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[Moose-tache]

One general problem that I have with time travel stories is that IMO, their authors usually don't realize just how common time travel would be if it were possible. You wouldn't just have one guy or gal travelling back in time to kill Hitler; you'd have hundreds or thousands, or perhaps even millions or billions, of people trying to kill, or prevent the killing of, everyone who ever played an important role in history, had descendants who played an important role in history, or might have played an important role in history in an alternate timeline. The time and place of every major, or even minor, historical event would be completely overrun by time travellers trying to influence that event. Time travel stories usually don't account for that, so I have problems with accepting time travel even in a story. You might get around that problem by making time travel something accidental and impossible-to-control, though.

Maybe we overestimate how much importance people in the distant future would place on events of the 20th century. If someone gave you a time machine today, would your first thought be "Thank God! Now I can go back and finally stop Cromwell's invasion of Ireland!" ? The way I see it, there are many possible explanations for the lack of time travelers:

1) As I say, they all see the ancient past as a foundation, not a tragedy to be averted (Who would stop Hannibal at Cannae?)
2) People in the future are all idiot teenagers who only care about events of the last two weeks (that is, the party one week before the invention of the time machine is full of people trying to get Stacy's cyber-phone number).
3) Time travel is expensive, so people only use it to rig the space-stock market.
4) Cause and effect become increasingly unwieldy over long periods of time, so it's impossible to predict what impact killing Hitler will have, and no one is stupid enough to try it.
5) Time travel was invented by racists, so everyone feels weird doing it.
6) There was an easily preventable industrial accident at the time travel facility the day they tried to kill Hitler, so now everyone assumes that time travel is bad and unsafe. Bonus points if the time travel facility has large white cooling towers to vent scary-looking steam.
7) Time travel is illegal, and the enforcers have access to a time machine, so there's no getting around them.
8) There are oodles of time travelers constantly changing the past. Our timeline, Hitler included, is the result of their efforts. We see them walking around form time to time, but they figured out they can dress like homeless people and no one will pay them any attention.

[Pabappa]

time travel into the past involves an increase in matter. that may be fine, but its feasible that any time travel would also involve bringing trillions of particles of radiation and energy along for the ride, and that there would be no way to get rid of these particles, some of which would travel at the speed of light. this could lead to all sorts of problems, including the same particles still being around when the time gets back to its starting point, and therefore the radiation could enter the loop again, and even do so infinitely many times. Some scientists think that time travel will be physically impossible even if it is logically possible.

[KathTheDragon]

The way I see it, there are many possible explanations for the lack of time travelers:

<snip>

9) Time travel doesn't let you change past events anyway

[Moose-tache]

Well, that would simply mean that your story can't have meaningful time travel. I was imagining a situation in which time travel is possible, but doesn't happen very often. In other words, how can you have a band of adventurers go back to stop Bin Laden without running into five hundred other hobbyists doing the same thing?

[Raphael]

If someone gave you a time machine today, would your first thought be "Thank God! Now I can go back and finally stop Cromwell's invasion of Ireland!" ?
(...)
(Who would stop Hannibal at Cannae?)
2) People in the future are all idiot teenagers who only care about events of the last two weeks (that is, the party one week before the invention of the time machine is full of people trying to get Stacy's cyber-phone number).
(...)
so it's impossible to predict what impact killing Hitler will have, and no one is stupid enough to try it.

I think you seriously underestimate the number of eccentrics and people with unusual interests in the world. For instance, to go with one of your examples, I had a brief phase as a teenager when I was quite a lot into the Punic Wars from a pro-Qart-Hadasht perspective (I wouldn't have used the Latin name of the city back then). And while I don't know much about Irish politics, it's enough to suspect that there are people alive today who would try to stop Cromwell if given the chance. As for "no one is stupid enough to try it", I generally don't believe that a rule can work if it relies on no one trying something.

7) Time travel is illegal, and the enforcers have access to a time machine, so there's no getting around them.

