#53318: Wesley R. Elsberry — 12/10  at  12:35 PM
So that science can eventually discover a Permian hominid? J.B.S. Haldane would shudder. The obvious place to stash out-of-place people is the future, not the past.

#53319: Eric — 12/10  at  12:42 PM
Oooh, yeah, I love time machines too.

Here's another idea. How about we offer to take Dobson, Hannity, Limbaugh, and all those true believers on an all-expense paid trip to the Yucatan? And drop them off about 20 minutes before the end of the Cretaceous?

#53322: Alon Levy — 12/10  at  12:49 PM
So that science can eventually discover a Permian hominid?

The probability that a given specimen will fossilize is vanishingly low, so you don't have to worry about that.

I think that if I had a time machine, I wouldn't do anything as trivial as using it to take out Hitler before he caused all that trouble. I'd go all the way and pick up Abraham.

What makes you think Abraham existed? You'll need to pick up Constantine, or maybe several of the early church fathers, such as Peter and Ignatius.

#53324: — 12/10  at  01:01 PM
For years now, I've wanted to use my time machine to go back and save Jesus' life. But my pesky time machine only travels forward at ordinary rates.

#53326: coturnix — 12/10  at  01:13 PM

For years now, I've wanted to use my time machine to go back and save Jesus' life. But my pesky time machine only travels forward at ordinary rates.

Mine, too. Just because I am too cheap to pay for the upgrade.

#53330: — 12/10  at  01:56 PM
Hmm, I think mine's accelerating as I get older. Pesky cheap time machines!

#53331: — 12/10  at  02:05 PM
While a single human cannot reproduce, we carry a lot of passengers on us. I don't know how you'd estimate the chance of intestinal bacteria or skin mites turning out to be invasive exotic species in the Permian, but it sounds like a heck of a risk to take.

#53332: — 12/10  at  02:08 PM
Not to mention whatever seeds he might happen to excrete over the first few days in exile. Isn't this about the time flowering plants were just getting started?

#53335: Keith — 12/10  at  02:28 PM
Defintely drop him off in the future, preferably as an infant so he can be raised by a nice secular couple (maybe gay).

#53338: Arun — 12/10  at  02:38 PM
If Abraham existed, then the Permian didn't - the world began 6000 years ago.

#53339: Arun — 12/10  at  02:51 PM
The thugs in Bangladesh attempting to force all women to wear burqas, are in principle breaking Bangladeshi law. But what about Saudi Arabia where that is the law, and the government (thugs) enforce it? Let's remember where that leads to, for a moment :
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/03/15/saudia3801.htm

#53341: jinx — 12/10  at  03:27 PM
I wrote a short story in 1992 about that exact proposition. A well-intentioned scientist going back in a time machine to kidnap Jesus and bring him to the future to show him how his influence had shackled and impoverished the world.

It didn't work, of course. The sands of wars and power merely shifted about. None of them would work. You'd never get to the bottom of the pile even if single men were literally founders.

And let's not forget that mere politics kills at least twice as many people as war and religion.

#53346: — 12/10  at  03:43 PM
Pft. Imagine xianity today without its self-imposed doctrine of martyrdom. Maybe the world would be worse, maybe it would be better, who knows? It would certainly be different. I'd be willing to chance it.

Now if only this time machine of mine would stop blinking 12:00. Lousy radio shack electronics.

#53347: — 12/10  at  03:44 PM
Perhaps a campaign to secretly arm women in Bangladesh would help in this situation. I doubt that these dick-waving cretins would be nearly so bold if they were looking up the barrel of a gun when they accosted a woman for not wearing a veil.

-jcr

#53349: Adam Ierymenko — 12/10  at  04:08 PM
I agree with you, except that I wouldn't abduct Abraham. He's a nobody. I would abduct Plato, and I'd drop him off some time before the evolution of photosynthesis just to be sure. The dark ages, Christianity, and Islam are all his doing.

#53357: — 12/10  at  04:40 PM
The bizarre thing about this happening in Bangladesh is that this is really new. That whole area never used to be this way at all. In fact, a mere 20 years ago Bangladesh used to be one of the more moderate Muslim countries. So if the radicals there think they're restoring some golden era of Bengal's past from before the West and secularism messed everything up, they're very sadly deluded. Women have worn burkas there for about as long as they've worn them in Yorkshire.

The sad part about this is that Bangladesh's real problem is hideous poverty and overcrowding. (As well as the fact that rising ocean levels could someday drown out about half the people living there.) That's what really makes people's lives so shitty there, and it's a safe bet that radical Wahhabism won't improve that in the slightest. But no doubt that's a big part of why the radicals are finding an audience who'll listen to them.

