult to detect. Even if a time traveller 'dropped' tech. This tech would be recoverable by popping back in time and recovering it.
- andyjohnson0 13y ago"...say to kill Hitler." Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip. http://www.abyssapexzine.com/wikihistory/ http://www.abyssapexzine.com/wikihistory/
- bsaul 13y agoThanks for that link, i haven't laughed this hard in ages
- fhars 13y agoWell, then starting to read at http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlersTimeTravel... may be dangerous to your health.
- danielweber 13y agoIt's beautiful for how it captures the essence of all message board fights.
- arethuza 13y agoWhy just Hitler? Stalin and Mao were arguably equally as bad: http://necrometrics.com/tyrants.htm http://necrometrics.com/tyrants.htm And there are monsters like Leopold II of Belgium (possible victims in the range 2-15 million) who hardly anyone remembers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium#Exploitation_and_atrocities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium#Exploitat... Actually, as hardly anyone remembers Leopold II maybe he is the ideal target.... :-| [NB I eventually remembered that I'm against the death penalty - so what I am actually in favor of is apprehending the relevant individuals and bringing them back to face trial by the appropriate authorities. Although I admit there would be a distinct temptation to do a Cheradenine Zakalwe with Vasili Blokhin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Blokhin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Blokhin Where was the Grey Area when we needed it!]
- mcv 13y agoKilling Stalin without killing Hitler might not be the best idea, considering the vital role Russia played in the defeat of the nazis. And maybe Leopold II gets overlooked by time travelers exactly because they also don't remember him. (Good of you to mention Leopold II, though. Also note Henry Morton Stanley's role in that despicable piece of genocide.)
- vixen99 13y agoThere is a view that General Winter managed very well by himself.
- njharman 13y agoActually, the H man and those guys don't make the cut. The ones deserving of time-travel assassination have already been dealt with. Hence we don't know of them.
- bbwharris 13y agoExactly. If we are going to hypothesize about time travelers then we have to accept that any significant reason to time travel has already happened. Futhermore it has happened more times than we are aware of to create our specific timeline. Maybe Hitler was a time traveler himself.
- snowwrestler 13y agohttp://mark.laabs.net/alternate-theory-for-obamas-nobel-prize/ http://mark.laabs.net/alternate-theory-for-obamas-nobel-priz...
- kamaal 13y agoI am wondering, that things like killing someone historically significant won't be done unless there is extinction level threat from that individual. Other wise the people in the future would decide to just let it play.
- swombat 13y ago7000 personally executed over 28 consecutive nights, through a shot in the base of the skull while wearing a leather apron, gloves and hood, 300 a night for 10 hours each night, one every 3 minutes? That's some character... It takes a certain kind of monster to order the execution of 7000 officer prisoners of war. It takes another kind to carry it out personally with a collection of pistols brought in especially for the job.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoSee also [0] for explanation why no one ever succeeded. [0] - http://www.viruscomix.com/page382.html http://www.viruscomix.com/page382.html
- jagermo 13y agothank you. I was thinking about this fantastic story the other day and I was wondering if I'll ever find it again. Bookmarked.
- riffraff 13y agoyou are assuming time travelers change history, but it's different if you subscribe to the idea that you can't change past because in fact you did not change the past. Then you can detect people saying stuff about the future, or possibly attempting to kill hitler while failing miserably.
- praptak 13y ago> Let's also assume that somebody had a reason to travel into the past, say to kill Hitler. Our timeline would record that an Austrian artist was murdered in the 1920s. This would prevent World War 2 and the associated advances in technology, possibly including those leading to the time travel being possible in the first place.
- primitivesuave 13y agoYou could also imagine the converse, where someone from the future brings back all scientific knowledge, thus reducing the time it takes scientists of the past to invent time travel, which in turn leads to that person bringing back all scientific knowledge sooner, perpetuating onwards until massive amounts of knowledge are acquired in small amounts of time. Such is the nature of the grandfather paradox.
- anon4 13y agoGiven that people cannot learn infinitely fast and progress needs time to happen, there will be a point of equilibrium.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- venomsnake 13y agoAnd have you thought about how many potential hitlers were pruned in the WW2 ... every one that died in the conflict could be much worse than him. So maybe Hitler was a historical fuse. A maniac just 20 years later could have destroyed humanity. Dead serious here, assume that nuclear weapons were available from day1. So maybe there was time travel manipulation to ensure WWII so that humanity could survive.
- awjr 13y agoNow you're just messing with my mind.
- arethuza 13y agoPerhaps the WW2 in our timeline is the least worst outcome.... :-| e.g. What if the Normandy landings had failed? The Nazis would still have been defeated by the Soviets but the whole of Europe north of the Alps could have been occupied by the Soviets, perhaps making a far worse later nuclear conflict much more likely.
- rmc 13y agoI think Stephen Fry wrote an alternative history book based on that premise.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- chenster 13y agoSounds like a plausible sci-fi story!