Morality of Chronological Tampering

[Elheru Aran]

Greetings all,

I'm on my phone so this will be brief, I'll expand later as necessary.

In brief: Is it moral to travel through time and attempt to alter the course of history?

Let's posit the following scenario. You are randomly picked up and flung anywhere between 1017 B.C.E. and 1967 C.E., anywhere in the world. You are given a general knowledge of your place and time; apart from that, you are on your own, other than knowing you may be returned to September 2017 C.E. after... say twenty years. But the caveat is, if you change the timeline, you have to live with the consequences, however farfetched they may be.

Do you introduce the concept of universal literacy and public education to ancient Greece? Do you meet Hitler in the 1920s and murder him? Do you do nothing? And why?

Don't feel limited to the standard tropes of killing Hitler, averting the Civil War, and so forth. Speculate away. Is it right to do this or not?

[Q99]

I don't view it as particularly different than any other intervention.

That is to say, try and be very informed when you do anything, expect unexpected consequences, if a situation is too unpredictable stay out... and it's still going to be well-worth acting when done right.

Introducing vaccination or non-deadly strains of European diseases into the Americas pre-contact, preventing the viral/bacterial apocalypse.

I introduce literacy, public education, the scientific method, writing, medicine, and good parenting tips back when the human population numbered in the thousands. My butterflies will have wings the size of continents and reshape the world, with positive consequences so far-reaching it will be hard for the unexpected to dent in comparison.

[Elheru Aran]

Those are well and good... but you can't control where you find yourself in this scenario. Say you emerge in the 1950s. It could be said the damage has been done by then. Are you going to even bother trying to change anything? Is saving Martin Luther King Jr going to make a meaningful difference in the fight for civil rights? Etc...

EDIT: The question is not exactly HOW you'll change things... it is SHOULD you?

[Q99]

Those are well and good... but you can't control where you find yourself in this scenario. Say you emerge in the 1950s. It could be said the damage has been done by then. Are you going to even bother trying to change anything? Is saving Martin Luther King Jr going to make a meaningful difference in the fight for civil rights? Etc...

EDIT: The question is not exactly HOW you'll change things... it is SHOULD you?

Well, that's what I mean. Whenever I am, I'll try and find ways to help as big as I can... given research to say it's not likely to have too major of side effects. 1950s, saving MLJ may or may not do a *lot* but it'd save him, and it might do more... but in the 50s I could definitely take steps elsewhere for later use. There are a good number of extremely bad politicians who could have their careers derailed early, and while others *could* take their place, even a delay of that type taking power could make a major difference.

Hm... I wonder if I could get Exxon to never engage in anti-global warming propaganda.

Anyway, the answer is, "Would it be the moral thing to do in a non temporal situation? Yes? Then it still is."

[biostem]

Since you are not given any special power or skills, I doubt any of us would be able to do more than either live a comfortable life and maybe start a family, or get thrown into an insane asylum or locked up. Unless you can create a key vaccine, piece of technology, or otherwise demonstrate your claims, then you are stuck in what you can do.

[Q99]

Since you are not given any special power or skills, I doubt any of us would be able to do more than either live a comfortable life and maybe start a family, or get thrown into an insane asylum or locked up. Unless you can create a key vaccine, piece of technology, or otherwise demonstrate your claims, then you are stuck in what you can do.

Depending where and when I am, that's a lot.

If I'm in the 80s, I know top stock picks for the next several decades.

If I'm in the distant past, I don't know as much to get major resources, but I can still move towards movers and shakers and try and drop knowledge into people in general, or start rumors, or what have you- let the butterflies do the work. The further back I am, the harder it will be to do big stuff fast, sure, but I can plant longer-term seeds so to speak.

[Simon_Jester]

To address the OP more directly...

Elheru, for what reasons would you think it might be immoral to do as you describe? Can you be specific?

