|
Post by wmdkitty on Jun 8, 2011 20:10:40 GMT -5
Though you must admit, it would make for an interesting alternate timeline.
|
|
|
Post by VirtualStranger on Jun 8, 2011 20:20:00 GMT -5
If the Roman Empire hadn't collapsed, the Dark Ages wouldn't have happened, & think how much ahead-of-schedule our society would be today. Maybe I'm not as big a fan of Rome as some. I'd recommend Terry Jones Barbarians bbc series and book of the same name. The if the main energy source driving our society is mineral oil the main energy driving the Romans was slavery. Rome did genocide on a truly massive scale and didn't advance philosophy and science as well as some might assume. What they did do is keep Greek philosophy and add little bits to it. In any case as far as this TARDIS stuff goes, two words-butterfly effect. None of us have any idea that history would have been better without the Christians, this is why the Doctor is always careful NOT to mess with history-so things don't turn out even worse! The whole "messing with the past" thing doesn't make any sense from a logical standpoint. A Stable Time Loop would probably be the most likely result of actual time travel.
|
|
|
Post by Art Vandelay on Jun 8, 2011 23:01:25 GMT -5
damnmit I didn't get to kick the troll around, why do I always miss the fun stuff?
|
|
|
Post by Shane for Wax on Jun 9, 2011 0:42:23 GMT -5
But the doctor admits it's all wibbly wobbly timey wimey so fucking with the past might not do shit. He's certainly mucked around with it enough.
|
|
|
Post by wmdkitty on Jun 9, 2011 0:56:06 GMT -5
Wait. What if Jesus was a Time Lord?
|
|
|
Post by Admiral Lithp on Jun 9, 2011 1:05:56 GMT -5
Never said the Romans were moral paragons. Said they were advanced. Dark Age rulers weren't any better, so it's a moot point.
|
|
|
Post by Admiral Lithp on Jun 9, 2011 1:20:22 GMT -5
Wow, shit got real while I was ignoring this thread. I kind of wonder why he didn't go straight for rabid racism/sexism right away if he wanted a ban. That's usually one of the quickest ways toget banned, along with mass spamming, which is tedious.
I have to say, though, acknowledging a knee-jerk reaction & even regretting it are basically pointless if you keep making them. This being the internet, one SHOULD have time to compose a response that won't leave them with Troll's Remorse.
As to the actual points raised, operating on basic cause/effect, had Christianity never arose, Christians would still exist, they'd just belong to another culture. Lots of other people would probably be alive that aren't now, too, but that really depends on what the undoubtedly pagan culture that took over decided to do. It literally would not kill you to stop being Christian. And as fascinating as I find culture, I find it a poor argument to keep a harmful policy around.
|
|
|
Post by tolpuddlemartyr on Jun 9, 2011 4:25:44 GMT -5
One wonders if the gnostic branch of Christianity had been successful what changes that might have caused.
EDIT: What if the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics holds any water? Wouldn't that suggest that if you went back into the past you'd just end up creating a whole new timeline?
Or is that all high falutin' bullcrap dressed up in quantum theory of the sort used to sell those bracelets which are supposed to balance your chi?
|
|
|
Post by big_electron on Jun 9, 2011 11:27:08 GMT -5
Are you a Jew?
|
|
|
Post by Oriet on Jun 11, 2011 17:40:35 GMT -5
What if the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics holds any water? Wouldn't that suggest that if you went back into the past you'd just end up creating a whole new timeline? That is generally the explanation I use in stories/RPGs as it makes the most logical sense (even if it has no basis in observable reality). Stable time loops are another way to do it, but then you have information spontaneously forming from nothing other than itself, which begs the question of how it could form in the first place.
|
|
|
Post by SCarpelan on Jun 13, 2011 14:10:51 GMT -5
China had no close neighboring cultures that could compete with it. That was the main thing that caused them to isolate themselves from the outside influences and stop putting resources in developing their society. Since all the cultures they could compare themselves to were "barbaric" compared to them they thought they had already achieved the greatest society on Earth. Rome/Byzantine on the other hand had the Muslim world to compete with them and to exchange innovations with. This prevented them from having any such illusions as China had. This is a valid point. There are certainly differences in circumstances and mentality that would change things. But a united Roman Empire may well have prevented the rise of Islam, and in any case while there was Sassanid Persia to shape conceptions of diplomacy and international competition as we think of it (and I'd argue that it is in fact here, not at Islam, that any Roman "middle kingdom" thinking would die), the reality is that a unified Roman Empire would almost certainly have been far less vigorous in its technological and social innovations than the multitude of successor states across Europe. An immense, highly bureaucratized state tends to be less robust in these areas, after all. China did successfully create an advanced society despite being both geographically large and having a centuries old highly bureaucratic system. I don't know enough about the Roman culture and society to try to figure out if they would have done the same, though. (Sorry about taking a lot of time to respond; I've had serious computer problems.)
|
|