[QUOTE=EJsGirl]
Am I the only one thinking that Ottis Toole “confessed” to over 200 crimes in which he did not participate, and that there has never been enough evidence to link him to Adam Walsh’s abduction and murder?
[/QUOTE]
Agreed. I think John Walsh accepts that Ottis Toole kill him because otherwise he’d go crazy. But I don’t know if he believes it.
Save the child.
Then go forward and produce America’s Most Wanted myself.
win-win!
[QUOTE=FriarTed]
Am I the only person thinking of using this opportunity to stop Ottis Toole?
[/QUOTE]
No, although I’m not sure I’d ever have known what a despicable, horrible person he was without Adam’s involvement. He’s one man though I could pretty much go vigilante on without any remorse whatsoever.
…and would I save Adam? Absolutely.
on the other hand, Captain Kirk let Joan Crawford die for the good of the space/time continuum. Who am I to second guess or claim moral superiority to Shatner?
Yes, Edith Keeler. That’s the interesting case. If saving Edith Keeler means that you no longer existed, nothing you know existed, billions no longer existed…
and there was evidence of that… yeah, I might be forced not to save her.
I’d’a been happy to push Edith Keeler in front of the car myself. Lousy pacifist accommodater…
[QUOTE=Zebra]
Save the child.
Then go forward and produce America’s Most Wanted myself.
win-win!
[/QUOTE]
Sounds like it to me. This is my favorite choice in this thread.
And, um, funding it by building that aforementioned computer empire…
[QUOTE=Napier]
First I hope we can count on the provision that you can either interrupt the Adam Walsh killing without any other effect, or else have no effect at all, so there’s no butterfly effect to worry about. I think above all else that, without knowing this, I would opt to have as little effect as possible, including letting Adam go. I’d hate to come back to a crispy nuclear aftermath.
Second, I would like to know whether the “America’s Most Wanted” program has saved multiple lives. Appearances are that it did, because it raised awareness, and because it helped several laws get passed, and because it helped put 1000 or so very bad people away. There are all kinds of ways, though, that this might not really be true. Especially, it’s hard to say what else like it would have gotten going if it were not there. If I knew I was going to go time traveling, I would try to get to the bottom of this question first. If, as the OP suggests, I couldn’t do this homework first, I would suppose that the program did save multiple lives.
So, the only situation in which I would save Adam Walsh is if I could do the homework and find out that the program really accomplished little despite appearances, and also have assurances that there’s no butterfly effect to worry about and the only change I was making was to keep Adam alive and eliminate the heartbreaking motivation John Walsh had to make the show work.
I can’t see trading away multiple lives to save Adam, even if we don’t know the identities of the lives we save.
Whether or not John Walsh enjoys fame and fortune don’t seem to me relevant in any way, and for that matter as far as I know he’s just a man who managed to turn a horrible anguishing nightmare into a work of good for the world. I don’t know that much about him, but on the basis of what I do know I can only admire him and wish him well.
By the way, several posts back, Fish seems to make good sense - a tip of the hat!
[/QUOTE]
agreed. without more info on the possible effects that changing the past could cause, its simply irresponsible to try to save him.
what if my parents were extra careful out in public with me as a child because of the walsh case, and because it didn’t happen I ended up being killed by a serial killer/pedophile/whatever? Who’s going to go back and save Adam now?
You’re there. You save the child.
I don’t know why there’s another choice. Maybe by saving him, you lessen the chances that withoutAMW, that future kids won’t be abducted?
You don’t know, that foresight is impossible, and immeasurable. You have to do what’s right there at the time, or you’ve failed.
It’s never a theoretical - it either happens or not.
Considering the potential exists to completely mess up the ENTIRE world by screwing with the Space-time continuum, I would damn well hope you put some more thought into it than that. One random kid isn’t worth the potential destruction of the universe.
[QUOTE=5-HT]
Considering the potential exists to completely mess up the ENTIRE world by screwing with the Space-time continuum, I would damn well hope you put some more thought into it than that. One random kid isn’t worth the potential destruction of the universe.
[/QUOTE]
You just standing there breathing is killing microbes that would otherwise have lived. The damage is done, the butterfly is stomped.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
You just standing there breathing is killing microbes that would otherwise have lived. The damage is done, the butterfly is stomped.
[/QUOTE]
hmmm.. a good point. Well I suppose if we’re all doomed it doesn’t really matter if I save him or not.
I don’t think you can really know whether saving him makes the world worse or better – but you do know that saving him saves him. I’d try to save the kid.
