I was about to write a long-winded argument that needs to be dropped. From the subject, you should be able to guess the nature. I just wanted to record this for posterity.
(Doing Therapy)
Molecular Biology.
(37 posts) (3 voices)-
JohnA1nut
MemberMJ, we understand each other better than you think. Your 3 GE roll would be Multiverser starts making a solid profit. I labor under the delusion that the info I collect will be useful to psychosis research.
Listening to Walking in the Woods, MJ Young, on the MP3. Got inspired.
(Dextroland)
More intense psychosis therapy. You don't want to know more than that.
Wed Jun 22 2011 4:28 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberOn second thought, I think I am going to make the argument. I just finished watching a movie called "Conviction". It's a true story of a man who is wrongfully convicted of murder. His younger sister, a high school dropout, gets her GED and goes to law school for the sole purpose of defending her brother in a retrial. She successfully exonerated him of the murder charge. Eighteen years of her life she devoted to this single task, and it was the only case she ever tried as a lawyer.
In order to convince me that you could never become a molecular biologist, you have to convince me (and yourself) that, nowhere in the vastness of the Multiverse, does there exist a divergent version of you who gave up on his dream of being a rock musician, gave up on everything else in his life, in order to go to medical school to save someone he loved. That there doesn't exist a version of you who loves someone enough to do that. I don't think you would even want to try to convince me of that.
I've heard it said that there is no force on earth more powerful than the will to live. I disagree. The force more powerful is the will to save someone you love.
(Doing Therapy)
Sun Jun 26 2011 7:40 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberYou didn't reply. That means one of two things. Either you didn't read it or you (finally) agree that I'm right. I'm pretty sure you read it.
I bet all of Betty Anne Waters' divergents would insist that there's no version of them who became a lawyer. A high school dropout who works in a bar with no life ambition. No way does she have divergents who got into law. Well, the one living here did.
Frankly, I think it's quite blasphemous of you to say that there's no way that God could have steered your course in any direction whatsoever. "He is the potter, you are the clay. The clay doesn't tell the potter what to make." You're a lump of clay telling the potter that He can't make you into something. Blasphemy much?
Mon Jun 27 2011 6:55 pm # -
You didn't reply. That means one of two things. Either you didn't read it or you (finally) agree that I'm right.
You missed a possibility: it could mean that I don't care enough to get sucked into this argument again and have decided the best way to avoid that is to ignore it.
As far as the clay telling the potter what to make, that argument so totally fails precisely because it assumes that there is only one unique me, and whatever and whoever I am is what God decided I should be, and that if there were parallel universes every me in every one of them would be exactly identical in every detail, as would every other detail of every universe. The multiverse is fiction, John. The only me that exists anywhere is me.
--M. J. Young
Tue Jun 28 2011 12:22 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberYou missed a possibility: it could mean that I don't care enough to get sucked into this argument again and have decided the best way to avoid that is to ignore it.
You're right. I should have gone with my original instinct and not said anything at all. It was a good movie though, and it got me thinking. The sad thing is that, in the true story, the brother was killed in a freak accident only 6 months after being released. When asked if it was worth it, Betty Waters said "At least he died free and happy."
The multiverse is fiction, John. The only me that exists anywhere is me.
You poor, poor small-minded man. I've seen visions of The Multiverse. God showed me what it really looks like. You're not far off, actually. The universes don't float in scriff, it's actually a series of interlocking cubes with each universe inside. It's a three dimensional latticework. Like a Borg battleship. The universes are round and kind of oblong in the middle of each cube. At least, that's how God showed it to me so that I could process it. You didn't really think an all-powerful God with infinite imagination only made one universe, did you? Making universes could be called His hobby. And He knows every single detail of everything going on inside all of them.
(Doing Therapy)
Tue Jun 28 2011 12:35 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberSeriously MJ, I wanted some feedback. You don't really think an all-powerful God with an infinite imagination only made a single universe, do you?
Personally, I think to believe that we are the only thing God ever created is small-minded. You have no grasp of the concept of the limitlessness of God.
I believe in The Multiverse because God showed it to me. I asked what "Infinity" looked like. In response, God showed me a vision of The Multiverse.
Wed Jun 29 2011 7:42 am # -
John, I certainly believe that God has created things other than this universe. What I do not believe is that they are like this one in the sort of almost-but-not-quite way that is so common in the game. Places like Narnia and Middle Earth seem far more probable to me than a universe in which everything was so exactly the same that my father and mother met and begat me, and yet I am completely different.
