Almost forgot to put up a WYR post this week. They seem to be coming every other week now instead of every week as I intended. Too much laziness on my part.
Normally I avoid the questions in the "Ethics/Intellect" category, but they're sometimes kinda interesting. We had that one post about whether you'd want to erase your own memories or someone else's, and this is a similar theme.
With a long-term goal of improving the world and with the power to inspire change, would you rather have the benefit of knowing mankind's future or have the power to change mankind's past?
There is one key word in the blue answer that makes it more attractive to me: "have the power to change." The question qualifies that you already have "the power to inspire change," but that doesn't necessarily mean you can or will. Everyone on the planet has the potential to inspire change; they just have to learn how. But as Martin Luther King Jr. and others have proven, you can have great ideas and be a solid orator, but if an asshole refuses to listen to reason or be open to new ideas, he isn't going to change.
Anyone who knows me knows that I take the cliché "If you want something done right, do it yourself" to heart. I would especially carry that in doing something like trying to make the world a better place, if I was arrogant enough to think I actually good. The blue answer implies that I have the personal ability to actually make things better, not just make a speech and hope others get it.
It's a selfish answer though, because my idea of paradise is probably not anyone else's idea; using my influence to order people to do things I want them to do makes me no better than the Catholic Church or any other organization that wants obedience over willing conversions. That all said, I still choose the blue answer, because I'd rather be able to get my hands dirty and fix things than rely on others to do it for me.
3 comments:
I suppose there is a chunk of speculation here on the extent of the powers, such as how closely you can watch the future. My favorite interpretation of psychic power was Alice in Twilight, who could see the future based on decisions people had made. Once a person decided to fly to a specific place, she could see the interactions they were going to have, but not the result of those interactions, since no decisions were made yet.
The future is a nebulous, complicated thing, and the past is solid and concrete. Gaining the ability to alter the past makes the present immensely complicated in the same way, which just makes my head spin, so I would rather avoid the paradox of altering my reality and stick with the ability to change the future.
Even if I could change the past, I think I'd want to leave it alone. When you change one event, it starts a chain reaction and changes many other events. That could mean a better present. But there is no guarantee. It could very well end up making evrything a whole lot worse because there are too many variables. So while it's tempting to change all the negative things one has done thinking it would improve things now, it could actually start a very dangerous chain of events. On the other hand, focusing on the future might actually bring about some good changes. And one doesn't necessarily have to tell others what to do. He can also join in. Red answer is the one for me.
I would never change the past. Who knows how badly you could fuck it up? Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect?
Zane, "psychic power" is a rather broad category. Do you mean seeing the future?
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