Re: What would make you believe?

Wildepad wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:41:14 GMT, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> Once again it seems like the goal of the scenario isn't what was 
>> originally claimed.
> 
> I wouldn't expect anyone to accept the man's story at face value.

It's the _premise_ that I'm arguing is implausible here. I'm saying that 
not only wouldn't the guy he's talking to in the scenario not believe 
him but I, the reader of this usenet post who's discussing the scenario, 
_also_ don't believe it. His stated mission has been set up to fail and 
trivially easy ways of greatly improving his chances have been ruled out 
for no plausible reason.

>> If these future-people genuinely wanted to change 
>> the past they'd drop these pointless restrictions.
> 
> The restrictions are far from pointless. They were taken, with little
> variation, from the precautions observed for many missions during WWII
> -- no id, no devices or knowledge which the enemy could exploit, etc. 

But there's no reason why one should use the same restrictions as were 
used by agents during WWII. The situation is entirely different. During 
WWII it was a known fact that there were enemy agents lurking around and 
that they needed to be caught because they were up to no good. In this 
scenario:

* nobody knows there are "time agents" lurking around. Nobody is looking 
for them.

* nobody would believe it even if they were told explicitly and to their 
faces. A time agent could walk down the busiest street in the city with 
a sandwich board reading "I am a time agent from the future!" printed on 
it and nobody would care.

* the time agents aren't even up to no good. They're here to do 
something that, if we knew about it, we'd be _entirely agreeable_ with.

So what's the big fear of discovery all about? They've got a level of 
paranoia that's not remotely justified. If I accept all of your premises 
as written I can only conclude that the future-people are insane.

And I should add that I find it implausible that standard operating 
procedure during WWII was to insert secret agents into enemy territory 
with not even a single dollar to their name.