Think about it seriously. My mother is the daughter of immigrants, one from Italy and the other from France, who had to have come to America separately as children in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries, and then had to meet and marry. He was a machinist who developed a device to print words on pencils (although I think most of the money went to his employer), and they moved to Long Island from Upstate New York for his work. That had my mother attending City College in New York when she was nineteen and working in the city and going to a local church. If any of those details were different, she would not have been there at that church when my father arrived.
My father was son of a bank president in a small town in Mississippi. His father's bank financed the Sardis Luggage Company, later Starflight Luggage. They had enough money to send him to Georgia Tech, where he became an Electronics Engineer when Electronics were still rather newish, and that got him a job with Western Union--in New York City, where he looked for a church and so found my mother. Change those details, and they never meet.
So they meet, and their relationship is so precisely the same that Mark is born--not, for example, Amy (the name selected for my female counterpart). Everything in that world must have been so closely similar that the exact same genetic elements combined--not once, but millions of times over generations spanning millennia to the dawn of the race, the original Adam.
Yet suddenly, with absolutely everything so precisely the same in a clockwork configuration that that universe is indistinguishable from this one, you suggest that the kid who grew up in that universe, under what to the moment of his birth must have been exactly the same conditions, never dreamed of being a musician, never went to the Bible college where he would have met my wife, never had my children, never was squeamish about icky biological things, and instead became a biochemist. In a universe in which not the tiniest flap of a butterfly's wing was different for at least thousands and arguably millions of years, suddenly there is this earth shattering drastic change in the life of one single individual that completely destroys the congruence forever after--because if I were not headed into Christian music I would never have been at that school to meet that girl, and never married her and taken her to Massachusetts and later moved to southern New Jersey with her and gone into radio and, ultimately, had five sons who are even now impacting the future genetic diversity in the world by introducing their own children who will steal brides and grooms from others.
You can make a good argument for universes that are exactly the same in every detail, and you can make a good argument for universes which are unimaginably different at every level; but the notion of universes having been exactly the same for millennia suddenly drastically diverging from each other is the one scenario that cannot be real. If there is another universe in which there is another Mark Joseph Young with my genetic heritage, he will have lived my life.
It's fun to imagine otherwise. It's also silly. Sure, it's entirely possible that a multiverse exists--but it's not the one, nor anything like the one, in which we play our games.
--M. J. Young
Wed Jun 29 2011 5:47 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberThink about it seriously.
No, I think you're the one that needs to think about it seriously. What you're saying is that it would have been completely impossible for a being with limitless power as well as infinite intelligence to pull that off at all. What you're saying is just because you can't think of how it was done, that it would be completely impossible for God to figure out. And that, my friend, is where we have the problem.
Let's put this into perspective:
Mark Young's intellect - Your average bank account balance.
God's intellect - The combined wealth of the entire world.What you're saying is that, just because you can't afford a new car, the entire world can't afford to build one.
Wed Jun 29 2011 6:09 pm # -
Let me take a different tack.
This morning, I could have gotten up, gotten dressed, gone to a nearby bank, and robbed it. I did not.
If all worlds are possible, there must be a world in which I did that. In fact, there must be quite a few, because I might or might not have shot the teller, might or might not have taken the bank customers hostage, might or might not have taken out the cameras, and perhaps hundreds of other little choices that would make one universe different from another. So there are hundreds of diverging universes, all different from this one.
We probably should also consider that at the same time, you might have done much the same thing, getting up and robbing a bank, and that there are hundreds of diverging universes based on your actions; and the number of different possible universes you might create is multiplied by the number I might create, because not only do we have the one where we both stayed in bed, the one where you robbed the bank while I stayed in bed, the one where I robbed the bank while you stayed in bed, and the one where we both robbed banks, we have one universe for every pairing of you did this and I did that, you took out the cameras and I shot the teller, you held the customers hostage and I cold-cocked the security guard. Schroedinger's Cat is both dead and alive, and so is mine, and so is yours; and although in this world you don't have a cat, there must be a world where you have a hundred cats and the A.S.P.C.A. is after you.
I did not rob a bank this morning. I actually did not even think of robbing a bank this morning. If the multiverse is as proposed, though, there are many of me who did; in fact, while I might suppose that I did not rob the bank because my moral character is such that I wouldn't think to do such a thing, the existential fact is that I did not rob the bank because I happen to be the version of me that is in the universe that did not rob the bank. That means there is no such thing as character in the sense of moral fiber or predictable personality--I might rob the bank this afternoon, and in fact since it is possible hundreds of versions of me will do so, all of them having been exactly like me as I write this post, all of them sitting at this computer writing this post right now and about to do something each of them at this moment believes is absurdly uncharacteristic, to go out and rob a bank.