A bit off topic, but I feel compelled to mention that most of the time when a kid is victimized by a pedophile it’s someone they know, like a family member. (Often, one who was themselves abused as a kid – this sort of thing is a vicious cycle.) The media seems to disproportionately report the cases where it’s some stranger.
[QUOTE=tim314]
I don’t think you can really know whether saving him makes the world worse or better – but you do know that saving him saves him. I’d try to save the kid.
A bit off topic, but I feel compelled to mention that most of the time when a kid is victimized by a pedophile it’s someone they know, like a family member. (Often, one who was themselves abused as a kid – this sort of thing is a vicious cycle.) The media seems to disproportionately report the cases where it’s some stranger.
[/QUOTE]
Because people feel more comfortable focusing on some nameless, faceless stranger as the object of their fear rather than live in fear of their own families. As you say, the statistics don’t bear out this attitude, but I’m not sure you can really change something that primal.
Of course I’d stop him being abducted and killed. What sort of miserable excuse for a human being would I be if I didn’t?
A kid being abducted and killed does not necessarily mean that said kid’s parent will become a crusader for other abducted kids. Lots of other factors must have come into play there. Did he have the whole idea for the show, or was he just the front man? Was it just an idea that had its time, and he was the front man they chose?
I’d never heard of Adam Walsh before, but it reminded me somewhat of the abduction and murder of 3-year-old Jamie Bulger. He was also abducted from a shop and killed. The differences are that we know who did it, and they were other, older children. His mother didn’t end up fronting a national helpline for missing children. She just ended up the mother of a dead child.
[QUOTE=5-HT]
Because people feel more comfortable focusing on some nameless, faceless stranger as the object of their fear rather than live in fear of their own families. As you say, the statistics don’t bear out this attitude, but I’m not sure you can really change something that primal.
[/QUOTE]
It’s also partly because most such acts are carried out by the kid’s parents, step-parents, or close family members. We know what our own actions are, and we can keep an eye on our partners and family members, to an extent, at least. We can listen to our kids, make sure they know they can tell us anything, stop them from being alone with from family members we have even the slightest suspicion about. It’s no guarantee, but it’s not bad.
Stranger danger is less controllable. Any kid can wander away in a store. In Jamie Bulger’s case, after letting go of his mother’s hand for less than a minute while she stood at the checkout.
FWIW, if I were in possession of time travelling abilities, I might well also be supremely intelligent, so would know for certain whether saving this one kid was a good thing or not.
[QUOTE=Rosalind]
I’d never heard of Adam Walsh before, but it reminded me somewhat of the abduction and murder of 3-year-old Jamie Bulger. He was also abducted from a shop and killed. The differences are that we know who did it, and they were other, older children. His mother didn’t end up fronting a national helpline for missing children. She just ended up the mother of a dead child.
[/QUOTE]
That was indeed a horrible crime, and it’s mind-boggling to think it was carried out by a couple of ten year olds. It’s additionally been pointed to as the British version of the famous Kitty Genovese case in the US, as there were something like 30 different people who saw them with the kid and didn’t stop them.
I went back and read some Hawking today to refresh myself re: time travel, and sadly it appears that it really doesn’t matter if you try to save him or not. Under one theory, you would be unable to change things no matter what you did. Under the other, alternative histories already exist for every possibility, so timelines in which Adam is not killed already exist and anything you do will have no effect on the world you started in anyway.
[QUOTE=5-HT]
That was indeed a horrible crime, and it’s mind-boggling to think it was carried out by a couple of ten year olds. It’s additionally been pointed to as the British version of the famous Kitty Genovese case in the US, as there were something like 30 different people who saw them with the kid and didn’t stop them.
I went back and read some Hawking today to refresh myself re: time travel, and sadly it appears that it really doesn’t matter if you try to save him or not. Under one theory, you would be unable to change things no matter what you did. Under the other, alternative histories already exist for every possibility, so timelines in which Adam is not killed already exist and anything you do will have no effect on the world you started in anyway.
[/QUOTE]
I was thinking along those lines, too. All the same, I’d still save the kid, for selfish reasons - because I wouldn’t want to be the sort of person who didn’t try to save a kid from being killed (and there’s always a chance that you’re wrong about causality, anyway).
[QUOTE=5-HT]
Considering the potential exists to completely mess up the ENTIRE world by screwing with the Space-time continuum, I would damn well hope you put some more thought into it than that. One random kid isn’t worth the potential destruction of the universe.
[/QUOTE]
Or, time is a river, and saving one child has a slight ripple effect, but the world keeps marching on in generally the same direction.
Time paradoxes make my head hurt.
[QUOTE=Revtim]
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.
[/QUOTE]
This is like my principle, “you do the deed that comes before you.”
Sailboat