Author Topic: If Western civilization does not die soon.....  (Read 7094 times)

90sRetroFan

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Re: If Western civilization does not die soon.....
« Reply #75 on: August 01, 2021, 02:13:13 am »
The idea of travelling back in time is appealing to people across the ideological spectrum (including myself!). Many of us deeply regret failing to do some things correctly in our own pasts. The wish to travel back in time and rectify our mistakes springs from this regret (whereas it is those with a dull sense of guilt who can be expected to have little interest in this). On a larger scale, anti-progressives wish the world never progressed to its present conditions, hence dream of turning time backwards so that all the additional violence etc. resulting from progress could have never happened. Gnostics in particular see turning time backwards as one potential solution to material existence. So it's important not to convey the impression that we are against time travel in general. When we do oppose time travel is when it is motivated not by nostalgia but by desire for exploration.

Quote
Mallett stumbled across an illustrated version of the classic sci-fi novel "The Time Machine."

The H. G. Wells version of time travel is of course motivated by the latter, as the main character travels forwards in time rather than backwards. Travelling backwards in time could also be motivated by desire for exploration if done in such a way as to deliberately reach destinations in the past but beyond those which we experienced the first time round.

In Mallett's own case, I would say he is primarily motivated by nostalgia. What we might think about the content of his nostalgia is a separate issue. The main problem is not that he himself wants to travel back in time, but that he wants to do so by inventing a machine that would also enable potentially anyone else (hence including those who desire to do time exploration) to travel in time also. This applies to machines in general: once invented, potentially anyone can use it, frequently for objectives we never imagined. So it is not time travel we are against, but time travel machines.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2021, 02:14:52 am by 90sRetroFan »