Back track 2 weeks ago. I'm bored on a Saturday night and decide to Netflix and chill with myself. I do the usual browse through and finally end up on a movie that looked intriguing. Time Lapse. I had never heard of the movie and it sounded like something that interested me. I am big fan of movies, especially sci-fi, specifically ones about time (I have like 3 clocks tattooed on me please don't judge <3). Anyways the synopsis on Netflix says: "Three friends conspire to use a mysterious machine that takes a photo 24 hours into the future for personal gain, until dangerous images develop".
So I watched the movie and loved it. Its not the greatest movie of all time by any means. However, the concept of seeing one photo 24 hours into the future got me thinking. There's a lot of morally gray things you could do to help yourself with this type of technology. Hypothetically speaking you can "promise" yourself to make sure that tomorrow you place the winning lotto numbers in the picture so that present you can go and pick them. This will insure that you win the lottery the next day and than in order to not mess up the space time continuum you need to place the lotto numbers you won with in the picture afterwards.
Now without getting into a physics lecture about the paradoxes that could happen with looking into the future, lets imagine that there is no harm to the universe's space time continuum no matter what you do with this technology and the only person that knows about this technology is you. That's the premise of the movie. Now is it morally acceptable to use it for personal gain? Are you hurting anyone by improving your life? Can you help improve the lives of everyone by seeing the future?
I find these questions very enthralling but hard to answer in a way that doesn't make me sound like an asshole. Maybe I just am? So basically the problem I have with this technology is that I can make sure I put the lotto tickets into the picture the next day but I cant control the will of other people. Maybe I have trust issues or maybe I just am confident in my ability to get shit done. I can tell them that I saw a picture that 9/11 happens and they shouldn't go to work tomorrow or notify the police about it but most people wouldn't believe me. And then if I bring attention to the machine itself it could potentially cause me or others misfortune by the wrong people finding out. I kind of don't want to die. So here is my solution to the morality problem:
So you want to use this technology in a way that benefits all of mankind (the greater good). Now what if I told you that helping yourself will help the world. This only applies to you if you WANT to benefit all of mankind. Now instead of putting a news article of a terrorist attack in the picture, you get yourself filthy rich by winning the lottery. Many times. Than you destroy the machine (you will have increased exposure due to winning the lottery and you don't want the machine in the hands of evil). Now that you have all the money in the world, use that money to gain influence and power in the world. Than be a good fucking person and help the benefit of mankind by putting that money, influence, power, into good use. If you want to get things done right, you gotta do it yourself.
The solution does two things: benefit the person using the machine and hope they will use their new found benefits for the good of mankind. If you were asking yourself if this is morally acceptable or didn't think using it for personal gain was morally okay than you are the type of person who will use their money, influence, and power in a morally acceptable way right? Maybe. Unless the new found power corrupts you absolutely but that's question for another day.
So what do you think? Let me know in the comments below!
No comments:
Post a Comment