Red pill or White pill...

[Rock Steady]

Originally Posted by wolf

There are reasons I'm not taking either pill ...

Consider, for a moment: The forces of history move things forward, and certain things happen at certain times. Each of these people and events has a web-like interaction with the other. If one strand gets pulled, movement occurs elsewhere.

Now, ask this (or your own question):

How many might Stalin have killed if he hadn't had to fight Hitler?

Arguments like this, though, are pretty much fruitless ... since you can never really answer the "What if" questions.

This is a very good point. The further back in the past you pick, the cloudier the outcome.

Given that, I would knock off Justice Clarence Thomas during the Clinton administration. Now that would be good clean fun!

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by Rock Steady

Given that, I would knock off Justice Clarence Thomas during the Clinton administration.

which is precisely why the choices were limited to those already deceased.

[Rock Steady]

Originally Posted by Beestie

which is precisely why the choices were limited to those already deceased.

Oh, sorry for being a dumb blonde about it. That sure makes it harder.

In some ways those attrocities of Hitler and Stalin may have taught the world some lessons that we could only learn the hard way.

In keeping with the rules, I would hit Lyndon Johnson before the JFK assasination LBJ fucked things up in a big Texas-sized way. Escaladed the Vietnam war big time, and implemented social programs big in the Great Society before figuring out what worked; kinda like WebVan going nationwide while still hemmoraging money. I would choose to forget the incident and previous history.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Beestie

I offer you the Red pill or the White pill.

Why would anyone want to fix the past? Humanity lived those bad experiences once. If the past is fixed, then nothing has been learned; mankind will only relive those experiences again.

As bad as the past may have been, facts remain. We are suppose to live for the future; learn from our mistakes - even if it is a spouse:
One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small,
One pill makes you richer and one pill cures them all
....
But what the doormouse said: "Feed your head! Feed your head!"

Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition. We even put essential military functions in the National Guard so we would never relive Vietnam. How many were so high on drugs (or a Christian agenda) as to let that lesson get repeated?

Ah hell. Where'd I put the bong? My drugs are color blind and therefore politcally correct. Another lesson lost in the haze of pills?

Stepping out of the game for a moment, I wouldn't advocate murder as a solution either, although Beestie has a point about serial killers. If one could somehow know in advance what they were going to do, I think ridding the planet of them woud be quite justified. In fact, I think the key words here are KNOWING IN ADVANCE. In real life, we will never know what someone is going to do down the road. Whacko's assasinate public figures because they somehow believe that they have some gift of prophecy, telling them that this is the right thing to do. Obviously, its not.

However, if one could step into that hypothetical time machine, that's a different story.

PS tw thinks we learn from history! LOL! Nobody even reads history, much less learns from it!

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by tw

Why would anyone want to fix the past? Humanity lived those bad experiences once. If the past is fixed, then nothing has been learned; mankind will only relive those experiences again.

So if you were granted the power to prevent the Vietnam war to preserve the lesson that would prevent us from invading Iraq you would turn it down? Uhhh, well let me put it another way.

The justification you cite for not "fixing" the past seems eerily similar to the reasoning used to justify such wars in the first place: a life lost in the past is worth two lives saved in the present/ a life lost in the present is worth two lives saved in the future.

Put yet another way, "fixing" the past is no riskier than "fixing" the future which we do every day with the choices we make. But, in either case, inaction is itself action so not taking the Red pill does not absolve one of anything - its as much of a choice as taking it. Once you are offered the pill, the consequences of taking it or not taking it are the same.