spacematic.net

You’ve seen him in the “Where I’ve been lately” sidebar listing… now study the fool in-depth. Russell Warner commandeers the spacematic blog this go-round with some interesting insights regarding the underground Internet legend, John Titor.

Heard of John Titor? He’s a time traveler from 2036 — a soldier from a
US militia that travels back to 1975 to retrieve an IBM 5100 (a computer
no longer available in 2036). Apparently the 5100 has some capacity to
translate certain computer languages, a feature that is not readily
available on any computer in the future. Oh yeah, on his way back to the
future he decided to stop by our 2001 and leave messages on bulletin
boards on the internet for us to peruse and consider. By most normal
definitions of time travel this would be highly destructive behavior but
according to Mr. Titor time travel is a bit more complex. There are
multiple, multiple “Worldlines” and when you travel in time you are also
traveling through probability changes in worldlines. Another way to put
it is, “It’s complicated” and I don’t want to go into it here because you
yourself can go into it here. All the
dirty little specifics are at that web site and a few others it points to.
So, what does John Titor have to say about us? Well, it turns out that
our selfish materialistic ways result in a couple of nasty ends; namely,
the creation of a police state that instigates a decentralized United
States civil war. From one of his posts, John Titor writes, “America will
soon be engaged in civil war with itself; a civil war that we’ll see the
beginnings of during 2004 and 2005, escalating until it is indisputable by
2008.” These conflicts will begin as “a Waco type event every month that
steadily gets worse.” Further, Mr. Titor stipulates that this civil war,
the economic disturbance it causes and other disturbances lead the world
into a nuclear conflict in 2015. The result? 3 billion dead and a world
devastated by disease and famine and a few remnants of society that crawl
along using left over technology and ancient survival techniques.
It’s a dim outlook and one that seems more and more frighteningly
plausible as we move along through the present. With an incredibly heated
election at hand, neither side really talking all that much anymore, and a
high likelihood that some amount of the vote somewhere is going to be
called into question it would appear that the United States is ripe for
some kind of conflict.
But I’m not going to talk about that. First of all, if Titor’s
predictions are true, there ain’t anything I can do about it besides hold
to my political beliefs (and my fervent defense of personal privacy) and
maybe spend some time refreshing those boy scout wilderness skills I
acquired many years ago. And of course, there is the fact that if John
Titor’s theories about time travel are correct, chaos theory dictates that
even if this worldline is only 2% different from his, it is still highly
probable that none of what he says will come true. Chaos theory posits
that a butterfly that flaps its wings in Mexico in May could affect
conditions that create a hurricane in September. In other words, small
changes in hardly known variables can have huge impacts on complex
systems. I for one, doubt that there are more complex systems than time
and civilization, and I think we all know how the actions of one lone
assassin affected world history in November of 1963.
What interests me instead is what this story illustrates in regards to our
consumption of media and how unprepared we are for dealing with the coming
deluge of information in the next few years. It is fascinating to me that
when something like this crops up on the Internet you generally have two
factions formed almost immediately that are there to debate the “facts”.
It is equally interesting to me that all of this discussion occurs
generally before any discussion of motive of the authors occurs.
There are no facts in this case. Everything that is posited is put forth
by one man (this much is assumed) with an internet connection and
apparently a lot of things to say (made up or not). No one has ever
spoken directly with him. No one can confirm/deny his identity or his
family. No one has seen or touched any kind of evidence. None of what has
been put forward would hold up in a court of law that required things like
evidence or proof. To his credit, John Titor states multiple times in his
postings that he has no real interest in proving anything, he’s just here
to find out more about our “worldline” and deal out the occasional
scolding to us for being shortsighted and materialistic. I think that’s
nice of him. But facts in this case do not exist.
So why all the hubbub, Bub? People have lined up on either side of this
debate and spent a lot of time arguing with each other. Most of the web
sites discuss whether he is right or wrong. But what if he’s neither? I
wonder why the only two options available to describe the writings of the
author of “John Titor” are Truth or Fraud? There is an equally
interesting third option: that this is a brilliant piece of science
fiction released through the web in as revolutionary nonlinear fashion as
James Joyce’s “Ulysses”.
Andy Warhol proved that art could be as simple as the label from an
everyday consumer product. Thomas Pynchon distorted the entire concept of
genre in literature by combining them all. Maybe John Titor’s work is the
first of a new kind of fiction — one that blurs the boundaries of the
real as much as Orson Wells “War of the Worlds”. Let’s not forget, the
“War of the Worlds” broadcast was so convincing as a work of fiction that
people all across the Northeast got out their guns and hid in their barns.
Now that’s fiction as disinformation!
In fact, all of the frauds who are not the author of the original writings
and all of the comments and debates and unearthed facts only serve to make
this particular work of fiction even more brilliant in that they keep it
alive. Most books are unshifting, unchanging narratives that get archived
in a library. This “John Titor” story could be a new breed of literature
(one much more similar to our older traditions of oral storytelling that
were much more transmutable). And all of us are writing this tome as we
speak.
All of us are writing the tome of history as we speak for that matter and
history itself is a work of a kind of fiction — one written by the
winners, they say. Or to put it another way, had reporters at CBS had a
discussion about motive before they published their
href=”http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/9/9/1914/38355″>infamous
letters they might have realized their blunder before they made it.
It seems to be fairly often these days that we see stories in the news
about information and facts getting confused and it���s probably largely due
to the fact that most people who just read that phrase asked, ���Aren���t
information and fact the same thing?��� No, they���re not. A strict
definition of information is that which affords you the ability to make a
decision (one if by land, two if by sea). If you ask me, ���If I go left
here will there be something that will kill me?��� My answer will likely be
the basis for your next decision. My answer isn���t necessarily a fact
though. Your doctor���s diagnosis isn���t a fact or why would you ask for a
second opinion? A fact is more like an asymptote (remember those from
algebra?) A fact is something that gradually gets approached. A fact is
a scientist saying, ���Hey, every time I drop this it falls to the ground.
Look, I just did it two hundred times and every time I did it, it fell to
the ground. That everything falls to the ground must be a fact.��� Some
people formulate the theory, ���What goes up must come down.���
But our culture seems equally likely to say things like, ���If CNN says
it… it must be true.��� Why? Is it because they say it two hundred
times? Or is it just because we are used to them not lying to us? ���
Because why would they lie to us? What agenda could they possibly have?
Well, here���s a different way to look at it: is it possible for any
organization not to have an agenda? If an organization did not
have an agenda it would have no purpose and wouldn’t likely last very
long. And I therefore don���t believe that any organization that dispenses
information to me is necessarily dispensing facts. They are dispensing
information and information only results in fact if it adds up.
In fact, information cannot only add up (as in 20 witnesses saw X with
their own eyes and all agree to what they say) it can negate itself (as in
2 witnesses saw something and completely disagree with what they saw).
The first case would seem to point to a fact while the second case seems
to be without a fact.
The story of John Titor could be true just as easily as it could be
fiction. And given the conflicting stories about Iraq I couldn���t really
tell you or expect to believe that I know what���s really going on over
there. What I do know is that everyone who hands out information has a
motive and until I���ve heard something from multiple independent sources I
intend to be skeptical. In fact, I think we all should.
–Russell