Hm - that might work, but why would the enforcers' time machine always guarantee them victory over lawbreakers who would also have time machines?

8) There are oodles of time travelers constantly changing the past. Our timeline, Hitler included, is the result of their efforts. We see them walking around form time to time, but they figured out they can dress like homeless people and no one will pay them any attention.

Again, that requires everyone to go along with the "dress like homeless people" rule.

[alynnidalar]

Maybe we overestimate how much importance people in the distant future would place on events of the 20th century. If someone gave you a time machine today, would your first thought be "Thank God! Now I can go back and finally stop Cromwell's invasion of Ireland!" ?

On the flip side, a character in the Outlander series is a woman obsessed with the Jacobites winning, leading her to travel back in time to the 1700s. (then again, she's not the most stable of individuals...)

(the series gets around most of the other time travel issues by making it magical--it's rare, dangerous, and difficult to control, which means you can't casually pop back to kill Hitler even if you wanted to. Most time travelers do it completely by accident and don't know how to reverse the process)

[Moose-tache]

Gals, fellas, I'm not arguing that those ideas are all true. They're just ideas you could use to explain why your time travelling protagonist doesn't have to get into a long queue to kill Hitler. You're not overturning my apple cart by suggesting that maybe the opposite could happen. In case it wasn't clear from the tone, I actually think most of them are pretty silly possibilities. I have the usual objections to time travel, in that it's logically impossible. But in a time travel story, I am strangely willing to suspend my disbelief, just like I can enjoy a science fiction story about space travelers in the distant future who all still wear three piece suits and stetson hats.

As one last poke-of-the-bear, I will leave you with a question... how do we know the Jacobites didn't win, only to be thwarted after the fact by time travelers? Maybe Hitler was supposed to choke on a bratwurst, and time travelers gave him the Heimlich.

[Ares Land]

Just for completeness' sake: the closest thing physics give us to a time machine (something something wormhole with stuff I don't understand) allows time travel, but only to events occuring after the machine is created.

My favourite solution is the one seen in the Anubis Gates and some episodes of Doctor Who: you can't change your past, because anything you'll do there is already part of your timeline.

So, Hitler learned public speaking skills from addressing the hundreds of time travellers in Munich beer halls, eager for a chance to kill him.
Or, the New World pandemics weren't caused by smallpox, but by future diseases brought by future historians.

[zompist]

Some of these ideas have appeared in sf. E.g. the "too many travelers" bit is treated in Alfred Bester's "The Men who Murdered Mohammed", as well as in a recent, hilarious piece I can't find which imagined a forum for time travelers, divided into eras— the "20th century Europe" forum was dogged with would-be Hitler killers, who were treated as noobs or cranks.

The "time cops" idea was explored in several books by Poul Anderson. As he allows the timeline to be rewritten, things get a little crazy.

FWIW, another idea I've seen explored is that "time travel" is really travel to an alternate timeline; rather than the impossibility of changing the past, this gives you the impossibility of returning to your original timeline. (But you could find any number that differ only trivially from it.)

I love time travel stories, impossible as they are. They lend themselves to a certain puzzle aspect— with the best ones, like The Anubis Gates, you get the thrill of fate working perfectly and the feeling that everyone acted out of free will. But you have to suspend disbelief about a few issues. "Everyone has a time machine" might be good for a short story, but it makes worldbuilding nearly impossible for a longer story.

[KathTheDragon]

(But you could find any number that differ only trivially from it.)

This is functionally the same as not having any ability to alter the timeline, since if you want to return to something approximating your original timeline, it has to have approximately the same history.

[Kuchigakatai]

FWIW, another idea I've seen explored is that "time travel" is really travel to an alternate timeline; rather than the impossibility of changing the past, this gives you the impossibility of returning to your original timeline.