[biostem]

Since you are not given any special power or skills, I doubt any of us would be able to do more than either live a comfortable life and maybe start a family, or get thrown into an insane asylum or locked up. Unless you can create a key vaccine, piece of technology, or otherwise demonstrate your claims, then you are stuck in what you can do.

Depending where and when I am, that's a lot.

If I'm in the 80s, I know top stock picks for the next several decades.

If I'm in the distant past, I don't know as much to get major resources, but I can still move towards movers and shakers and try and drop knowledge into people in general, or start rumors, or what have you- let the butterflies do the work. The further back I am, the harder it will be to do big stuff fast, sure, but I can plant longer-term seeds so to speak.

No doubt - if you're in the 70's, buy some Apple stock, or get in on some key IPOs. If you're a sports enthusiast with a good memory, you could bet on some key sporting events, too. Build up a large enough fortune, and then you can make a bigger impact.

[Tribble]

Are things like going to be a barrier? If so I doubt a 21th century English speaking Canadian is going to last long if flung back in time to 1000 BCE Japan or something. Unless I am lucky enough that I end up a fairly modern time period and I also happen to stumble across a modern English speaking part of the world I'm probably screwed.

[Lagmonster]

Given the spirit of this exercise, you should probably assume that you will have the ability to affect change where/whenever you land. Then you can start considering the moral implications.

[Q99]

If we're talking morality rather than ability, I'll further say a more fitting position is someone else is in the position to actually do the change, while we're merely in the position to veto or not. We're the ones stuck in the time machine, they're the time meddler.

In which case, I pay close attention to their plan, my knowledge of the time era and location in question, how much the plan involves information gathering, how bad the results could be if it goes wrong, and decide from there. But in principle I'm not against it, even on large scale changes.

[The Romulan Republic]

Greetings all,

I'm on my phone so this will be brief, I'll expand later as necessary.

In brief: Is it moral to travel through time and attempt to alter the course of history?

Let's posit the following scenario. You are randomly picked up and flung anywhere between 1017 B.C.E. and 1967 C.E., anywhere in the world. You are given a general knowledge of your place and time; apart from that, you are on your own, other than knowing you may be returned to September 2017 C.E. after... say twenty years. But the caveat is, if you change the timeline, you have to live with the consequences, however farfetched they may be.

Do you introduce the concept of universal literacy and public education to ancient Greece? Do you meet Hitler in the 1920s and murder him? Do you do nothing? And why?

Don't feel limited to the standard tropes of killing Hitler, averting the Civil War, and so forth. Speculate away. Is it right to do this or not?

Well, here's the thing:

Due to "Butterfly effect", the moment you change one thing, that's presumably going to set off further changes down the line, until very quickly, the universe becomes unrecognizable to the one you left behind (presuming you don't believe in destiny/divine will, anyway). You'd have to be basically omniscient to even attempt precision, controlled change to the timeline.

And once you start changing things, pretty quickly you'll end up in a universe where none of the people past a certain date in the original timeline were ever born, and those who were lived utterly different lives.

So, you will essentially have murdered every single person who ever existed or would have existed, past a certain date. Changing the timeline, in short, is by its nature the ultimate act of genocide.

Worse still, if frequent time travel is a thing, by changing the past, you might end up changing events that lead to future time-travelers, which would change the past as well as the future, and...

And now we're getting into paradox territory.

All this is why I prefer the closed loop/self-fulfilling prophecy sort of time travel (like original Terminator, before the sequels). Its more limited, but also more logical and has way less unpleasant implications.

Of course, for the same reason as the above, once you are back in time its pointless trying to limit the damage- simply by being their you will have set massive changes in motion, presumably (and presuming it is possible to alter history at all). So the future you knew is gone, and you might as well work to make the best world you can.

[Elheru Aran]

To address the OP more directly...

Elheru, for what reasons would you think it might be immoral to do as you describe? Can you be specific?

Essentially what TRR pointed out-- that by altering the timeline, you are effectively erasing your own.

