The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

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The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:07 pm

So, this sort of scenario was swimming in my head for the past hour and I thought it would make a good topic of debate:
Say that in some point in time, we develop a machine that can beam the information of today of milestones that happened later into the heads of people from the past would it be ethical? Like for example, beaming modern day scientific texts on race into the minds of everyone in the Jim Crow south, replacing the sexist cultural norms of the 50s with the modern day, or flashing homosexuality being taken off the DSM in 1974 and some modern day texts on neuroscience into the minds of certain people in pre-1967 Britain. Or should the past reserve the right to remain ignorant and progress at its destined rate?
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby D-LOGAN » Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:14 pm

If sci-fi has been taught us nothing else it's that YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE TIME-SPACE-CONTINUUM! The consequences could be catastrophic, go back a thousand years and step on an ant, BAM, you come back to a world filled entirely by clones of Hitler!

YOU CANNOT PLAY GOD WITH THE FLOW OF HISTORY!

... or on the other hand ... fuck it. Go nuts, what the hell? What's the worst that could happen? Things generally always work out.
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Marcuse » Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:57 pm

Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:So, this sort of scenario was swimming in my head for the past hour and I thought it would make a good topic of debate:
Say that in some point in time, we develop a machine that can beam the information of today of milestones that happened later into the heads of people from the past would it be ethical? Like for example, beaming modern day scientific texts on race into the minds of everyone in the Jim Crow south, replacing the sexist cultural norms of the 50s with the modern day, or flashing homosexuality being taken off the DSM in 1974 and some modern day texts on neuroscience into the minds of certain people in pre-1967 Britain. Or should the past reserve the right to remain ignorant and progress at its destined rate?


As absurdist science fiction, that sounds like a fun concept. As reality, it's fanciful at best.

I don't think it would be ethical to make some hypothetical machine that can exert mind control over people in the past, to make them adopt the vogue ideologies of today. The problem with that is twofold:

1. If it can and should happen, it already has. The way time works is that it'd already have happened if it was supposed to and does in the future. That's why causality in time travel situations is boggling.

2. Competition from further off futures where values have shifted. I know progressives like to think that their values are marching on an inexorable path into the future, displacing everything else and leading us to a utopia, but I don't think that we can predict what the future will hold, and if we allow for 2017 to impose it's values on 1965, why shouldn't 2070 impose its values on both?

On top of this, I can't see how it would be ethical to force people to believe what someone else believes, even through time. They're still people even if they're wrong about something, and while certainly people have caused great suffering in the pursuit of their values, that's true of literally every ideology and worldview. Nobody says democracy is a bad idea because of the Terror.
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Pseudoman » Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:23 pm

Marcuse wrote: if we allow for 2017 to impose it's values on 1965, why shouldn't 2070 impose its values on both?

You guys wouldn''t believe this but I get telepathic messages everyday from the '70's' and it ain't pretty. Turns out Jews were magic all along. Members from the extreme left and extreme right were brainwashed all along by Islamic terror groups to weaken the west's foundation. Slavery's back in fashion but don't worry we're just using college graduates this time around, oh and the term minimum wage no longer exists. Black people are endangered and now live in Nature Reserves in Africa. Sex is banned since it was discovered the action was sexist all along and was the main cause for sexism. The president is the Antichrist and everyone in the future is waiting for someone to assassinate him a second time so god can be our next president. On the bright-side everyone's vegan after Peta's campaign 'you eat animals, we eat your children' but I'm still eating meat while I can.
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Aquila89 » Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:54 pm

Pseudoman wrote:Sex is banned since it was discovered the action was sexist all along


Pseudoman wrote:On the bright-side everyone's vegan


Sounds like Utopia to me!
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:53 am

Twist: They're all last chancers!
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby SandTea » Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:59 am

Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:Say that in some point in time, we develop a machine that can beam the information of today of milestones that happened later into the heads of people from the past would it be ethical?


Besides the realities of time travel, I need the rules more defined. Later you say "replace". If this is just ghost of xmas future-ing people, showing them what the world will be like, folk may double down and get more racist/sexist whatever to prevent that horrible possible future where women can vote/marry black guys.

If it's changing people to increase overall well-being that would be vague enough to qualify as obviously ethical.

This did have me thinking about how we remember bad stuff as the defining thing. Jim crow south, for example. And how there was still folk who were like "yeah, that's a shit deal ya got there". Basically there will always be assholes, I think it's programed into us. I'm not sure any amount of scrooge-ing people could prevent present or future dickholes from existing.
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:02 am

But is there really any harm in making the 1950s the 2010s?
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Absentia » Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:23 am

Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:But is there really any harm in making the 1950s the 2010s?


Didn't you ever read "A Sound of Thunder"? I don't think we can afford an even more fascist president than the one we already have.
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby 52xMax » Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:54 am

That's the one where they go hunting for dinosaurs, right? I haven't read that (there's a movie adaptation but I hear it sucks), but it sounds pretty badass.

There are two things to consider here. As Marcuse pointed out, who's to say we have the optimal moral take on things right now? Perhaps people in a hundred years will look back at our behavior and think of us as savages in the same way we look down at slaveholders now.

The second thing is, and this is kind of a direct contraction but also not really, that there's always been some people who think some of the accepted behaviors of the time are immoral but dare not to speak out for fear of repercussions, or maybe they'd rather just not rock the boat. Like, I'm sure many of the slaves wouldn't have hesitated to take on slaves of their own if they could've found themselves in the position of the masters, but there were also others who saw how big of an injustice it was even when the current system benefited them.