For a hilarious instance of that, someone made a wonderful 41-minute YouTube video explaining how time travel in Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super doesn't work the way the author talks about it (the author, Akira Toriyama, is famous for not planning ahead and making up his mind while in the middle of work, and being overall pretty disorganized). The author talks about it as you say: two timelines with the possibility of travelling between them. But that doesn't actually work in Dragon Ball when you think about it. However, sense can be made if you assume that every time the character "Future Trunks" "goes back in time" he ends up creating a separate timeline, and that when he "returns to the future" he sometimes but not always creates alternative timelines as well.

Dragon Ball Z starts with 1 timeline, which is then split into two when Future Trunks thinks he travels back in time but actually ends up splitting the original timeline into two (his, and the main one). More end up getting created as further travelling happens. Dragon Ball Z then ends up using 5 time lines, 2 of which (the main one, and the one that Future Trunks ends up in when he exits the Dragon Ball Z series) survive into Dragon Ball Super. Then, in Dragon Ball Super, the main timeline is split into 4 timelines, and Future Trunks's is split into 5 timelines.

The Dragon Ball publisher took down the video (weirdly, only that one, even though it was one of five videos??), but I happened to find it elsewhere. Here is the whole diagram:
https://i.imgur.com/N69gwuv.png

Timelines #8 and #11 are the "final" timelines by the end of Dragon Ball Super (#8 being the main one, and #11 being Future Trunks's, since the author only cares about two timelines at a time). Notice the "[?]" at the point where timelines #8 and #10 get split off timeline #7: this is a point of the story where logic breaks down, as condition A depends on condition B which depends on condition C which depends on condition A happening. This is most likely just an error that Toriyama didn't notice when writing the story...

[Curlyjimsam]

What practical purpose do flying cars serve? How are they not just a more dangerous version of regular cars? Are traffic jams really that bad we need them?

One advantage I see would be to free up the streets for pedestrians.

In theory they free up space for everything: transportation takes place high up so the rest of living is free to go on at ground level unperturbed. And on the other side of the coin there's more space in the air so you don't have to worry about avoiding other stuff, and it's easier for vehicles on conflicting routes to avoid each other (they can pass over/underneath each other without the need for junctions or other expensive infrastructure).

A parallel would be underground railways, which get over many of the problems overground railways face by being in tunnels underneath the rest of everything, often at different levels.

In practice of course flying cars would indeed be incredibly dangerous for everybody to pilot manually, prohibitively expensive, and still face the issue of the interface with the ground level - which is, after all, where people are generally going to start from and want to end up. (The latter two reasons are also why we don't have extensive underground road networks - despite Elon Musk's best efforts - and why underground railways tend to be restricted to the centres of very large cities.) But if you could find a way round those problems, perhaps flying cars would be a good idea ...

[alynnidalar]

We already have flying cars and they haven't caught on as a normal part of life--we call them helicopters. Thus far they've been too expensive, large, difficult to operate, and require too much infrastructure to become common.

[Darren]

We already have flying cars and they haven't caught on as a normal part of life--we call them helicopters. Thus far they've been too expensive, large, difficult to operate, and require too much infrastructure to become common.

You could say that an aeroplane is a flying car, a spaceship is a space car, or a boat is a water car. A flying car is a car which drives on the road but can also fly; helicopters don't drive on roads and aren't cars.

[Raphael]

I'm sometimes a bit amused when I get an automated ZBB notification mail that is signed "The Management".

[Ares Land]

Always makes me think of that short guy in the Illuminatus! Trilogy who posts nonsensical notes everywhere, signed 'The Mgt' -- that is, 'the Midget'.

[MacAnDàil]

On the subject of films about 2020, some films which have already come out are symbolic of differences between today's life and life a decade or few back:The Matrix (with the ubiquitous smartphones and upcoming virtual reality), Fern Gully etc

[Ryusenshi]

I'm working on my CD collection sheet again, and I have problems with alphabetical order. I once ranted about romanization problems with classical composers, but actually, pop music also has lots of pitfalls. I try to be consistent, but sometimes my intuition collides with all attempts at making systematic rules.

