The problem with time travel, or thoughts while listening to NPR podcasts

<a href=”http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14094404″>So at dinner last night the conversation went like this,

oldest son: So you know what the trouble with time travel is?     

his father: There are a bunch.  Like the assumption that time is this constant, static thing to travel through…

o.s.: No, I was thinking that it was if you brought currency with you into the past, everyone would think it was counterfeit.

h.f.:  Well, one depressing theory I have heard is that time travel is scientifically inevitable, and the fact that we have not been visited by people from the future is evidence that we’re going to destroy ourselves.

(Cheery thought and I am not even going to go into the problems with that argument, because nothing tops my son’s response)

o.s.:  What makes anyone think that any time travelers would want to visit this time period?

 

On that terribly nerdy note, NPR had two stories in their most emailed stories and 7 am news summary podcasts, one on this giant spider web in Texas — what it is it with spiders this year?  I had a web spun across the top of my water cup the other day when it was put down for just a few minutes, have spider webs spanning it seems the space between any two bushes or structures in the yard, and it wasn’t like this a year ago.  The other story was on a United Nations report presented in Vienna about global warming leading to increased flooding and mosquitoes and disease, particularly malaria.   2030.  I’m all for coming up with time travel to send the giant spider webs to then, but have decided as a precaution to keep with the practice of gently removing the spiders in house and yard to someplace safe and out of the way.

1 Comment

  1. Raven Zachary
    Sep 10, 2007

    For the record, I think that time travel is absurd – and definitely do not buy into the argument I shared with our oldest son about the inevitability of our destruction. I am an optimist when it comes to human ‘destiny.’

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