By accident, you travel through time. You find yourself in a Sears store in Hollywood, Florida on July 27, 1981. You see a woman allow her young son to amuse himself at the video game section while she enters the lighting section just a few aisles away. That kid is Adam Walsh, son of hotel manager John Walsh.
Knowing what you know now about the future and your own morality, you have two choices here:
a) Hang around, do not let Adam out of your sight, and do what needs to be done when events present themselves.
b) Walk away.
You’ll return to your own time either way.
What would you do?
(Note: I chose this particular moment because of the known and far-ranging consequences/effects this event had, not only on the life of the family - one man in particular - but everything that one man ended up doing. I thought it would be more interesting as a moral dilemma than generalities, or that one Batman comic I could’ve used.)
Me too. I would hope that John Walsh would feel the same way, preferring a humble, non-descript life of anonymity, with his son alive and well, then the fame and fortune that ultimately arose out of this tragedy.
What, besides the television show America’s Most Wanted, are you referring to when you speak of “everything that one man ended up doing”? I take issue with your premise that this show has been such a boon to society. If you are referring to the general awareness of child abduction that was spawned by Adam’s death, I would submit that any of a number of kidnappings would have provided the focal point for a general awareness of the danger of strangers.
Gah. I just realized that this could be considered just another form of the old “railroad switch” scenario. I hadn’t thought of that.
Still, I think there are some interesting differences, like the fact one could argue that, unlike the railroad switch, there’s a chance that someone else could do all the things Walsh did. Plus, if you chose to take the other track (heh), the numbers involved here are more like 1 vs. 10,000 or more than 1 vs. six. On the other OTHER hand, one could argue that criminals running free kill a lot more people than just saving a specific group. On the other other OTHER hand, they already committed their crimes by the time they get on AMW. Then again, there’s also the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children…
Hrm. I think (HOPE!) there are enough differences to be interesting.
ETA: re Atomicktom’s post: Walsh was also the impetus (or one of them) for the aforementioned National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. As for AMW’s worthiness to society (or even the National Center), that’s definitely a factor to be considered. But would that erase the fact that 1000+ criminals are behind bars because of it? Interesting to think of…
I won’t succeed in saving Adam. I know this, because if I were to be successful, he would have been saved, and he wasn’t. So I know that if I attempt to save him, I’ll fail, which removes much incentive for trying. And many of the ways I might fail in saving him might be very bad for me. So, since I’m not suicidal, I won’t attempt to change anything.
Knowing what you know now about the future and your own morality
Since I have no idea who Adam Walsh is or what happened in the mall, I’d probably try and save him.
Who is he, what am I saving him from and what did his dad do?
With over 1,000 captures attributed to the show, I’m not sure how you can’t say it’s a boon to society.
However.
The show was produced and a pilot was shot before Adam Walsh was ever involved; he was hired after the pilot aired (and even after the first criminal was captured), so I suppose in the final analysis it doesn’t matter.
Because of the butterfly effect, you cannot say what will happen. Maybe whoever killed Adam kills another kid instead. This kid would have turned out to be the person who finds a cure for AIDS, but instead of him, Adam Walsh is alive, perhaps living a good life (or perhaps not), but millions will die horrible lingering deaths who would have been cured otherwise. Or maybe the kid would have turned out to be a despot that makes the history books forget about Hitler.
I think we would have to treat any moment like any other. If you can save a kid, you should save a kid, whether it’s after you traveled through time or traveled through your living room.
I’m not going to look up the details, but here’s what I remember:
Adam Walsh was a young child who was abducted from a public place (the mall), and later found decapitated. His father, John Walsh, is a television personality who hosts a show called “America’s Most Wanted”, which profiles criminals on the loose. Much of his initial notoriety stems from the publicity surrounding his son’s death.
I have to admit that my comment was a bit knee-jerk. I’ve always associated that show with the sort of shtick that Geraldo Rivera popularized (i.e. Cops), and I’ve always found it unseemly that John Walsh acheived a certain degree of fame due to the death of his son. It’s always seemed like he “cashed in” on the tragedy.
If, as is being suggested here, he has actually devoted his life to public service in the crusade against criminal violence, I may have to amend my sentiment.
I tend to believe, however, that any number of horrible tragedies could have been the focusing event that created public awareness about kidnappings. So, if Adam Walsh had lived, we’d still be aware of the dangers of kids being abducted in broad daylight. Adam’s death wasn’t necessarily the crucial catalyst for this awareness, which is why I think saving him would be a good thing.
I’d probably talk myself out of saving the kid. But information on this thread has changed my calculation: If AMW would have existed without John Walsh, why not?
Nope. I’m pretty sure Novikov self-consistency will trip me up no matter how hard I try, and if I keep at it long enough, tripping me up will involve me dying as well as little Adam.
Since we’ve postulated I’ll go back to my time either way (meaning I won’t die… unless “go back” includes “in a body bag”), I’d go to save him.
I figure either:
The time stream will be preserved through sheer dumb luck (though given the fact that every single moment in time has to be as significant as any other the very fact that air molecules suddenly bounced differently may be cause for concern just as much as saving a kid)
I’ll make an alternate time-line.
A la the short story on qntm.net fourth-and-half planet there are two distinct universes and every time I go back in time I switch tracks, one I save him, go forward, find changed future, albeit one I don’t fit in for because of differing circumstances, go back and switch again, not saving him because I realize that was the other possible outcome and return to my future swearing off time travel forever.
Seriously, it’s a kid, timestream be damned, if I go back (er… forward) and find Adam Walsh turned into mega-ultra-neo-Hitler at least I can say “hey, remember that dude that saved you from that abductor guy way back when…” I also can realize it’s not really my fault, I saved a child, it’s the other people who cultivated the evil. I shouldn’t feel any more responsible for saving him after time traveling than I should for saving him tomorrow at Wal-Mart and him becoming the same thing. No matter how much I beat myself up, I can’t be held accountable for what he does, I committed a good act, even if it resulted in a net-bad it doesn’t detract from the fact that the act itself was a kind, reasonable thing to do.
If I go to a mall today and see a child abduction, of course I’m going to save the kid. I have no way of knowing whether said child will be the next Hitler or find a cure for AIDS. You do what is right at the time, without thought of the future.
I’m sure John Walsh would agree we should save any child from being abducted.
As I remember it, John Walsh’s larger influence was in popularising the Three Strikes law in the California, which then promulgated to half the other states. Perhaps I’m remembering wrong, but I did live in California at the time and that’s my memory of it.
If you look at graphs of the United States crime rate, the crime rate dropped dramatically during the 90s. And while it’s hard to say how much of that is due to what, three strikes laws are likely to account for a significant percentage.