I have decided to make this in the form of a series of questions of increasing difficulty. If you wanted to file your records by alphabetical order, how would you do it? I've provided all necessary information.

1. Most people in the West have a first name and a surname. How do you file them? Does "Patti Smith" go under 'P', or under 'S'?
   More: show

   To my knowledge, every single library in existence files authors by surname. Books by "William Shakespeare" go under 'S', books by "Emily Brontë" go under 'B'. Ditto for classical music: "Ludwig van Beethoven" is filed under 'B', "Richard Wagner" under 'W'. That's the way it is done, right? I'd prefer respecting this convention for pop artists, so "Patti Smith" is filed under 'S'. On the other hand, if you file everybody by the first letter of their full name whatever it is, you're going to save yourself a lot of trouble...
2. Rock albums are often credited to a band, not to an individual artist. Most bands have funny names like "Led Zeppelin" or "Jefferson Airplane", that don't fit any fixed format. How do you file them?
3. Many bands use a definite article, like "the Beatles" or "the Rolling Stones". How do you file them?
   More: show

   Pretty much everybody will neglect the article, and file them under 'B' and 'R' respectively.
   
   Wikipedia had a long edit war about capitalization: is it "the Beatles" or "The Beatles"? My preferred style is to use the lower case.
   
   There's always a smartass to ask what to do with "the The" — a band more famous for its unusual moniker than for its music...
4. Some artists use a stage name that still sounds like a real name, like "Bob Dylan" (real name Robert Zimmerman). How do you file them?
5. Some artists use their first name as a mononym, such as "Prince", "Cher" or "Madonna". How do you file them?
6. Sometimes, one member of a band will release solo albums under his/her own name. For example, after the Beatles split, each of the four members made records under his own name. Do you file records by "Paul McCartney" with "the Beatles", or do you keep them separate?
7. Some bands have a name that sounds like a real name, but doesn't actually refer to anyone in the band, like "Jethro Tull" or "Marshall Tucker Band". How do you file them?
8. How do you file duets, such as "Fripp & Eno" (especially if you also have records by each artist separately)?
9. Sometimes there is something added to the artist's name, such as "Bill Haley & his Comets" or "Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble". How do you file them?
10. Sometimes the name of a band is inconsistent. For instance, a Jamaican band started as "the Wailers", then became "Bob Marley and the Wailers"; later compilations just say "Bob Marley". Similarly, an American band started as "the Mothers of Invention", then had releases as "Frank Zappa and the Mothers", and later disks just say "Frank Zappa". How do you file them?
11. Some artists have weird stage names like "Captain Beefheart" or "Howlin' Wolf" (real names Don Van Vliet and Chester Burnett). How do you file them?
12. How do you file "Blind Willie Johnson" or "Lightnin' Hopkins" (whose real names actually are Willie Johnson and Samuel Hopkins)? What about "Muddy Waters" or "Cat Power"? ("Waters" and "Power" can be surnames, but their real names are McKinley Morganfield and Chan Marshall.)
13. Some band names that come from a band member who isn't necessarily the leader: examples include Brinsley Schwarz (named after guitar player Brinsley Schwarz, but led by singer/bassist/songwriter Nick Lowe) and Alan Parsons Project (named after composer and sound engineer Alan Parsons, but Eric Woolfson was just as important). How do you file them?
14. And now for the final boss. "Alice Cooper" was originally the name of a band who released several records. When the band split, the singer Vincent Furnier took the name "Alice Cooper" as his own stage name, and has been using it ever since. How do you file this??

[Raphael]

And then there's the Concerto For Group And Orchestra, an attempt at a crossover between rock and classical, where the album cover features a compromise/combination between the standard rock/pop and the standard classical album naming conventions, saying
"Deep Purple
COMPOSED BY JON LORD
Concerto For Group And Orchestra
in live concert with
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Malcolm Arnold"


I guess an old-school rock fan would respond to all this that rock and pop music weren't invented to make people with overly bureaucratic mindsets happy, anyway...