Or to put it another way. Suppose you have a specific plan once you know where and when you are. This plan entails eliminating specific historic factors that lead down the road to Event X happening. For example, say you want Hitler to actually succeed at art school. You can't stop the Nazi Party from forming (perhaps) but you think you can at least remove Hitler from the long term equation by giving him a stable job and a certain degree of contentment in life.

What gives you the right to meddle so specifically in a person's life? Why should you attempt to alter the course of history in such a significant fashion? Are you genuinely capable of altering how the shoes drop in such an interconnected fashion, bearing in mind that most likely things won't change significantly for some time unless you do something truly drastic? And how do you know what, exactly, might constitute 'drastic'?

Say you prevent the assassination of Julius Caesar, and he becomes a brutal dictator under whose successors the Roman Republic promptly folds within a few generations, thus averting the significant influence that Rome had on Western history and civilization. How in the world would you know this would happen? And are you able to work out the ramifications of such an action? You've met Caesar, he's a pretty swell guy, a bit vainglorious and he's got a funny shaped head, but maybe he's kind of a dick politically. Do you care enough to say 'hey maybe you need a few guys on your side come the Ides of March'?

[Khaat]

If history is mutable, changing the past is like any act in your native time: the relative future is unwritten, just that the future/history you know is no longer where it leads. Preventing the future you know as history is no different than acting in your native timeline and collapsing the infinite number of potential futures that might have come to pass.

FWIW, I prefer closed-loop time-travel stories myself.

[Simon_Jester]

To address the OP more directly...

Elheru, for what reasons would you think it might be immoral to do as you describe? Can you be specific?

Essentially what TRR pointed out-- that by altering the timeline, you are effectively erasing your own.

Remind me again why we know that? Personally I favor multiverse theory because it doesn't lead to logical contradictions. You're not destroying timelines, you're creating them.

Or to put it another way. Suppose you have a specific plan once you know where and when you are. This plan entails eliminating specific historic factors that lead down the road to Event X happening. For example, say you want Hitler to actually succeed at art school. You can't stop the Nazi Party from forming (perhaps) but you think you can at least remove Hitler from the long term equation by giving him a stable job and a certain degree of contentment in life.

What gives you the right to meddle so specifically in a person's life? Why should you attempt to alter the course of history in such a significant fashion? Are you genuinely capable of altering how the shoes drop in such an interconnected fashion, bearing in mind that most likely things won't change significantly for some time unless you do something truly drastic? And how do you know what, exactly, might constitute 'drastic'?

None of this is an argument for "making the attempt is unethical in and of itself." Real people in real life routinely get involved in all sorts of political and historical events, when they don't have time travelling information to give them a clue as to what's going to happen. People engage in, or try to stop, assassination attempts. They vote in elections. They seek political office or oppose others doing so. Nobody thinks twice about people having a right to do this.

Why would the rules be different if you're a time traveler?

Say you prevent the assassination of Julius Caesar, and he becomes a brutal dictator under whose successors the Roman Republic promptly folds within a few generations, thus averting the significant influence that Rome had on Western history and civilization. How in the world would you know this would happen? And are you able to work out the ramifications of such an action? You've met Caesar, he's a pretty swell guy, a bit vainglorious and he's got a funny shaped head, but maybe he's kind of a dick politically. Do you care enough to say 'hey maybe you need a few guys on your side come the Ides of March'?

Your actions would be no more or less ethical than those of any contemporary Roman doing the same thing. Would we have called it unethical for some Roman member of the conspiracy against Caesar to warn him of the upcoming assassination attempt? If a prophet had told Caesar to "beware the Ides of March," would that prophet be acting unethically?

Your argument applies equally well to contemporaries who get involved in their own time and events, as it does to time travelers. You're not arguing for "don't meddle with time," you're arguing for total indecision and paralysis.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I was arguing under the assumption that we are talking about actually changing your timeline.

