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Author Topic: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?  (Read 7382 times)

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Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« on: January 20, 2007, 03:46:10 pm »
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Yeah, so that is the subject of this debate.  Whether or not you view it as possible, that is why the topic is named such, would it be right to go back in time to change events as you saw fit.  For example, would it be right to stop Pearl Harbor from getting bombed by the Japanese prior to the United States' entry into World War II?  Sure we would save American lives, but if the United States never went to war, then Europe might not be how it is now and the world as a whole might be worse. 

I would also like to say that this topic relates to the idea that if you go back in time that you can change something an a paradox does not occur.  So, please do not come into this topic and be like, "PARADOX it would not happen".  You could however mention how if something like an alternative timeline were created that it would not be that bad.  However, to debate this well, let us just think of one timeline and not multiple ones.  It makes the issue of changing something more influential.

OK, debate yall.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2007, 03:53:49 pm »
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No; society would fail to function. The entire concept of soceity hinges on time being linear; decisions can only be made once, people cannot repeat decisions until they find the most suitable action. In other words, society requires history to remain fixed.

Society also depends on people being unable to perfectly predict the future. If someone could merely go into the future, they could eliminate all risk in aspects of their lives - they could see, for example, which companies may become competition, and eliminate them early on, or see perfectly what future trends may be.

It would also eliminate true democracy; can you be sure that you really voted for the person you voted for? Or did they merely tinker with time  until they got everything perfect for themselves?

There is also the element of personal rights... if you sleep with someone, then go back in time and make sure it never happened, then it's still happened for you - but you've deprived the other person of it. Their consent has meant nothing because you are the only person who's actually benefited in any way.

Not only that, but you may get information off someone... and then go back, history changes, and they never told you. But you still know... and they don't know that you know? Or, at least, they never gave you permission to that knowledge... at any rate, it's an invasion of privacy.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2007, 04:02:06 pm »
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Well, yeah, if everybody could time travel then life would be a chaotic mess.  People need to feel that they can fail to make important decisions.  People would try to prevent their own deaths and seek their own pleasures.  It would be selfish if it were that way.  It might also appear selfish, but going back to save someone might be OK.  Was their whole life led just to die in that moment.  Why should their killer be allowed to exist when the killed cannot?

But, I do think that if a nation had something like an atomic bomb destroy most of them, but they could go back and prevent that from happening, then that would be a good reason to time travel. 
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2007, 04:59:59 pm »
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I dunno...time travel opens up the opportunity to right a lot of wrongs, but it opens up a bigger opportunity for some douche to go back and really mess things up.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2007, 05:16:35 pm »
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I would assume that if the method existed for going back in time, that yes it could be used for right and wrong.  It could however also be used as a tool to understand past events.  One could figure out how the dinosaurs were wiped out, how Kennedy was killed, and other things: and these could be proved with absolute certainty.  Scientific advancement would be infinite because technology could be sent back and improved upon again and again.  Time travel could also make court cases certain as well.  Who killed who and what happened when. 

That is really the issue.  Does the good outweigh the bad. 

 
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2007, 05:27:06 pm »
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It's complicated. I would say it could be used for good, and bad. If Osama got a hold of it, he could go back, and shoot George Washington, and the founding fathers, or sink the Mayflower with a missile. Then, he would be free to take America. You see?
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2007, 05:28:42 pm »
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It couldn't be used for good, no matter how careful the operators were...have you not seen the Back to the Future films?
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2007, 05:34:56 pm »
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Have you seen "A Sound of Thunder"? Not very well made, but it stresses a good point: Change one thing, change everything. For instance, in the movie, a guy goes back in time. He steps on a butterfly. Then, everything is reset, and the world is re-created. Until, of course, the good guy escapes the last time wave changer thingy and gets back just in time and stops the guy from stepping on the butterfly. Cue Happy Ending.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2007, 05:38:56 pm »
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Just remember that, we are ALWAYS living the alternate timeline, if there is one. Suppose someone traveled back in time to get Hitler to start his war. We would never know what timeline is the right one...

Time travel is fine. Changing events things isn't. Not even for the better or worse. Because everyone has other ideas about that.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2007, 05:45:06 pm »
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Sound of Thunder should have been so much more...if I recall, it was based on a short story where killing the butterfly led to many less visible changes such as morals and political powers...yet in the movie, it just made Jurassic Park rejects run after people...
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #10 on: January 20, 2007, 05:47:19 pm »
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Timetravelling could give some opportunities, from which most of them would be pointless.
So what if we knew how dinosaurs died? I mean, the same invention that made possible to study things, would do so much bad, because no one could control it.
Crimes would be easy, I could kill a person I hate, before he was even born.
Humanrace couldn't simply handle such a thing.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #11 on: January 20, 2007, 05:57:10 pm »
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Ah, I have been trying to remember the title "The Sound of Thunder" for a while now.  Now I can look for the book or movie or whatnot. 

jackofalltrades, if a time traveler went back to the beginning of mostly everything, then that is a possibility, but going back a little would not leave that big of a "scar" if you will. 

imfletcher, how could it not be used for any good?  At least Marty goes through a series of events that advance him as a person.  Everything negative in that movie is due to selfish people not the concept of trying to do good itself.  Marty plays at his parents' prom and makes it all right.  It is not like time has to be the same constant thing.  A subtle change would not make that big of a difference.