[alice]

If you wanted to file your records by alphabetical order, how would you do it? I've provided all necessary information.

Ha! I *always* filed my music alphabetically, and here's how. This system, by an uncanny coincidence, closely resembles that used in virtually every record shop I ever visited. There's an interesting debate here about filing "by name" or "by reference".

1. Most people in the West have a first name and a surname. How do you file them? Does "Patti Smith" go under 'P', or under 'S'? By surname.
2. Rock albums are often credited to a band, not to an individual artist. Most bands have funny names like "Led Zeppelin" or "Jefferson Airplane", that don't fit any fixed format. How do you file them? By full name.
3. Many bands use a definite article, like "the Beatles" or "the Rolling Stones". How do you file them? By full name, ignoring the article. It gets complicated if the name is foreign and has an article, like Los Lobos: does this go under 'L', or 'L'?
4. Some artists use a stage name that still sounds like a real name, like "Bob Dylan" (real name Robert Zimmerman). How do you file them? By stage name; who would put Bob Dylan under 'Z'?
5. Some artists use their first name as a mononym, such as "Prince", "Cher" or "Madonna". How do you file them? By this name. Nobody knows what their surnames are anyway (Nelson, Sarskian LaPierre, Ciccone).
6. Sometimes, one member of a band will release solo albums under his/her own name. For example, after the Beatles split, each of the four members made records under his own name. Do you file records by "Paul McCartney" with "the Beatles", or do you keep them separate? Separately. Why would they be filed together?
7. Some bands have a name that sounds like a real name, but doesn't actually refer to anyone in the band, like "Jethro Tull" or "Marshall Tucker Band". How do you file them? By the full name - here 'J' and 'M'.
8. How do you file duets, such as "Fripp & Eno" (especially if you also have records by each artist separately)? Here by the first name, thus 'F'; Eno & Fripp would go under 'E'.
9. Sometimes there is something added to the artist's name, such as "Bill Haley & his Comets" or "Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble". How do you file them? By surname.
10. Sometimes the name of a band is inconsistent. For instance, a Jamaican band started as "the Wailers", then became "Bob Marley and the Wailers"; later compilations just say "Bob Marley". Similarly, an American band started as "the Mothers of Invention", then had releases as "Frank Zappa and the Mothers", and later disks just say "Frank Zappa". How do you file them? According to the name as on the record.
11. Some artists have weird stage names like "Captain Beefheart" or "Howlin' Wolf" (real names Don Van Vliet and Chester Burnett). How do you file them? By surname, I think... but Lynyrd Skynyrd go under 'L', so maybe not. How does this differ from #7?
12. How do you file "Blind Willie Johnson" or "Lightnin' Hopkins" (whose real names actually are Willie Johnson and Samuel Hopkins)? What about "Muddy Waters" or "Cat Power"? ("Waters" and "Power" can be surnames, but their real names are McKinley Morganfield and Chan Marshall.) By "apparent" surname - respectively 'J', 'H', 'W', 'P'.
13. Some band names that come from a band member who isn't necessarily the leader: examples include Brinsley Schwarz (named after guitar player Brinsley Schwarz, but led by singer/bassist/songwriter Nick Lowe) and Alan Parsons Project (named after composer and sound engineer Alan Parsons, but Eric Woolfson was just as important). How do you file them? By surname.
14. And now for the final boss. "Alice Cooper" was originally the name of a band who released several records. When the band split, the singer Vincent Furnier took the name "Alice Cooper" as his own stage name, and has been using it ever since. How do you file this?? All Alices are allocated as 'A', actually.

[/quote]

Generally speaking, if the name contains both a forename and a surname, I would index it by surname unless it was a name not connected to anyone in the band (as with Jethro Tull). If there is more than one surname, index by the first appearing surname. A surname takes precedence over anything else, even in extreme cases like The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.