But if we're going to start transplanting thoughts or inceptioning ideas into the people of the past, may I suggest go all the way back to the origin of religions and replace all the nonsense with a sense of wonder and curiosity, while also skipping all the oppressive patriarchal bullshit? That would probably have a much bigger positive effect than tracing only a couple decades back.

It's like Mike Ehrmantraut says

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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Absentia » Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:06 am

52xMax wrote:That's the one where they go hunting for dinosaurs, right? I haven't read that (there's a movie adaptation but I hear it sucks), but it sounds pretty badass.


Yep, it's a short story by Ray Bradbury and a cautionary tale about dicking around with the past. Written in the 1950's, actually, so it's particularly apropos.
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby D-LOGAN » Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:22 am

52xMax wrote:Perhaps people in a hundred years will look back at our behavior and think of us as savages in the same way we look down at slaveholders now.


Perhaps? Aren't we the optimist. Definitely Max, DEFINITELY!

But if we're going to start transplanting thoughts or inceptioning ideas into the people of the past, may I suggest go all the way back to the origin of religions and replace all the nonsense with a sense of wonder and curiosity, while also skipping all the oppressive patriarchal bullshit? That would probably have a much bigger positive effect than tracing only a couple decades back.


NO! Fuck wonder and fuck curiosity, what we need is the one true religion, the one written by me just now, to be enfused in humanity from the get-go, then absolutely everything will be fine throughout human history because everyone will be religiously dedicated to ensuring MY vision of how humanity should be comes to pass. And then finally the world will be as it should have been. And now as it always will have been. Hallelujah, praise the me!

Check mate atheists, oh that's right you can't mate your checks because YOU'RE NOT GOING TO EXIST FOR MUCH LONGER! Mwahahahahahahahahahaha!

Now gimme that damn time machine and prepare thyselves!
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Sat Jul 22, 2017 2:47 pm

While we're at it, let's discuss the merits of pissing through our fingers.

But for real, what you're suggesting wouldn't even work, because I should point out that you seem to think the enlightenment of today would somehow shine through their prejudices as we currently live in a world where Donald "Black people are genetically lazy" Trump is president, Jeff Beauregard "MLK's wife literally wrote a letter about what a racist asshole I am" Sessions III is the top law enforcement officer of the country, and there are rabid supporters who want to deport non-whites from the country who are a bloc almost large enough to get a candidate through a primary in a plurality.

You want to stop Jim Crow in the 50s? North Carolina was stopped not that long ago for trying to target black people with voter suppression while Democrats yell at Republicans about it (and ignore the informal school segregation happening in their backyards). Not too long ago, I seem to remember one of my family members yelling (and I quote) "Shut the fuck up, you dumb ni**er" to the radio when a clip of an Obama speech came on, then shortly after another of my family members yelled something similar at the screen when Beyonce dared to come on during the Superbowl and sing the National Anthem (I don't go to family gatherings anymore). Sending our information back to racists? LBJ should send an instruction manual forward to today about how the fuck he managed to do what he did during an era where southern politicians were still proudly calling back to their Confederate ancestors.

What you're suggesting and how you seem to view information is naive, is what I'm saying, since you seem to think we live in some world where racists are a dying breed. They're still here today, the same as they've always been here, and the same as they (frankly) probably always will be here.

We have all the information in the world at our fingertips and a solid half of our population will refuse to believe it. You can turn on Fox News tonight to hear Carlson Tucker wonder aloud why we allow people with non-Western values in the country (non-Western countries that are, not coincidentally, the ones that don't have white people in it) and host Sebastian "Don't ask me what this v. in my name stands for" Gorka, advisor to the president, to talk about immigration in what is definitely not a hardcore blowie session and then listen to many conservatives croon over what a brave intellectual he is. I literally have a lady I work with who will ask if a headline I read is fake news, even if it's just a piece on North Korea or something that no outlet would have reason to lie about.

People today have more capacity and ease to learn than ever before and happily remain ignorant (and, in the case of conservatives, some have started to revert backwards to the days of George Wallace and the John Birch Society of the fifties and sixties, so I don't know what you think sending them information from now is gonna do when the people of now are starting to think like that again anyways) whether that be refusing to believe factual evidence in an article or simply go on a Wiki rampage and learn some shit. So what do you think sending a slaveholder from the 1700s a book is gonna do?
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Last edited by Doodle Dee. Snickers on Sat Jul 22, 2017 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby Krashlia » Sat Jul 22, 2017 3:16 pm

Steins;Gate 2: Steiners Boogaloo: Houin Saves The World From The Forces of Evil.
(Shot of Mayuri singing "Do You Remember Love" appearing on every screen and from every broadcast thus saving Martin Luther King Jr. And Ghandi from another illegal a**whuppin, the exact moment the series jumps the proverbial shark and fans everwhere begin to pretend it never existed)
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Re: The Ethics of Replacing the Past with the Present

Postby DanteHoratio » Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:20 am

Assuming that time travel does not work on multiverse theory, of course. Because if it does, it won't affect your present, it will only create a new time line.

Kind of like how it worked in Dragon Ball Z, where Future Trunks went back to the past to try and change the future. It did not work, and really only created a new timeline, his timeline was still messed up.

Time travel is a very iffy subject, we don't know how it works. Seems to me the risk would be too great.
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