If you could go back in time, would you stop 9/11?

Why would you NOT want to stop it? All those innocent dead....

Foiling an attempt may have been a sufficient wake-up call to have righted our national course. It would have been worth finding out.

 

Your question reminds me of that movie The Final Countdown with Martin Sheen. The one where they go back in time with a Navy battle group and have a chance to stop the Pearl Harbor attack. Should you try to change the past? Hmm...

 

I would probably try to stop it.

The problem is that people would never fully understand unless they are forced too. It seems like everyone would rather ignore problems until they have to deal with them. 9-11 forced the issue and made us all (US & the world) realize that we have to stamp out terrorism.

If 9-11 was stopped the Taliban would probably still be in power and we would have raised security but nothing near the levels we are at now. It is almost certain that a future attack would take place, who knows if that attack would have been much worse? (Nukes or Bio?)

Timing - I always think about that movie. What would you do? Maybe we never enter WWII if Pearl Harbor was stopped?

 

If one could go back in time once, why not again ?

 

I think if I had the power to go back in time I'd not mess with such influential stuff. I'd stick to making sure the Astros drafted every super star player over the last 30 years.

There is a movie out now called Time Machine and there is a basic question in it. Can you go back in time to change events if those events are the very reason you went back in the first place? Hmm...

 

I would want to stop it, but I don't think I would.

A foiled attempt would not have changed anything. We have been attacked before and things have not changed (World Trade Center bombing, Oklahoma City). We have foiled attempts and things have not changed. Something major was needed, unfortunately, to get the ball rolling.

However, I really don't know how much is going to change now either. Just because we can't take knives on planes doesn't mean we're safe. Just because we destroy the Taliban or kill bin Laden doesn't mean we're safe. We're more aware now which is good, but we still have a long way to go, I think.

The problem, also, is not necessarily the US, although some would argue that our foreign policy got us into this mess. The problem is different cultures and governments and powers. While the US is definitely part of the problem, so is the rest of the world. The US can change anything it wants and as long as other countries don't change, it might not do any good.

 

Timing:

Well, philosophically, changing anything in the past is an impossibiltiy, since it necessarily triggers reverse causality, which is impossible.

DrewP:

I think the question is rigged. If one supposes I could go back in time once, there's no reason I couldn't twice. Yeah, of course it's a tough decision over whether saving thousands of lives immediately is worth not being prepared for future events, possibly even more terrible in scope.

But if one wants to consider a hypothetical in which an impossibility is possible... well, I vote for going back in time and reversing European colonialism or throttling Osama bin Laden when he first "turned bad," whenever that may have been.

Or even in your scenario, maybe I'd just go back in time, and foil the terrorist plans in the last second. Perhaps I could go back in time, tell everyone on the plane what the terrorists intend to do, and incite them to fight harder to prevent the terrorists from taking over the plane. Or maybe I could go back in time, and put reinforced doors on all cockpits and instruct pilots never to give in to demands.

That way, the US would be aware of the threat, but fewer people would have died. Sure the urgency might be slightly less in preventing future such deeds... but maybe that would lure Osama into being more complacent.

I think you're tormenting yourself by committing two fallacies:

A. believing that time travel is even a valid hypothetical

and

B. viewing the situation as a dichotomy, when it isn't. Your forcing a dichotomous perspective upon a situation that could have had many different outcomes.

 

Anyone would definately say yes but you have to wonder to if you were able to warn higher officials before it all happend and avoided this major tragedy would they have believed you? and if so would you then implicate yourself or become some self proclaimed hero.

If you wanted to stop the 9/11 tragedy you go back several years from then and take care of the source before it was planned and before it happend.
However thats a very good point would you if you could go back in time risk the consequences that could happen if these tragedies were avoided. Could something else dredfull as what happed would have been elsewhere?
Great topic

 

Sorry to have annoyed you. I simply think that thought experiments are dangerous, because they allow us to create contrived scenarios that prove our points without being consistent enough with the real world for the values/realities to translate well. Not that I dislike them... I just think they should be used carefully. (have you ever read a novel of philosophy? really annoying when an author thinks he's proven a fundamental concept by creating contrived circumstances that presumes his point).

If I could snap my fingers, and will it not to have happened... would I? Yeah, sure. Then I'd snap my fingers and will the government to be on high-alert, anyway.

 

Anyone who answers "No" on this question needs to seriously reevaluate their own concept of the value of human life.

I make no secret that I've seen something like this coming/expected it, and it's no secret that there are plenty of guys I'd like to go after. But over 3,000 people died in that attack - all civilians. All non-combatants. I will never/could never condone the murder of even a single civilian, no matter the reason.

I hate to say it, but if you are glad that 9/11 happened because we can finally take out the bad guys, then you have a misplaced sense of morality, and a f*ed up sense of the value of innocent life. Being able to take out the bad guys now is a consolation prize, not the big win.

If I had the choice - even having some idea of the threat we faced before 9/11 - I still would rather it never have happened. I would much rather we would have taken action before over 3,000 people died... But even as we did not do so, I still would rather it had never happened.

3,000. People. Dead.

Count to 3,000, and picture a different face for each number. Let that sit on your conscience.

 

Princess -- you said that stopping this wouldn't have changed anything??? yeah, try telling that to the little kids whose parents didn't show up to pick them up from day care on the afternoon of 9/11. Absolutely, I would try to stop it. I wish like hell I could make the memory of the day go away. Do I believe that God works through all things for good...yes, I believe that...but I also believe that if it were Sept. 11th all over again, I'd do everything I could to stop it.

This thread makes me nervous....the fact that some of you said you wouldn't stop it because we all learned an important lesson is about the most selfish thing I've ever heard of. Please don't trade my family's life so you can learn a lesson, thanks.

 

I'm surprised to see people getting so agitated over a hypothetical situation with a questionable outcome. Do some of you honestly sit around worrying about what you (or others) would do in situations that have NO possibility of ever occuring? Why beat yourself up like that?

The fact is, 9/11 did happen. There is NO possibility of any of us going back and stopping it. The only control we have over that event (or any event) is our reaction to it. Therefore, we can decide whether it becomes a horrible black mark on our lives or a wake-up call to become more involved in our lives and the world.

 

I find myself agreeing with treeman...

Anyway, I personally think that in a couple years, we'll lose our heightened sense of alert and things will appear to be back to the way they were before September.

I mean I don't have any numbers or anything, but I'm pretty sure more and more people are starting to trust the airlines again, eventhough their security system is still heavily flawed.

Anyway, I would change it all if I could, lives are lives, I'm not going to bog myself down on some hypothetical "what will happen if I do this?" when I KNOW those 2 towers are going to collapse and thousands of people will die...

 

Mrs. JB -- I understand your point entirely...but I can't help but be a bit concerned when people are asked, "would you do something to prevent the death of 3000 innocent people if you could," and they respond with, "no...we (the survivors) learned some valuable lessons from all that." If that's an indicator of how they'd act in the future when confronted with real situations, we have a problem!

 

Max -- I just don't think it's possible to judge someone's character based on their answer to a hypothetical question. Princess and I rarely see eye to eye on issues, but she certainly has never struck me as someone who has no regard for the value of human life. She seems to care very deeply about her loved ones (such as Lynus) and I'm sure this translates to others as well.

It's easy to sit here six months out and talk about how we'd have changed things and stopped the loss of life. But the reality is, none of us did. It happened. Our only choice now is how we respond to it. To sit around nit-picking about "what-ifs" seems counter-productive.