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Post by admiralcheez on Mar 13, 2014 0:33:24 GMT
Jones probably could have stopped a lot of worldwide tragedies. The fact that she didn't either shows remarkable dedication to her non-interference philosophy, or she's just a really huge jerk. On the other hand, how many has she prevented? You never hear about the tragedies that didn't happen. I would also question the basic assumptions of these questions. The advantages Jones has over normal people are: 1) Invincible 2) Really old Neither of those abilities are time travel or omniscience. Jones is just one person(-ish). And invincibility + really old age (but not in a way anyone else would easily notice) doesn't really help when it comes to things like ending famines or stopping wars. And if she is in the wrong place/isn't aware of the problem, then there is obviously no way she could help. And then, with respect to more particular evils, what is so special about Hitler? There's plenty more monsters in history, including the likes of Stalin and such. Not to defend Hitler (seriously, awful terrible stuff). Just to point out the difficulties of trying to save the world when for a long time the world was just an awful place to live in. I do agree with all of those points. I was mostly joking in that post. Although, to speculate (because it's fun), I suppose Jones could have fixed a famine by dragging her feet across the soil until it was fertile enough to plant. Fix a drought by carrying chunks of ice across the world. Stop a war by standing in the middle of the battlefield and threaten to beat up both sides until they both go home. End a plague by... letting it wipe out a civilization and then destroying all evidence that it ever existed, thus causing no one to remember the plague ever occuring? I don't know about that one. Of course, as you said, that's all assuming she happened to be in the right place. Even the wandering eye can miss a spot. |
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Demonsul
New Member
Seven years a new member
Posts: 44 
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Post by Demonsul on Mar 13, 2014 1:17:30 GMT
I don't think Jones could have stopped a drought by carrying ice around. I mean, she seems very strong, but I haven't seen any evidence of her moving fast enough to get to a glacier and back with an ice boulder (presumably the size of a buffalo, the largest thing we've seen her move) without it melting, or even getting there quickly enough at all. And it's not like wars are schoolyard brawls where the presence of an authority figure breaks up the violence...
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Post by freeformline on Mar 13, 2014 1:24:46 GMT
...for a long time the world was just an awful place to live in. It still is, for a large part of the human population. It's generally better than it used to be, but we have got a long, long way to go as a species. |
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Post by Per on Mar 13, 2014 1:32:25 GMT
...for a long time the world was just an awful place to live in. It still is, for a large part of the human population. It's generally better than it used to be, but we have got a long, long way to go as a species. But according to Gapminder we're going in the right direction! It may be Jones spreading lies though. Because she's a jerk. |
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Post by freeformline on Mar 13, 2014 1:42:14 GMT
We are definitely seeing a general improvement in living conditions, technology, and other important fields, but better does not necessarily mean good. There are a lot of messed up places in this world.
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Post by legion on Mar 13, 2014 2:17:41 GMT
In the early going of the Nazi era, there was a great deal of denial about what the Nazis were doing. From what I have gathered, the situation was a bit more subtle than either "no one knew" or "everyone knew but turned a blind eye". That the nazis were deporting tons of people and putting them in camps under harsh conditions of forced labor was well known, because the nazis *were openly boasting about it*; there were public announcements on German radio about how, say "5000 Jews have been removed from the city of Stadtburg". No one (outside of the Red Cross) was really concerned about that because at the time it was hardly a nazi specificity, but a common practice; everyone had concentration camps, including the allies. What however the nazis kept secret as much as they could were the extermination camps and the gas chambers. There were only 6 extermination camps (out of, according to recent historian works, as much as *forty thousand* transit camps, labour camps, and other detention facilities administrated by the nazis), which, appart from Auschwitz, were dedicaded extermination facilities (they hosted almost no prisonner) disguised to look like innocuous buildings, and built in secluded location. Hydrogen cyanide, aka Zyklon B, the main extermination agent, was a common industrial insecticide, large quantities of which could be ordered without raising suspicion. In the two extermination camps near the border with the Soviet Union, where the shipping of massive quantities of hydrogen cyanide could have been noticed, the nazis instead used carbon monoxyde gas chambers, simply made by connecting the chamber to the exhaust of a diesel engine, fueled by ordinary gasoline. So while the public at large did know about the deportations, they didn't really know about the genocide; information did filter, but it was too late: the first complete report on the gas chambers was published in the US in november 44. By that point Germany was already technically defeated — the war only dragged until may 45 only because Hitler was refusing to surrender. |
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Post by GK Sierra on Mar 13, 2014 5:15:23 GMT
I think you've hit the nail on the head Legion, although it is safe to say that near the latter half of '44 most everyone in what was left of Greater Germany was aware that Jews were not simply being "deported into the eastern areas". The smoke from the camps carried the smell of burning human remains miles from the camps and into the settlements nearby. In the years before the death camps came online there were mobile gas vans and of course the Einsatzgruppen who did it the old fashioned way with bullets. Both of these methods could be easily hidden because they were relatively close to the fighting, but the vans didn't work well, and shooting was too slow and took a horrific toll on those assigned to be executioners. The camps, however, were plain as day for anybody who wanted to go look and knew what they were looking for.