Any moral credit, if there is such a thing, I have for the fact that I do not rob banks is nothing, since the fact is I do rob banks all the time, I'm just not the version of me that has ever done so.
Any trust anyone places in me, any belief anyone has that I am "not that kind of person" or that I am "that kind of person" (the other kind), is entirely misplaced, because there is now no such thing as being a particular kind of person, no such thing as being predictable or reliable or trustworthy. I will kill my wife and children tonight, and tomorrow night, and the next night, and every day and night until some version of me dies at a hundred twenty, and indeed I have done so every minute of every day since I first met her, because every possible universe has been actualized; and it has always been a surprise when I did so, and always will be a surprise when I do so.
And since that is true for every human being in the universe, there ought to be such murders, such bank robberies, such rapes and assaults and other felonies every minute of every day in the thousands. If we assume that you can do a number of good things equal to the number of bad things, then in half the universes at any given moment you are going to be doing something bad, and probably something terrible, and so is everyone else.
And looking at the number of bad things that happen, I can only conclude that the universe in which I happen to be located is good at a level that is extremely improbable. That is, half the people in the world ought to be murdering someone or stealing something or committing heinous crimes of some sort, and the percentage who actually are doing so at this moment is vanishingly small; and if the multiverse is as you say it is, then as every second ticks forward on the clock it is a hundred times more probable that I will find myself in a universe in which all these horrors are happening right now than that I will continue to be in the improbable universe in which mostly benign things are happening. Yet with every second that passes I continue to beat the odds.
I believe that I beat the odds, that I am not robbing banks or raping women or murdering my family, because I am not that kind of person, and that there is not another universe in which I am that kind of person and have done or will do those things. I believe that my moral choices to do the good thing means that I have made the universe better, not that I have split the universe into multiple universes in which I did many different things of which most of them were bad. I love Sliders as a fictional concept; I do not believe it as a possible reality. I believe, rather, that whatever I choose is what I would have chosen, that in some sense I would not have chosen otherwise, because everything in the universe has brought me to that point of decision and made me the person who makes the choice, and I could not have been a different person, and given that there could not have been different circumstances, I always would have made the same choice.
Thus the universe is singular, as far as that universe in which I was born and now live. There is not another one "almost like it", because such a universe requires an absurdity and negates any sense in which I have made any moral choice or that I have any personality or character whatsoever, all of which would otherwise be an illusion of the fact that everything I might do is true in some universe, and only one of those is true in this one.
Choice matters because it forms the universe. If it only split the universe into two universes, it would not matter.
--M. J. Young
Thu Jun 30 2011 8:49 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberThis morning, I could have gotten up, gotten dressed, gone to a nearby bank, and robbed it. I did not.
And you're going to say that there's no version of you who did. If I may be permitted to be blunt, I think you're being closed-minded. Not a week goes by that you don't mention some financial woe or another. Is it REALLY such a stretch that there is a version of you who was pushed to desperation by his situation, and decided robbing a bank would get him out of it? I mean, seriously. You'd be lying if you said such a thought never once occurred to you, even in passing. Is that really such a stretch, that somewhere out there, a version of you was desperate enough to do that?
Betty Anne Waters was a high school dropout with no ambition. She worked in a bar. She lived with her two kids, born out of wedlock. She would certainly still be in that situation, if not for her brother being wrongfully accused. Her circumstances pushed her into desperation. She saw herself going to law school as the only hope her brother had. She loved him so much that she did that. You're going to tell me that there is no version of you who loves someone enough to take the most desperate of measures you could imagine? You say you could never be induced to kill your wife. If your wife was suffering of an incurable condition and constantly wishing to die, would you really be so heartless as to allow her suffering to continue, or could you find the love to kill her and end her suffering? If she was suffering of a condition that could only be cured by a biochemist, could your love for her not motivate you to go to biochemistry school in an effort to save her? Are you really saying there's no version of you who loves someone enough to take the most insane, desperate measures you could imagine? That I find impossible to believe. Betty Anne Waters loved her brother enough to do it. There's no version of Mark Young who loves someone enough to do it?
