Re: How would you save mankind (was Re: What would make you believe?)

Wildepad skrev:
> On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:58:45 +0100, Jens Egon Nyborg
> <jens.e.nyborg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Bryan Derksen skrev:
>>> Derek Lyons wrote:
>>>> Jens Egon Nyborg <jens.e.nyborg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Imagine that you are agent A, hired by someone - anyone - to save
>>>>> mankind in a number of paralell timelines. You have access to a time
>>>>> machine that will take you back into the past of these timelines.
>>>>>
>>>>> What do you do?
>>>> Hard to say without knowing exactly what threat we are trying to
>>>> defend against or what even we are trying to prevent.
>> Thinking about this, I think it becomes more and more clear that you
>> must put a lot of research into this.
> 
> Research would be long and difficult. The scenario described a series
> of wars and plagues that reduced mankind to a thousand people. That
> would, it seems to me, mean a complete discontinuity -- all history
> lost during survivalist times.

Hint: They have a time machine!

> When you have to start from scratch, building a reasonable knowledge
> base would take decades, perhaps centuries. While some people would be
> trying to learn the languages, another group might be attempting to
> reconstruct the clothing, and others might be contemplating the
> esoteric concept of 'money'.

Is our time so horrible compared to theirs that no-one would go live
here for a time?

Ancient [insert culture of choice] *is* horrible compared to ours
(that's called "progres") still if we had time machines people would
*want* to go get their ph.d's there.

> If the people of the future are anything like us, someone, somewhere,
> is going to try to do something about the universes about to enter
> their final days, and do it long before there's a complete, or even a
> reasonable, understanding of the ancient culture they want to save.
> --

First they will become fascinated by our culture, then they will use
their superior research tool to learn about us. Eventually someone will
come up with an idea of how to save us. And then they will try it out.

If they are anything like us.

I agree that there will be an element of hit and miss in the first
tries, though. And that they will at first act on insufficient knowledge.