Kleaver, even if history were changed and Hitler were all-powerful, there would probably be someone to kill him or something.  He would not be infoulable, and his power would probably go to his head.  If society as a whole saw that there was a problem in their present that could be fixed by changing the past, then maybe that is what they need to do though.  Maybe there is no other way.

TomPel, as for my situation with crime, it relies on the idea that not everyone would have a time machine.  If there were a time machine it would probably be monitered at all times, and would probably have more safefty than all major government builidngs today.  If I killed somebody I would have to run to the time machine, pass through high-security clearance and then go.  The whole process would take too much time to work.  If all humanity could time travel though, it would be a disaster.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #12 on: January 20, 2007, 06:04:02 pm »
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Quote from: TomPel on January 20, 2007, 05:47:19 pm
Timetravelling could give some opportunities, from which most of them would be pointless.
So what if we knew how dinosaurs died? I mean, the same invention that made possible to study things, would do so much bad, because no one could control it.
Crimes would be easy, I could kill a person I hate, before he was even born.
Humanrace couldn't simply handle such a thing.
That's why we can't and never will be able to travel in time.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #13 on: January 20, 2007, 06:11:40 pm »
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No... we're not able to time travel because it's physically impossible, HB. :P
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #14 on: January 20, 2007, 06:37:38 pm »
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Quote from: Pyru on January 20, 2007, 06:11:40 pm
No... we're not able to time travel because it's physically impossible, HB. :P

Not to mention that it wouldn't even make sense.

To quote Gir from Invader Zim,

Quote
GIR: Wait... if you destroyed Dib in the past, then he won't ever be your enemy, then you won't have to send a robot back to destroy him and then he will be your enemy, so then you will have to send a robot back... [GIR's head explodes.]
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #15 on: January 20, 2007, 06:45:32 pm »
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I am going to say this again, this debate is hypothetical and does not involve the idea of paradoxes and the discussion is about a single timeline that is changable.  So, let's not go away from that. 
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #16 on: January 20, 2007, 07:17:34 pm »
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Time is set in stone almost. Say, someone robbed a priceless artifact from a museum and was never caught. You go back in time and take it so the real thief wouldn't. But either way, the artifact went missing, so nothing changed. Basically, time will find a way to fix things.

Wow, I totally bombed this. I know I did. Anyway, back on topic. Time travel could be feasible, but we'd have to find a way to control time and space, and technology is not and probably will not in the near future let us do something like that.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2007, 04:01:16 am »
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imfletcher, how could it not be used for any good?  At least Marty goes through a series of events that advance him as a person.  Everything negative in that movie is due to selfish people not the concept of trying to do good itself.  Marty plays at his parents' prom and makes it all right.  It is not like time has to be the same constant thing.  A subtle change would not make that big of a difference.

Except, he barely saved the day, and with slightly worse timing, he could have disappeared from time completely. On top of it all, simply travelling through time created huge problems and by the end of the series, Marty's whole town was screwed up. Sure he's a better man, but he ruined Biff's life completely (wrong whether he deserved it or not). And we didn't even get to see the current state to know much about the rest of the world. Changes in time don't just affect one town after all.

It was given a happy ending on the surface, but the problems greatly outnumbered the benefits...Doc could have just brought Marty for a camping trip...that might have made him a better man too.  :P
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2007, 01:08:17 pm »
Quote from: imfletcher on January 21, 2007, 04:01:16 am
Quote
imfletcher, how could it not be used for any good?  At least Marty goes through a series of events that advance him as a person.  Everything negative in that movie is due to selfish people not the concept of trying to do good itself.  Marty plays at his parents' prom and makes it all right.  It is not like time has to be the same constant thing.  A subtle change would not make that big of a difference.

Except, he barely saved the day, and with slightly worse timing, he could have disappeared from time completely. On top of it all, simply travelling through time created huge problems and by the end of the series, Marty's whole town was screwed up. Sure he's a better man, but he ruined Biff's life completely (wrong whether he deserved it or not). And we didn't even get to see the current state to know much about the rest of the world. Changes in time don't just affect one town after all.

It was given a happy ending on the surface, but the problems greatly outnumbered the benefits...Doc could have just brought Marty for a camping trip...that might have made him a better man too.  :P
And not to mention poor traumatized Einstein.
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Re: Hypothetical Time Travel: Is It Ethical?
« Reply #19 on: January 21, 2007, 01:26:28 pm »
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I like the idea of time travel, its somehow comforting.

I can't be bothered going over whether its ethical because its incredibly complicated, but I'll just say we will probably never time travel because no one has came back in time from the future to visit.
of course, it easily doesn't have to be simple, perhaps they've learnt our society is too stupid to handle a visit from the future..


its too open to debate really
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