Unlike you, I have no problem with the notion that there's a version of me who rapes and murders 8 year old girls. I have no problem with the idea that there's a version of me who blew up a daycare center as part of an Al-Qaeda terrorist attack. I have no problem with the idea that there's a version of me who commits unspeakable atrocities just for the hell of it. You know why? Because none of these versions are me. No matter how much like me they may be, they are not me. I don't have to answer for what they do.
I think you're right. We're never going to convince each other of this.
Schroedinger's Cat
Who is Schroedinger???
Thu Jun 30 2011 9:24 pm # -
Wow, you a time travel fan and you don't know about Schroedinger's Cat?
Sometime in the early to mid twentieth century some obscure scientist (whose name I can't recall) put forward a notion of a multiverse.
The situation arose from the uncertainty principle, if I understand aright, and the problem of nuclear decay, because it seems that an unstable atom will decay at a random moment, and there are those in the scientific community who are persuaded that it is genuinely random, not merely the consequence of forces and events we are unable to detect. It is, in that sense, an uncaused event; it merely happens, and no one can predict when.
And the only way to know whether or not it has happened is to check.
This scientist suggested that in fact the existence of such an atom created two distinct universes, one in which the atom had decayed and one in which it had not. (It is perhaps more complicated, because it might have decayed at any instant, and each of those instants creates two universes, one in which it does and one in which it does not, but we simplify it to two.) He then maintained that we exist in both universes until we check--that is, the atom has both decayed and not decayed until someone looks to see which it has done, and the very act of checking places us in one universe or the other.
Schroedinger found this notion completely absurd, and he set up a thought experiment, since known as Schroedinger's Cat. He suggests creating an isolated box with sufficient life support to keep a cat alive indefinitely but no access to the outside world. Within that box is a single unstable atom, a Geiger counter set so that it will unfailingly detect when that atom decays, and a delivery device which when triggered by the Geiger counter will release sufficient cyanide gas into the box to kill the cat instantly. According to the theory, Schroedinger said, the atom has both decayed and not decayed, and therefore the cat is both alive and dead, and that's absurd, because the cat is either alive or dead, and the fact that no one has checked does not mean that the cat isn't one or the other. The life or death of the cat is a fact in reality, not an incident of our knowledge.
And the defenders of the new multiverse theory said, no, the example is exactly right: the cat is both alive and dead until someone checks, at which point the checking causes the cat to be one or the other, putting us in that universe in which that is the state of the cat, rather than the universe in which the cat is in the other state. Thus Schroedinger's "Thought Experiment" which was intended by him to prove that the multiverse theory was nonsense and that in reality one set of facts or another must hold was embraced by the new theorists as the perfect example of the true nature of reality, that nothing is real until someone observes it and so knows it to be real.
I agree with Schroedinger: the cat is either alive or dead, and there is only one universe in which there is such a cat, not millions in which the cat died at different moments plus the millions in which it will die at some moment in the future.
--M. J. Young
Fri Jul 1 2011 8:46 pm # -
Well, that's unfortunate, but considering that you're not going to post anything there that I want to read and that it takes me a lot of jumping through hoops to be able to moderate that thread (I have to log out, log in, make the changes, and then log in again to get to anything else), I'm just going to let it do so.
--M. J. Young
Sun Jul 3 2011 5:04 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberTwo
MJ, can you lock this forum so no one can post on it? I'm the only one that does, and since these threads aren't on the other forum, I wouldn't be doing it. I promised myself that I would leave this here. If I can't post here, I can't post at all. Can you do that?
(Doing Therapy)
Sun Jul 3 2011 6:51 pm # -
No, I can lock individual threads but not an entire forum. Besides, I might want to use it again--the new one is not a panacea, you know.
--M. J. Young
Tue Jul 5 2011 2:07 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberSince I'm the only one here, I don't suppose it matters what thread I go to. I've left this alone for a few days. Giving it some time to cool off. Please take the time to actually read and not skim.
It really bothers me that you find my definition of "involvement" to be irrelevant. Doesn't it bother you when someone (your wife perhaps?) thinks your opinion is irrelevant? That bothers me a lot that you think my opinion is irrelevant. Same way it bothers you when someone (your wife perhaps?) thinks your opinion is irrelevant.
How much more uninvolved could I get than not talking to anyone there? Seriously, if you can tell me how I could be less involved by an immediate arrest, I'll drop this right now. So you don't know if I'm running because I'm dedicated or if I just don't want to get arrested. Well, if I hadn't crashed the jeep, I wouldn't have warned them. Was that because I was dedicated, or was it because you picked a world I didn't want to touch? You have the same issue no matter how you play it. You would have never been certain I was dedicated if I hadn't crashed the jeep. You wouldn't know WHY I didn't warn them unless you asked. You wouldn't know WHY I was running unless you asked.
