What he said. That being said, I voted for you boobytrapping the scooter. On the ‘would you kill Hitler’ side of things, it’s recent enough that I can’t think of any negative outcomes for altering space/time like that.
I guess I would because no little kids deserve to lose their father and be pushed into the tender mercies Michael Jackson’s psychotic family. He loved his kids and largely had them taken care of by staff. Far, far better for them than being new tools for the older Jacksons. If I have the power to prevent a death, I’ll use it.
But if the scooter was preprogrammed simply to go back in time and save Michael Jackson and wasn’t limited to that date, I’d go back to save him from the pyrotechnics that caught his scalp on fire and are likely largely responsible for his painkiller addiction in the first place. Hell, maybe without the drug abuse he could have stayed moderately sane.
Except for any children that were possibly saved from molestation.
You’re right - I forgot about that. It’s interesting how that… aspect of his legacy has been conveniently omitted from the public memory.
I haven’t forgotten about it. A few months ago I learned that my young nephew (under twelve) is a huge MJ fan, which I found puzzling for about three reasons and distressing for the obvious one.
I’m not going to mess with the time-space continuum for Michael Jackson’s sake.
I wouldn’t lift a finger to save Michael Jackson… but if I could delay his death for a week or so, I’d do it just so he didn’t steal poor Farrah Fawcett’s thunder.
Just another reason to not cut for stone.
Would you go back and make Melkor stick to the theme? Lots of pain and sorrow would have been prevented, and Eru’s plan would have been achieved from the very start! But there would never have been any Children of Iluvatar.
While I’m sure Ms. Fawcett’s family would love fo rher tohave had any extra time possible, I also suspect it was a relief for the media’s attention to be directed elsewhere. I wouldn’t want my mourning to be public.
Melkor is just Eru’s dark side, and you know it. The whole Song was just Eru’s way of expunging the evil from Himself so that the only that part of him that is Manwë remains.
The sad part is that, in the End, after the Last Battle, when Morgoth is finally and entirely destroyed, Eru will be so horrified by what he has done that he will transform himself in to a Lion and allow himself to be slain on a Stone Table in penance. That is the dark secret of Narnia.
Are you kidding? They were building up to their big moment for weeks beforehand.
I spend enough time stopping stupid people from killing Hitler. Please don’t make me add this pathetic Human to the list.
Yeah, of course I’d try to save him. At the end of the day he’s still a person, and I wouldn’t mind playing the “ghost of Christmas future” for him. Surprised how many people wouldn’t.
Not “Who cares about the question?” More of a “Who cares about Michael Jackson?” I consider him to be one of the biggest wastes of resources the West knew during the 20th century.
You know better than this, Skald. Eru is greater by far than all of the Ainur combined. Or is this just one of those things that you only believe on the first and third Sunday of each month?
Of course I would.
I suppose I would feel ethically obligated to try to save him, but I seriously doubt if I would succeed. Go back to the late 1970s or early 1980s, you might have a chance. But in 2009, his bad habits were much too deeply entrenched. You might buy him a few weeks or months, but he would still end up dead.
I have a OED on my computer and looked it up, as this didn’t appear to be a joke. Hengry is not in the OED. Neither is gullible.
Eh, I figure, if I could save Michael’s life, I might be able to bitchslap him back to sense, too. Or at least some approximation of it. “Michael… it’s time to grow up.”
Can I save him, but take him away, and leave some fake remains so it looks like he did die? And then drop him off at some future psychiatric ward that would cure his problems? Because I might do that.
I’d also love to go back further if I can and warn him of the evils of benzodiazepines, and get him something else, and, yes, maybe prevent him from the fire.
Otherwise, I’m not keen to mess around with fate. But I might be interested enough to find out if it was suicide, murder, accidental overdose, or whatever. Stopping OD would probably be pointless. Suicide would only work with my first option, and I’d be too scared to muck about with a murderer. But it would be interesting information, nonetheless.