Friday, November 25, 2008

  A little while ago, I watched something that got me thinking about the ethics in changing the past in time travel.  A lot of movies and shows put changing things in the bad catagory; calling it immoral or irresponsable.  That never entirely set well with me.

  What I mean is, if I have no distinct opinion on something, and then I hear a point of view, I might disagree with it, because part of the reasoning seems flawed.  I might agree with it, in the sense that it does seem to make sense, and I have no contradiction knowledge.  Or sometimes I'll hear something and I'll just think, "Hang on.  I'm not saying you're wrong, but what exactly makes you think you're right?"

  First of all, why must any person remain in their original time?  It seems to me like that's like saying every person must stay in the city, state, country, in which they were born.

  Whose to say that the time we're in hasn't been changed from something else?  Whose to say that if you go back in time and change something, that you'll even maintain your memory of how things were beforehand?

  Assuming you could remember, why would it be immoral to make a change?  Any knowledge of any other time is basically just in your mind.  We dictate a future time constantly in our present choices.  Is pre-knowledge the key factor?  If so, then why?

  If you travel to the past, is that not your new present?  Must a person always live in the same town or city in which they were born, or can they be allowed to "start new" somewhere else?  Going to a new town will create alternate events to those resulting from your absence.

  So you go back a change something.  Who will know but you?  No one else will have memories from an erased timeline, if they were in it while it was erased and re-written.  For all we know, the timeline could be in a constant state of being re-written.

  Here are a couple of time travel theories.

  1.  From The Hitchhiker's Guide books: basically, every change that would be done, has already been done, so you won't actually be changing anything (if I remember correctly).

  2.  Time travel is actually dimension hopping, and you never actually return to your original dimension when you return to your "present".  You never actually changed anything except that you left.  Any returning to that dimension is done by an alternate you.

  The debates between the Democratic candidates seem kind of stupid to me.  Policy-wise, the difference between them is negligable.  It's like asking for a choice of writing tools, and being given pencils of different lengths.

  "Do you want your brains blown out by being shot in the face?  Do you want a point-blank shot through your heart?  Or would you rather have the most lethal possible shot through your stomach?"

  Do you have anything else?

  "You can be stabbed repeatedly, all over your body.  We call it the McCain."

  Isn't he a Republican?

  "The way a tomato is a vegetable."

  But that's a common missconception.  A tomato is a fruit.

  "Yes, sir."

  I think I'd actually like something from your non-lethal menu.

  "With the Ron Paul, we can gouge out your eyes, puncture you eardrums, and fry your smell receptors.  This comes with optional draining of that fluid that helps you keep balance."

  I don't-

  "Our Huckabee is an assortment of several kicks to the crotch with a pointed, steel-tipped boot."

  What else do you have?

  "If you're feeling a little adventurous, you can spin the Rudy Wheel."

  That sounds interesting.  Tell me about that.

  "For three slaps to the face, you can spin the Rudy Wheel and win any number of selections ranging from a back massage to a bullet through the leg of your choice."

  Hmmm.  I'm not sure.

  "You can spin it as many times a you wish.  Just three slaps each."

  Let's put a pin in that one.  What else?

  "Are you familiar with that bully practice of hitting someone with their own fist?"

  Yeah.

  "We do that to you once every minute, and we take five cents off your bill with each hit.  You wear a glove, for sanitary reasons, but it's comfortable and elegant.  We call it the Mitt."

  The choice or the glove?

  "Both."

  I see.  Didn't you used to serve just a regular, single, punch in the face?

  "It was a possible, random, punch in the face.  We stopped serving the Fred, because customers often got tired of waiting."

  I can understand that.  Oh.  I almost forgot.  A friend wanted me to find out if you have the Bloomberg.

  "No.  No one does.  Not really."

  Whatever happen to that one thing... I think it was a soft kick in the pants with a side of pat on the back.  I kind of liked the sound of that one.

  "The Duncan?  Too bad about that.  Not enough people ever found out about it."

  Yeah.  Anyway....  I think I'm going to need some more time to think.

  "Very good, sir."

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

  I'm not sure why this never occurred to me before, but there's something I'm confused about.  Liberals "claim" morality is relative, and yet they also believe they are morally superior, and are often quite happy to say so.  How exaclty is this seeming contradiction resolved?

  Any Liberals out there who can help me out on this one?

  One other thing:  It seems to me that a person who actually is morally superior would never even think they were, much less say they were.  It's a little thing called humility.

  Is anyone else freakin' sick of the esurance commercials?

Thursday, January 31, 2008

  I've been watching this new show called Smash Lab.  I'm not sure what to make of it.

  Think amateur Mythbusters, but with a goal more productive and valuable than testing myths.

  The team consists of a "scientist", a "designer", an "ideas guy", and an "engineer".  They basically want to find ways to make crashes or disasters safer.  They come up with ideas and try them out.  Okay, cool.

  Here's why I put their titles in quotation marks.  I'm a college fail-out who watches a lot of TV, and I'm predicting at least 80% of the problems they end up having with their ideas.  Some of this stuff is just so freaking obvious to me, that I'm not entirely sure if the producers aren't having them do it intentionally.

  If they are dumbing it down, then the team members sure aren't letting it show.

  I'm perplexed.  The come up with some good ideas that I wouldn't have (at least not quickly), but then they make these completely dumbass errors in judgement.  I'm particularly disappointed in the woman calling herself a "scientist".  You're a mechanical engineer.  You're making too many bad judgements to wear the general title of scientist.

  They should have put a physicist on the team, because that's where they make most of their mistakes.  This crap only reinforces my theory that I have an above average intuition for practical physics.

  I picture myself eating and apple while standing with them as they explain what they hope will happen with whateve set-up thay have, and when they're done talking, I let a couple of seconds pass and say casually, "it ain't gonna work".

  The other picture I have is me just telling them how to fucking do it right!  Sometimes I actually raise my voice to the TV.  In my imagination, I'm banging my head on a hard surface.