Adam used a valid opening for that world, sure. But did he "Do The Right Thing"? That I'd say is very debatable. Or did you enjoy wasting hundreds of hours of your life on this single thing? In retrospect, might a different opening have been better? Either way, you still have the uncertainty of if I was dedicated. If I ran, you wouldn't know if I was running just to run or because I was dedicated. If I was in custody and didn't warn them, you wouldn't know if it was because I was dedicated or if you just picked a bad world. Same problem. If I didn't warn them, you, assuming that anyone would warn them, would think I was dedicated. Either way, you'd have to ask me. If you don't ask, best case scenario, you get false information.
You could make their leaving unseen challenging, you could make it a fun world, and you wouldn't piss off your player. If I'm in custody and don't warn them, you're no more certain if I'm dedicated than if I run away. In other words, the MP opening DOES NOT tell you if I'm dedicated any better than the PA system opening.
Besides, how is knowing how badly you have to scare me to get me involved useful? Are you planning to put me in traction in every world I visit?
The point is, MJ, either opening would be equally effective at testing non-involvement. You've got similar uncertainties either way. With the PA announcement, at least you get to see the player's initial reaction to the situation and see what he decides to do. Well, that and you will be far less likely to piss off a psychotic.
Sat Jul 9 2011 6:24 pm # -
It really bothers me that you find my definition of "involvement" to be irrelevant.
O.K., let's suppose you were introducing me to a brand of lemonade. I said I was concerned as to whether it would be sweet, because I only like sweet lemonade. You give me the glass and tell me that it's very sweet, and I'll like it. I taste it and tell you that it is nowhere near as sweet as I allow in lemonade, it's terribly sour and I can't drink it.
Now you tell me that in your opinion it is perfectly sweet enough, it shouldn't be sweeter, and you want to know why your opinion does not matter. I'm sorry, but I like my lemonade very sweet, and if it's not sweet enough I won't drink it, and your opinion concerning whether it is sweet enough is irrelevant.
I wanted to know whether the lemonade was sweet enough by my definition of sweet enough. Your definition of sweet enough is irrelevant to the question.
I wanted to know whether you would become involved by my definition of becoming involved. Your definition of becoming involved is irrelevant to the question.
Does that make sense?
--M. J. Young
Mon Jul 11 2011 2:13 am # -
I skimmed the entire post.
If what you think you proved is that the MP opening is "in fact no more effective" than the PA announcement, you have proved nothing of value, since you did not prove the PA announcement more effective than the MP opening. More to the point, I really don't care, and the reason I did not read the entire post in detail is that I am tired of reading posts on a subject I consider closed. Sometimes I start worlds by confronting the player immediately (Quest for the Vorgo, Starship Destiny). Sometimes I work up to the point gradually or let the player decide when and how to contact someone (Dancing Princess, Mary Piper). Sometimes the shoe never drops, and there is no confrontation pointing the player toward the story (Tristan's Labyrinth, Bah Ke'gehn). I didn't run this game. I thought it was very well run, and that it suffered from a player who did everything he could to annoy his referee, and is now doing everything he can to annoy me.
--M. J. Young
Mon Jul 11 2011 7:30 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberYou should have thought about that before you sent me to the single most important historical event of the 20th century with the idea that I would want to irrevocably change the future history of The United States.
You should have thought about that before you sent a rookie player to a referee you had never seen in action.
You should have thought about that before you assumed I was an expert on a historical event because I had seen a movie you practically begged me to analyze.
You never asked me if I knew anything about it, you never asked me if I would want to stop it, you never even asked me if I would be OK with switching referees. Then it's somehow my fault that it blows up in your face.......
That's right MJ. Blame the victim.
Do us both a favor. Don't reply. If I get the last word, I'll be more likely to make it the last word.
Mon Jul 11 2011 7:35 pm # -
...the single most important historical event of the 20th century
?????
You have got to be kidding.
I'll bet you never read my page, ...of the Century. I find hype overrated. But really, the candidates for most important historical event of the 20th century must include (off the top of my head):
- Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
- Russian Revolution.
- Trinity Test.
- Publication of General Theory of Relativity.
- Formation of the United Nations.
- Formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
- Formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
- Laika's space flight.
- Yuri Gagarin.
- Apollo Moon Landing.
- Hiroshima.
- Fall of the Berlin Wall.