#53359: — 12/10  at  04:44 PM

The probability that a given specimen will fossilize is vanishingly low, so you don't have to worry about that.

wasn't there a church-of-sorts whose main purpose was to maximize its members' chances of fossilizing? ISTR something like that, except it never took off the way the FSM did.

anyway, one of these days i shall have to take a class or three about geology and fossilization, just so i'll be able to pick my burial site properly come that time. i've been mediocre all my life so far, i'll be damn if i'll settle for an average death as well!

#53362: — 12/10  at  04:59 PM
Wrong metric, jinx.

No 20th century political movement achieved even 10% kill rate, except in Cambodia. Religion has many times managed 100%. Met any Guanches lately?

#53363: Jason Malloy — 12/10  at  05:05 PM
I'd go all the way and pick up Abraham

Some other asshole would just come along and fill the same niche.

Yeah, I'm the guy that looks at history that way.

#53366: coturnix — 12/10  at  05:21 PM
Corrupting Mr.Nice is a very good and very funny SF novel by John Kessel. The main character goes back in time and smuggles back a baby dinosaur. He is interested in demonstrating heterochrony and stuff. In the future, Jesus is a lawyer - someone brought him back from the past. IN the trial of the century Jesus and Lincoln are attorneys for the opposing sides - who is more truthful and trustworthy? The audience votes for the sentence by pressing the button...

#53367: — 12/10  at  05:36 PM

... a mere 20 years ago Bangladesh used to be one of the more moderate Muslim countries. So if the radicals there think they're restoring some golden era of Bengal's past from before the West and secularism messed everything up, they're very sadly deluded.

Back-to-the-past types of every stripe don't like the look of the future, and so they cling to a past that in most cases never was. What's interesting is who takes the hit first: Are things moving too fast for you? Whiz-bang new science and culture got your back up? Want to put the brakes on? Then lock up the women!

#53373: Arun — 12/10  at  07:08 PM
George Cauldron, flybyone, Bangladesh is changing not because it is poor and overcrowded - it has been so for a long time - but because Saudi money is pouring in to be used to indoctrinate people. Indoctrination also works in the West (e.g., http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3184 ).

#53374: Arun — 12/10  at  07:16 PM
Also see point 10. of http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers17%5Cpaper1643.html .

#53376: — 12/10  at  07:34 PM

George Cauldron, flybyone, Bangladesh is changing not because it is poor and overcrowded - it has been so for a long time - but because Saudi money is pouring in to be used to indoctrinate people. Indoctrination also works in the West

That doesn't really contradict what I said. I'm aware these are new external influences. Along with Saudis, there's probably also those loony vets of the Soviet/Afghan war, who seem to be going all over the middle East spreading this sort of dysfunction (see Algeria).

However, I think the poor and overcrowded part is relevant, because if the Bangladeshis didn't have such huge social and economic problems, they probably wouldn't be so susceptible to ideological movements like Wahhabism. If they had some modicum of security and societal stability, they probably wouldn't feel as much of a need for such an extremist movement. However, extremism, religious or otherwise, finds a more receptive audience when people are stressed, starving, and feeling like they have no future.

Anyway, my main point really was just that this back-to-the-burkas nonsense in Bangladesh really has no historical foundation in that country. (Ancient Arab culture now seems to be getting reinterpreted as pan-Islamic culture.) Extremist religious movements always seem to demand the return of an idealized past that never really existed, yet which embodies every way in which they think things have gone wrong. Christians do this too.

#53380: — 12/10  at  08:27 PM

However, I think the poor and overcrowded part is relevant, because if the Bangladeshis didn't have such huge social and economic problems, they probably wouldn't be so susceptible to ideological movements like Wahhabism.

It was ever thus. The very basis of Christianity (per Bertie Russell, and I agree) is the lack of political & other power. In fact, in "History of Western Philosophy" which may have its weaknesses whatever they are *but*
(breath) Bertie says that the Stoic philosophy (IIRC) became popular at a time when the Greeks did not have power over their own destiny; thus the focus turns elsewhere, to the next world or whatever, to the superior virtuous will, not the present worldly position of whoever we're talking about. And Christianity is the inheritor of such, and has much the same doctrine for much the same reason.

I've just been through the "HWP" but was unable to find the section I'm looking for. It only reinforces my prejudices anyway, I suppose. But part of those prejudices is that those people who feel themselves to be powerless, to be caught up in circumstances & politics & realities they can never hope to control, will turn to the next world as a place where they can redress grievances, and where they can, since they have Superior Virtue(tm), come it over the elite & those who denigrate the Virtuous for whatever reason.

I feel that this comment is very confused. I hope it reads better than I think. If not, I believe I might try again if that is not too painful.

Shell