Is time travel possible? If it were possible, should we be allowed to go back in time, and change the past? Would we even want too if we knew that we could? Time travel in theory is possible, but it is so complex, and involves so many processes that we can’t even think of undertaking, that the whole possibility is just hypothetical. It is akin to asking what we would do if we had our own island, and dated a supermodel. Great to ponder, but never going to happen in our own lifetime.
If we could time travel, should we? There are so many ethical questions to ask ourselves, and so many unknowns that would go along with it that I don’t know if we should. If we could go back to before Hitler took power, and let him go to art school, would we be talking about Hitler the famous artist? Would the allies have helped Germany get back on its feet after some time, and relieved them of reparation payments from WWI?
If we could go back in time, and stop slavery? Would we go back to the Civil War, and just destroy the South with our Air Force, or even worse would southern states go back in time and defeat the North? Would we stop the stock market crash of 1929, or would we just be setting the stage for something much worse later?
You see, we could go back in history and stop bad things from happening. However, are we stopping certain events, and then just waiting for worse things to happen in the future. Without the Great Depression, we wouldn’t have the FDIC, and there wouldn’t be any real protections for when the next recession hit. Imagine if we stopped the Great Depression, only to wait until now to realize we have nothing in place to protect the investments of anyone?
On the other hand, we could offer great knowledge to people of the past. Imagine the shock of the Catholic church when they find out that nobody believes that the Earth is flat, or the center of the universe. Imagine if peasant folk in the dark ages had the Internet, and could find information for themselves. Would they even bother? Could we influence past cultures, or would we be not welcome in other time periods?
There are a lot of things that could happen if people went through other time periods. For all the good that we can do, we can also cause a lot of damage as well. People would not simply be observers either, for we interact with our environment and change it whether we like it or not. I don’t think people should go in time unless we know for sure how we impact it, but we won’t ever know that unless we actually do it. Interesting conundrum wouldn’t you say?