- Bernards-Lee's invention.
--M. J. Young
Wed Jul 13 2011 12:16 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberOh well, drop it.
Funny. I specifically told you not to reply, and now you're telling me to drop it...... Make up your mind. You are just as responsible for the continuation.
As far as those events you cited, the only one that comes even close to Pearl Harbor is the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. That and Pearl Harbor were the only two that were preludes to world war. Sending a dog into orbit is important? You're kidding, right?
Tell me something. Do you make it a habit of blaming the victims of your own incompetence? How many hundreds of hours did we spend in discussion about why changing history was a bad idea? Had I not weeks before written a 5,000 word essay explaining specifically why stopping the Pearl Harbor bombing would be a disaster? Nope, you just completely ignored the blatantly obvious evidence which suggested that I wouldn't want to stop it and went with the completely baseless assumption that I knew about the bombing. Then you blame me when it was your own incompetence which caused the problem to start with.
Wed Jul 13 2011 12:24 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberAssassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
Prelude to World War 1. Affects just about everyone. Close but not quite to Pearl Harbor.
Russian Revolution.
Affects primarily Russia
Trinity Test.
Publication of General Theory of Relativity.Tells us how to end the war started by Pearl Harbor. We would have done that anyway.
Formation of the United Nations.
Formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).And exactly how many millions of people died during these events? Many, many millions died as an indirect result of Pearl Harbor.
Laika's space flight.
Yuri Gagarin.
Apollo Moon Landing.You must really like Tang if you think the space program was anything but a waste of resources.
Hiroshima.
Affects primarily Japan.
Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Affects primarily Germany
Bernards-Lee's invention.
The only one I didn't know. The Internet, while handy, is hardly important. The human race went on just fine for centuries without it.
Pearl Harbor.
Prelude to the single largest military campaign in world history. Affected just about everyone on the entire planet in some way, shape or form. How is that NOT the most significant event of the 20th century?
I just felt like ranting. If you feel like discussing the significance of these events, go ahead and reply. If not, just let me rant.
(Doing Therapy)
Thu Jul 14 2011 2:55 am # -
You're pretty crazy.
Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
Prelude to World War 1. Affects just about everyone. Close but not quite to Pearl Harbor.
You miss the significance of World War I; without it, we would never have had World War II. The rise of Hitler to power is the result of the socioeconomic chaos in Germany directly consequent of the highly unfavorable treaty terms at the end of the war. So no WWI, no Pearl Harbor. Since the latter event is entirely dependent on the former, the former is the more important.
Russian Revolution.
Affects primarily Russia
Well, yes, in the sense that the American Revolution affects primarily the United States. The fact that the Cold War is entirely consequent of the Russian Revolution apparently didn't occur to you.
Trinity Test.
Publication of General Theory of Relativity.Tells us how to end the war started by Pearl Harbor. We would have done that anyway.
It also introduces the MAD policy, which made the Cold War cold and drove much of the political and economic situations of the latter half of the century.
Formation of the United Nations.
Formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).And exactly how many millions of people died during these events? Many, many millions died as an indirect result of Pearl Harbor.
Or shouldn't you be measuring it based on exactly how many millions of people did not die because of the UN and NATO? As to OPEC, it has altered the economics of the western world entirely, and I'm not certain that many people have not already died nor will continue to die because of the complications created by the world's need for oil and the stranglehold this organization has on it. There are those who say that every armed conflict since Carter has been about controlling the oil supply.
Laika's space flight.
Yuri Gagarin.
Apollo Moon Landing.You must really like Tang if you think the space program was anything but a waste of resources.
You must really be shortsighted if you don't realize how much of the technology we have today was developed by technologists trying to miniaturize equipment for the space program. Your television would be much bigger, and your computer would fill your apartment. Medical advances alone would fill volumes, of which telemetry is only the tip of the iceberg.
Hiroshima.
Affects primarily Japan.
Not to mention being a major factor in the politics of the Cold War.
Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Affects primarily Germany
And of course the United States, which became the sole superpower due to this event, and Russia, which ceased to be a superpower, and all the European countries which no longer lived in dread of Russia, and all of the third world countries who could no longer play the Soviets against the Americans....
Bernards-Lee's invention.
The only one I didn't know. The Internet, while handy, is hardly important. The human race went on just fine for centuries without it.
