As inevitably happens to us all at some point you shuffle off this mortal coil, however your consciousness has been saved and resurrected in the far future by the people of their time.
It is explained to you that shortly after you died a politician from your own time ascended to power and sparked off a massive genocide and eventual global thermonuclear war killing billions of people and grievously damaging the environment. Humanity eventually recovered but it was a long and difficult struggle.
They explain to you that they believe you can prevent these events, they can send your consciousness back to an earlier point in your life to inhabit your body at a time where you met this politician at a campaign rally, due to chance circumstances they believe you also have the chance to assassinate the politician at this moment, but you will be killed after doing so.
You will have saved the world but in your own time and for most of subsequent history you will be known only as that crazy person who assassinated the presidential candidate, a candidate who is pretty well liked and respected by a large percentage of the country, even those who may not agree with his politics.
They have convinced you that they are telling the truth and there are no ulterior motives or hidden agendas for what they are asking you to do. There will be only positive consequences from your actions and its a one-shot deal, they can’t keep sending your consciousness back until you get it right.
They have a handful of other possible candidates for the mission but you have by far the best chance of pulling it off.
So would you be willing to be hated by history to be an unrecognised hero?
needless to say, but just in case I am not promoting assassinating anyone, presidential candidates or otherwise, this is purely a hypothetical for a thought-experiment
Objectively speaking I’d be willing to do it, putting aside the minor detail that I’m not really psychologically capable of killing anybody. I assume that the future people worked that into their plans, though - perhaps all I have to do is press a little button on a remote or something?
Then no. Such an event was bound to happen some day. If I go back and kill this monster then another monster will come along in a generation or three and the resulting disaster might be even worse.
The hypothetical states that “There will be only positive consequences from your actions” - don’t ask me how the future people know this, but the hypothetical says they convinced you they do.
I was kind of figuring it was chance circumstances, like you were in the right place at the right moment to grab someone’s gun, a million to one chance that wouldn’t come around again.
And I suppose I should vote on my own thread! I think I would do it, but its the affect it would have on my family and friends rather than the judgment of history that would bother me.
Oh, well in that case I’ll probably have to change my vote then. I don’t really mind the idea that people will hate me once I’m dead (heck, people probably hate me now), but the notion that I’d have to personally pull the trigger is a big sticking point. Heck, I wouldn’t even be able to bring myself to touch the trigger, or even the gun - I’m just that averse to murdering people. It’s a personal problem I have.
If I could be somehow hated forever without murdering people, that’d be fine though. That was what was foremost in my mind when I answered the poll, not the detail by which I’d actually get hated. My bad.
I disagree. If my actions cause others to act differently in a way that causes worse outcomes, then I have caused those worse outcomes. So essentially the promise of the hypothetical is that my action of going back in time at all is guaranteed to only make things better.
Improbable or possibly impossible given butterfly-like effects, I know, but per the hypothetical I’ve been convinced that it’s true. Perhaps I’m hypothetically really gullible.
Yes. It’s from the premonition of the scene where the nukes start flying. Every time I hear the phrase “diplomatic solution” I think of that futile effort to avoid nuclear war.