Saying "well, you don't actually change your timeline, just create a parallel alternate one" dodges at least some of those ethical implications, yes, but then... well, you are forever cut off from your original reality, and haven't actually done anything to improve the world you came from-just abandoned it. Only one who felt that they had nothing left to lose would be likely to do that, I think.

But I do think that there is a distinction between acting to affect the direction of the future, by say voting, for example, and trying to go back and change an established event, essentially wiping away everyone and everything in the world you have known.

Now, if we presume that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously, then maybe a being that existed outside of time/could perceive all times would see it as all the same thing. Time Lord time-meddling, for example, makes a certain amount of sense in that light. Or something like the Q.

But from the perspective of a being who views time in a linear fassion, like a human... we'd literally be wiping away everything we've ever known.

Note- my concern here is somewhat different from Elheru Aran's. I'm not primarily addressing the possibility of an action having unforeseen negative consequences (like the classic, if somewhat tired, example of killing Hitler allowing someone even worse to take over). Rather, that fact that regardless of weather the changes you make are themselves positive or negative in isolation, they will have the side effect of effectively erasing an entire universe from existence.

Closed loop timelines are the most limiting story-wise, but they are the easiest to make work in a sensible way, I think.

[Crazedwraith]

I'm not sure that the scenario matches the posited question. 'Is it moral to back in time and change things?' is a distinctly different proposition to 'you have been thrown back in time, is it moral for you to try an make it better?'

The latter is how I'm interpreting the OP and I think then it's no different than if I was there at the time, a natural inhabitant of the time period, just slightly more informed and able to make a difference. (I wouldn't be on me being able to affect much of history though)

In the former it feels much more like 'I'm gambling everyone's current lives on the idea I won't make the worse' which feels... less moral. I'm not sure if it exactly is or not but it feels that way because a time travel scenario makes more able to say afterwards whether this intervention was for the better or worse.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm not sure that the scenario matches the posited question. 'Is it moral to back in time and change things?' is a distinctly different proposition to 'you have been thrown back in time, is it moral for you to try an make it better?'

Indeed it is, as I noted in the closing paragraph of my first post.

The latter is how I'm interpreting the OP and I think then it's no different than if I was there at the time, a natural inhabitant of the time period, just slightly more informed and able to make a difference. (I wouldn't be on me being able to affect much of history though)

Agreed that in that case, you would be right to try to make the world a better place. For the same reason that I disagree about you not being able to make much of a difference. You might not be able to make much of a controlled difference, but the moment you go back, the dominoes will begin to fall, and history will proceed along increasingly divergent paths, unless one invokes ideas of fate/divine will to say otherwise.

Once you've gone back, the die has been cast, and the world will be different. So you might as well try to shape it as best you can.

In the former it feels much more like 'I'm gambling everyone's current lives on the idea I won't make the worse' which feels... less moral. I'm not sure if it exactly is or not but it feels that way because a time travel scenario makes more able to say afterwards whether this intervention was for the better or worse.

That, and whatever you do, you will have literally erased every subsequent generation in the world that you knew from existence.

[Khaat]

Rather, that fact that regardless of weather the changes you make are themselves positive or negative in isolation, they will have the side effect of effectively erasing an entire universe from existence.

Collapsing an infinite number of possible futures (to one) does not "destroy one" anymore than the infinite others that will not come to pass.

In a multiple universe system, you aren't even doing anything that isn't already "possible" for that variation (probability =/= 0 being "impossible"), or you couldn't travel to or "make changes" to that universe. In effect, you are playing a pre-destined part in a variation to follow a course different from your native origin.

In a single universe system, you've created paradox, presuming causality* isn't merely a phenomenon on the local level, or there being a cut-out for a closed loop.

*Relativity, Causality, FTL Time Travel: pick two.

[Elheru Aran]

I'm not sure that the scenario matches the posited question. 'Is it moral to back in time and change things?' is a distinctly different proposition to 'you have been thrown back in time, is it moral for you to try an make it better?'