Again a failure to distinguish that which impacts the world from that which alters it. Pearl Harbor was a battle. We don't know what would have happened without it, but there would have been other battles, and someone would have won. The World Wide Web (technically, that's what he invented--the Internet already existed) has completely changed the culture of society, the very fabric of our existence, throughout the world. You and I would not know each other, and that's multiplied by billions of relationships. Thousands of people read my work; without the web I would be unknown--and I am only one very minor example. We have only barely begun to glimpse the impact this is going to have. My children's generation is completely different from my own; their children will be as different from them as they are from us. It is largely because the technological advances of the World Wide Web.
Pearl Harbor? Very inconsequential as compared with these events.
--M. J. Young
Fri Jul 15 2011 3:42 am # -
It occurs to me that I want to apologize for using the word "crazy"; I remembered after posting that that bothers you, and I only meant it in the sense of "your opinion is out of touch with reality," not in anything like a diagnostic sense.
--M. J. Young
Fri Jul 15 2011 3:44 am # -
JohnA1nut
Member"your opinion is out of touch with reality,"
Maybe so, but it's mine to have.
The single most important date of the 20th century, as far as I'm concerned, was March 13, 1977. That was, of course, the day I was born.
Pearl Harbor? Very inconsequential as compared with these events.
So the prelude to the single largest military campaign in world history was inconsequential? And you say my opinion is out of touch......
And you never did answer me. Do you make it a habit of blaming the victims of your own incompetence? If it was simply a matter of taking inspiration from the movie I analyzed, I wouldn't be nearly as upset. From the movie, you postulated that I knew the minutia of the attack and that I would be eager to warn them. You personally spent hundreds of hours over an 8 year period telling me how dangerous it was to change history, then actually assumed I would want to. For all of your supposed intellect, you somehow managed to overlook 8 years worth of email communications which should have been screaming "JOHN DOESN'T WANT TO CHANGE HISTORY!!!!"
If you wanted a historical event that would test non-involvement, you should have sent me to Whitehall Ohio circa 1984. You'd have seen me getting involved in putting in traction the guys that used to follow me to school every morning. Hell, that might even be worth causing an infinity loop.
Fri Jul 15 2011 3:58 am # -
JTM
MemberI'd argue that Pearl Harbor isn't even the most important event in causing US involvement in WWII. An attack on US assets in the Pacific was a predictable and nearly inevitable result of the US embargo on vital resources to Japan unless Japan withdrew from China -which they were not going to do. Cultural, political, and economic factors meant that the US was set on a course for war the moment FDR decided to embargo Japan.
You personally spent hundreds of hours over an 8 year period telling me how dangerous it was to change history, then actually assumed I would want to.
It's important to note that you didn't actually time-travel. You ended up in a universe that, as far as can be determined, was exactly identical to this one immediately prior to WWII. So you could change things such that your double didn't actually exist without any risk of paradox. Thus, the major reason not to attempt to change history in any way whatsoever wasn't actually present, since there was no chance of an infinity loop.
For all of your supposed intellect, you somehow managed to overlook 8 years worth of email communications which should have been screaming "JOHN DOESN'T WANT TO CHANGE HISTORY!!!!"
Well, apparently your objection to changing history in this instance was sufficiently weak that you did it anyway. Which was sort of the question.
Wed Jul 27 2011 2:45 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberIt's important to note that you didn't actually time-travel.
And exactly how was my character supposed to know that? Give me one good reason (or hell, even a flimsy reason) why he would have thought anything but that he had traveled backwards in time.
Ya know MJ, you would not hesitate to tell people to put their faith in God. Well, if God in His infinite wisdom allowed Pearl Harbor to be destroyed, and you in your less than infinite wisdom would want to save it, who isn't putting their faith in God? I, who allowed it to be destroyed, would be putting my faith in God, whereas you might very well be usurping a plan God laid out from the beginning of time. Getting involved there might as well be saying "God, I know better than you what should happen here." Get away from me, I don't want to get struck by lightning.
Wed Jul 27 2011 6:41 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberTwo
Here's what I'm saying. We know 100% without question or doubt that The United States will win WW2 and become a superpower if Pearl Harbor is destroyed. We know because it's already happened.
We DON'T know 100% without question that the US wins WW2 if Pearl Harbor is not destroyed. Is there a good chance we would still win? Certainly. But we don't KNOW ABSOLUTELY.
If you were offered a choice, you could have a 100% chance to get million dollars free and clear, or an unknown chance of getting a million and one dollars, and an unknown chance of losing everything you owned in the world, which option would you take? Say anything but the first option, and I know you're lying. That's the way I see it.