I suppose a lot of people simply didn't spend much time worrying about what happened to them, either because they didn't like them or because by that point they had their own problems to think about, but the smarter ones must have known they were being done away with.
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Post by thedoctor on Mar 13, 2014 8:52:24 GMT
Jones probably could have stopped a lot of worldwide tragedies. The fact that she didn't either shows remarkable dedication to her non-interference philosophy, or she's just a really huge jerk. On the other hand, how many has she prevented? You never hear about the tragedies that didn't happen. I would also question the basic assumptions of these questions. The advantages Jones has over normal people are: 1) Invincible 2) Really old Neither of those abilities are time travel or omniscience. Jones is just one person(-ish). And invincibility + really old age (but not in a way anyone else would easily notice) doesn't really help when it comes to things like ending famines or stopping wars. And if she is in the wrong place/isn't aware of the problem, then there is obviously no way she could help. And then, with respect to more particular evils, what is so special about Hitler? There's plenty more monsters in history, including the likes of Stalin and such. Not to defend Hitler (seriously, awful terrible stuff). Just to point out the difficulties of trying to save the world when for a long time the world was just an awful place to live in. Don't know about "was." I don't think it's really much better now, considering the general situation in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Just less outright war. For many the world still IS an awful place to live in. Sorry for the downer... |
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Post by thedoctor on Mar 13, 2014 9:05:16 GMT
Midnight, California time. Since it has been shown that Daylight Savings Time does not actually save energy or provide any other benefit (Indiana *began* practicing DST in 2006, in the face of analysis saying that the change would *increase* energy consumption), the US government decided that we need more of it. So it kicks in in mid-March now (since 2007 actually). (Except for the few states and territories smart enough to blow it off completely.) Whereas in most other countries that have this nonsensical practice, it doesn't start (or end, in the southern hemisphere) until late March. At the other end, most countries do the change in mid to late October, but the US does it in early November. I live in Arizona, which told DST to piss right off, but at this moment I'm in Oregon, which is both in a different time zone and does DST. So, damn. I really, really wish that this horrible little invention didn't exist. Whoever thought there could be power saved obviously didn't think about the implications of EVERYBODY having to remember to do something AT THE SAME TIME. We forget things! This concept needs to go away. |
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Post by thedoctor on Mar 13, 2014 9:12:48 GMT
I think the badge that the are wearing is the On War Services Badge, which was worn by women carrying out jobs important to the war effort during the First World War The pin which she is wearing, I'm not entirely sure why you're referencing this. She's not wearing it now, is she? Oh, as supporting evidence to what you're talking about? Also, Jim North was actually agreeing with you; he was saying that that story is several years (15ish) past. |
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Post by Covalent on Mar 13, 2014 16:17:27 GMT
Found this gem looking through the comments section.  |
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Post by tortoise on Mar 14, 2014 2:28:23 GMT
I live in Arizona, which told DST to piss right off, but at this moment I'm in Oregon, which is both in a different time zone and does DST. So, damn. I really, really wish that this horrible little invention didn't exist. Whoever thought there could be power saved obviously didn't think about the implications of EVERYBODY having to remember to do something AT THE SAME TIME. We forget things! This concept needs to go away. The only reason I put up with DST is when you get an extra hour of sleep in the fall. We should do Fall Back and then Spring Back. |
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Post by thedoctor on Mar 14, 2014 10:32:20 GMT
I really, really wish that this horrible little invention didn't exist. Whoever thought there could be power saved obviously didn't think about the implications of EVERYBODY having to remember to do something AT THE SAME TIME. We forget things! This concept needs to go away. The only reason I put up with DST is when you get an extra hour of sleep in the fall. We should do Fall Back and then Spring Back. Unfortunately, that doesn't work; we'd have an...asymmetrical (?) calendar for about 12 years! And then we'd have to add in another day or something...More headache than it's worth. |
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Post by sidhekin on Mar 14, 2014 10:47:07 GMT
Hey, we're already adding another day every fourth year!
... this idea is growing on me ...
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Post by thedoctor on Mar 15, 2014 16:07:18 GMT
Hey, we're already adding another day every fourth year! ... this idea is growing on me ... Nonononono, stop that! Why are you adding arbitrary complexity to an already complex system? Simplicity is important for finite human brains! |
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