The latter is how I'm interpreting the OP and I think then it's no different than if I was there at the time, a natural inhabitant of the time period, just slightly more informed and able to make a difference. (I wouldn't be on me being able to affect much of history though)

In the former it feels much more like 'I'm gambling everyone's current lives on the idea I won't make the worse' which feels... less moral. I'm not sure if it exactly is or not but it feels that way because a time travel scenario makes more able to say afterwards whether this intervention was for the better or worse.

OP is supposed to match mostly the former. I realize I probably worded it poorly. As noted, I was on mobile, and actually at work, so I was in a bit of a rush.

If it helps, just look at it theoretically rather than attempting to place yourself in a time-travel scenario.

[Q99]

Well, I was arguing under the assumption that we are talking about actually changing your timeline.

Saying "well, you don't actually change your timeline, just create a parallel alternate one" dodges at least some of those ethical implications, yes, but then... well, you are forever cut off from your original reality, and haven't actually done anything to improve the world you came from-just abandoned it. Only one who felt that they had nothing left to lose would be likely to do that, I think.

But I do think that there is a distinction between acting to affect the direction of the future, by say voting, for example, and trying to go back and change an established event, essentially wiping away everyone and everything in the world you have known.

Now, if we presume that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously, then maybe a being that existed outside of time/could perceive all times would see it as all the same thing. Time Lord time-meddling, for example, makes a certain amount of sense in that light. Or something like the Q.

But from the perspective of a being who views time in a linear fassion, like a human... we'd literally be wiping away everything we've ever known.

Note- my concern here is somewhat different from Elheru Aran's. I'm not primarily addressing the possibility of an action having unforeseen negative consequences (like the classic, if somewhat tired, example of killing Hitler allowing someone even worse to take over). Rather, that fact that regardless of weather the changes you make are themselves positive or negative in isolation, they will have the side effect of effectively erasing an entire universe from existence.

Closed loop timelines are the most limiting story-wise, but they are the easiest to make work in a sensible way, I think.

Flipside, it also inherently has the effect of effectively creating a universe into existence. The number of living universes remains a constant. A random change (like, 'move object one inch to left') will, on average, save as many as it kills.

An action that both kills and saves everyone is a bit of an unusual situation ethically.

Agreed that in that case, you would be right to try to make the world a better place. For the same reason that I disagree about you not being able to make much of a difference. You might not be able to make much of a controlled difference, but the moment you go back, the dominoes will begin to fall, and history will proceed along increasingly divergent paths, unless one invokes ideas of fate/divine will to say otherwise.

Once you've gone back, the die has been cast, and the world will be different. So you might as well try to shape it as best you can.

Agreed.

[Crazedwraith]

The latter is how I'm interpreting the OP and I think then it's no different than if I was there at the time, a natural inhabitant of the time period, just slightly more informed and able to make a difference. (I wouldn't be on me being able to affect much of history though)

Agreed that in that case, you would be right to try to make the world a better place. For the same reason that I disagree about you not being able to make much of a difference. You might not be able to make much of a controlled difference, but the moment you go back, the dominoes will begin to fall, and history will proceed along increasingly divergent paths, unless one invokes ideas of fate/divine will to say otherwise.

This depends on how much you subscribe to chaos theory I guess. I would have though given mostly the same inputs, things are going to turn out more or less the same on a large scale. That's beyond one person's influence. Not so much fate/divine will but just... historical inertia in a sense. A la the foundation's 'psychohistory'.

[The Romulan Republic]

The latter is how I'm interpreting the OP and I think then it's no different than if I was there at the time, a natural inhabitant of the time period, just slightly more informed and able to make a difference. (I wouldn't be on me being able to affect much of history though)

Agreed that in that case, you would be right to try to make the world a better place. For the same reason that I disagree about you not being able to make much of a difference. You might not be able to make much of a controlled difference, but the moment you go back, the dominoes will begin to fall, and history will proceed along increasingly divergent paths, unless one invokes ideas of fate/divine will to say otherwise.