Besides MJ, you're always saying that you're opposed to change just for the sake of it. That's changing world history just for the sake of it.
Wed Jul 27 2011 10:04 pm # -
Here's what I'm saying. We know 100% without question or doubt that The United States will win WW2 and become a superpower if Pearl Harbor is destroyed. We know because it's already happened.
That's not actually true.
I posted a link on Facebook this week to an article in which a group of scientists challenged the Drake calculation. The Drake calculation is an attempt to determine the probability that there is intelligent life on other planets, and it in essence takes the number of stars, the percentage that have planets, the percentage of planets that have earth-like conditions, the probability that life would arise under those conditions, and the probability that it would become intelligent, and so attempts to assert a probability. Typically in making the calculation, scientists have asserted that the probability of life arising under earth-like conditions is 100%. The new paper challenges that number, saying that we have insufficient data to reach that conclusion. We know that of all the planets known to us with earth-like conditions life arose on 100% of them; but then, there's only the one. Whether it is typical or exceptional can't be determined. It might be that of a million such planets, this is the only one where life appeared.
Relevance: we know that in our version of history Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United States won the war and became a major power. You are assuming that those two events are linked, and thus that we do not know whether the United States would win the war and become a major power if Pearl Harbor is not attacked, and you are correct. But your assumption is incorrect, because we do not know whether the attack on Pearl Harbor is sufficient cause to lead to the result. Because of the Butterfly Effect, you might already have altered history such that events do not progress as you anticipate, the United States does not win the war or does not become a major power. Indeed, if divergent multiverse theory is correct, this universe has to be different from yours in some way. Is Roosevelt President? Will this Roosevelt decide to make Truman his Vice President in his fourth term? Will he even live that long, or win that election?
So you think you know what will happen, but you could be entirely wrong.
--M. J. Young
Thu Jul 28 2011 3:21 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberSo you think you know what will happen, but you could be entirely wrong.
Funny, the reason you sent me to Adam was because you thought I knew the attack, so you needed a referee that also knew the attack. You just admitted that my knowledge of the attack, if I had any, would have been irrelevant, thus cancelling out your reasoning for sending me to Adam as referee.
Kindly make up your mind.
My motto is "When in doubt, do nothing." I saw a movie earlier today. Aliens invaded LA. A group of people are in an apartment building. They're safe, they've got food, and they've got weapons. What do they decide to do? Run out into the war zone which is the city. If they had done nothing, they would have remained safe. Instead they all died. It was one of those rare movies that didn't have a happy ending. Pearl Harbor was destroyed. The US won WW2. "When in doubt, do nothing."
Thu Jul 28 2011 3:28 am # -
JTM
MemberI'd say the scenario worked fine. We discovered you're willing to involve yourself when subject to personal risk from not being involved. As I've stated repeatedly, I am firmly of the opinion that getting involved when there's no risk of destroying the entire space time continuum was actually the right thing to do in that situation, since Pearl Harbor isn't actually critical to the rise of the US as a superpower; the Manhattan Project was intended for use against Germany, to counter their own atomic program.
Ya know MJ, you would not hesitate to tell people to put their faith in God. Well, if God in His infinite wisdom allowed Pearl Harbor to be destroyed, and you in your less than infinite wisdom would want to save it, who isn't putting their faith in God?
I'm hardly a theologian, but that sort of argument doesn't really strike me as sensible. Pearl Harbor was caused by human action, and humans have free will. Free will inherently means people can do things God doesn't want them to do, and Pearl Harbor is quite possibly one of those.
They're safe, they've got food, and they've got weapons. What do they decide to do? Run out into the war zone which is the city. If they had done nothing, they would have remained safe. Instead they all died.
Since I haven't watched that movie, I don't know the specifics. However, staying in the building seems to be more risky than trying to escape the city. If the aliens are winning, they'd eventually kill the group, burning the building to the ground if neccessary. If the military is winning, there's still considerable risk the building would take a HEAT round, or get cleared by the aliens for a defensive position.
Thu Jul 28 2011 3:15 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberI'd say the scenario worked fine.
Now THAT is something you will NEVER convince me of. Yeah, you found out I wasn't dedicated to non-involvement, but at what cost? Was that little tidbit of information worth the price you paid? You killed a fly by blowing out the side of your house. The fly is dead, but was it worth the collateral damage? You will NEVER convince me that Adam "Did the right thing" there. If you honestly and truly believe that he did, I expect you to use high explosives to kill flies in your house from now on.
Thu Jul 28 2011 8:06 pm #
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