tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post4987257800993325713..comments2024-03-28T18:59:57.979+00:00Comments on Poul Anderson Appreciation: Back To The PresentKetlanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08588156788583883454noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post-30697181085233150762017-04-29T09:15:00.107+01:002017-04-29T09:15:00.107+01:00Kaor, Nicholas!
Thanks for your interesting comme...Kaor, Nicholas!<br /><br />Thanks for your interesting comments. <br /><br />I argue that we CAN'T know what the world would have been like if someone had stopped Gavrilo Princip. I can't help but think a world spared monsters like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, et al, would have been better than what we have now.<br /><br />Yet another complication is this: CAN the past be changed? Wouldn't SOMETHING happen to prevent any effort by a man from the future from changing the past? That was the idea Poul Anderson used in THERE WILL BE TIME.<br /><br />Or might an attempt to prevent the Sarajevo assassination simply end with an alternate world splitting off from the other? That is, World A, where Francis Ferdinand is killed; or World B, where he was not murdered.<br /><br />I simply know the murder itself was wrong and it would have been RIGHT if someone HAD tackled Princip.<br /><br />SeanSean M. Brookshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13973738112230622557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post-14564162698761825172017-04-29T07:30:45.678+01:002017-04-29T07:30:45.678+01:00Kaor, Sean!
There seems to be a complication here...Kaor, Sean!<br /><br />There seems to be a complication here. Imagine a decent man in Sarajevo in 1914, who sees what Gavrilo Princip is about to do. Presumably, the decent man tackles him to prevent a murder.<br /><br />Now imagine a decent man today, who is offered the opportunity to travel back in time to prevent the murder of Franz Ferdinand. He might well decide that the murder was wrong in itself, and led to many other evil consequences, but decline to prevent it, saying that without that murder, history would have taken a different turn, which might end up being better or worse, and could well have had great evils of its own. This seems to be a reasonable view, and is the view that the Time Patrol takes, I believe.<br /><br />But should we therefore not interepvene to stop a murder or other evil act about to take place in front of us? From the perspective of 2117, that evil may have brought good, or been an alternative to greater evils, or at least stopping it would have led to a very different world. And yet, most of us do not believe in practicing pure passivity.<br /><br />Does time travel alter the moral calculus? If so, why?<br /><br />Best Regards,<br />Nicholas D. RosenAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3538502828554372917.post-29538732159657335602017-04-25T16:23:22.597+01:002017-04-25T16:23:22.597+01:00Kaor, Paul!
I did wonder if Manse could have look...Kaor, Paul!<br /><br />I did wonder if Manse could have looked up back issues of the London TIMES using Patrol resources. Or was he first supposed to prove he could find what he needed to know using more primitive technology? <br /><br />I can see why you might not be able to work for the Patro--because you would object to letting innocent persons be falsely accused or even suspected of crimes they had not committed. Or, you would dislike the Patrol not preventing crimes? One famous we have discussed here being the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914. Even putting the literally world shaking consequences of the assassination, any decent man would want to PREVENT it from happening because it was simply wrong for Francis Ferdinand and his wife to be murdered.<br /><br />SeanSean M. Brookshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13973738112230622557noreply@blogger.com