This depends on how much you subscribe to chaos theory I guess. I would have though given mostly the same inputs, things are going to turn out more or less the same on a large scale. That's beyond one person's influence. Not so much fate/divine will but just... historical inertia in a sense. A la the foundation's 'psychohistory'.

Perhaps.

Most of the time, you may be right. I think that their are broad trends which, while not impossible to reverse, are very difficult to reverse.

But I can also point to a number of instances in history where slightly different events could have plausibly lead to radically different outcomes, even if history might eventually shift back onto a more familiar path in a few decades/centuries.

I don't have the expertise to argue either position definitively, but my instincts, and what I know of history, lead me to think that neither view is entirely correct. That their are broad trends, but that there is also room within that very broad outline for individuals to precipitate great change. So that's how I'd probably approach the subject as a writer writing a time travel story.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I was arguing under the assumption that we are talking about actually changing your timeline.

Saying "well, you don't actually change your timeline, just create a parallel alternate one" dodges at least some of those ethical implications, yes, but then... well, you are forever cut off from your original reality, and haven't actually done anything to improve the world you came from-just abandoned it. Only one who felt that they had nothing left to lose would be likely to do that, I think.

But I do think that there is a distinction between acting to affect the direction of the future, by say voting, for example, and trying to go back and change an established event, essentially wiping away everyone and everything in the world you have known.

Why? You're doing the same thing, just with more access to information. Why is your past recollection of what happened in your own history privileged over all the other possible futures that were excluded by an event that happened in the past? Why is the history that resulted from, say, Hitler not making it into art school privileged over the history resulting from his making it?

But from the perspective of a being who views time in a linear fassion, like a human... we'd literally be wiping away everything we've ever known.

Note- my concern here is somewhat different from Elheru Aran's. I'm not primarily addressing the possibility of an action having unforeseen negative consequences (like the classic, if somewhat tired, example of killing Hitler allowing someone even worse to take over). Rather, that fact that regardless of weather the changes you make are themselves positive or negative in isolation, they will have the side effect of effectively erasing an entire universe from existence.

Closed loop timelines are the most limiting story-wise, but they are the easiest to make work in a sensible way, I think.

They're more or less logically required. There are two kinds of self-consistent time travel stories: ones that use multiverse theory, and ones that (when the smoke clears) have everything occupying a closed timelike curve.

Everything else leads to paradox.

[Q99]

This depends on how much you subscribe to chaos theory I guess. I would have though given mostly the same inputs, things are going to turn out more or less the same on a large scale. That's beyond one person's influence. Not so much fate/divine will but just... historical inertia in a sense. A la the foundation's 'psychohistory'.

Ultimately I think it comes down to is, a change just isn't going to go away, and too much big stuff is changed by small stuff.

Once something is altered, that alteration sticks around until it hits something bigger. Talk to a person for a minute and while they're basically going to do the same stuff, their schedule is altered and will never be exactly the same from that point on. Which, large scale, doesn't matter one bit- until it hits something that does require precision.

I mean, most obviously, kids. Sperm. If something slightly different happens during sex, odds are overwhelmingly high that a different one will arrive. Meaning you will now be having *genetically* different people (possibly different gender too, about a 50% chance of that!) as a result of anything that jostles anyone enough to move a certain part of their anatomy enough for a fluid to shift a bit and some cells to shift positions a few micrometers.

And once you have a single person difference, you no longer have a small change, you've got a big change. Every person they meet their entire lives will have similar changes, plus whatever different life choices they make.


'Historical inertia' sounds nice at a glance, but then you realize that before all that long you will have thousands, millions, and eventually everyone who just aren't the same person on a genetic level. Now, will there be similar social pressures? Of course, but unless individual's choices don't matter at all, even the broad strokes will accumulate noticeable difference.

Unless there is a mysterious force actually pushing people into specific roles, and change is pretty much impossible- in which case, there is no ethical question, go back and time and do what you like things'll be fixed anyway- things will get different.