Alas, Babylon

I thought that was an interesting comment, "what if alas babylon was writen or dictated by a time travelor?" Did you folks ever read the book "looking ahead"? It was written a hundred years ago, but it predicted every aspect of our lives today. The copy I read had a hand written letter from the 60's by the previous owner of the book who said her dad wanted her to see if the predictions came true. The book talks about a public store house in every section with the same items in each one (walmart) where people use their credit cards to buy everything, and music that would come from the walss by operatores turing dials.

I've just ordered alas babylon to this library, sounds like a good story.
 
Ok, but just to throw a bone of contention in: What if Alas Babylon was dictated or written by a time traveller?
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And a really bad time traveler at that...he wrote a book in 1959 about 1959 and none of it came to pass.
 
Thinking about that Darby, a time-traveler who shows up anywhere in the 90s onward could use the Internet to talk to people. It would be more face-to-face in the further past.

I can imagine that anyone who came directly into contact with a time-traveler from the future would be reticent about it – especially if that person had good reason to believe the story was true. Occasionally, an “encounteree” might turn that story into a novel, movie or television show (using poetic license). It’s a great way to get something off your chest without looking like a lunatic.
 
I would like to mention that a book was written decades before the Titanic sunk about an unsinkable ship very much like the Titanic that sunk. Just because something is considered fiction does not mean that it can not become real. There is much more unknown fact in our fictional movies today than people realize.
 
Good catch. I will definetly read this book.

John Titor immediatly struck me as 'BS' but interest grew after reading some of the predictions specificaly regarding 'security' which gave me pause.

Maybe/probably he is a fake; however this does not mean that it won't happen.
 
you're all wrong. what if john just traveled in time and wrote that book so that we would say "oh it was in a book so it's not real" what if thats what he wants us to think. he also mentioned that in 2000 there was a building missing from new york and that a shuttle would explode. he said that one of the olympics would be canceled from 2004 to 2008. that a would war would start in 2005 and end in 2015. but if any of you heard the c2c am story on it you would know that when you go back in time what ever you do then will not affect you in the future but then he wouldn't be able to bring back the 5100 or write the book unless he decided to stay here until now so that it would take effect and that y2k happened to him possibly because he got the 5100 but then it wouldn't of affecterd him cause since the past wouldn't affect him it wouldn't of happened. so nothing or everything has happened. still he did indeed time travel to 75 and then here and i dont know where else now. also someone asked wo was going to win the super bowl. and johns reply was "can you tell me if it rained a year ago today in new york?" and i think the giants were in the super bowl that year and that it rained sadness in new york because they lost.
 
Let me throw bone in the pot, perhaps John could have traveled to 1959, when the book was first published, and told his story to the author.

:eek:
 
Some interesting things have come to pass....

1st...
unfortunately i have lost the article, but what I read made me think of John Titor.
A lady was found to be incubating CJD. They found "Mad Cow" prions in her spleen....
It was not debilitating her nor was her brain "melting", she was just carrying it....
Technically she HAS CJD but it isn't "effectual" that is to say it is not fukkin her up.....yet.
They skirted the possibility that there are many others like her.....
personally i believe a bunch of people out there are gonna be in for a SUPERSIZED surprise...

2nd...
I wonder if you've heard about the "very Exciting" possibility of eliminating the IRS that has been bandied about lately....
the "president" is behind it.....
as is some shmo in washington who has the power and gumption to make it happen....
i believe that john mentioned the dissolution of the IRS at some point...

and.....I found this .....
"Titor does state that "something" will happen on April 27, 2004 that's important. I would assume that will be in America, but I could be wrong."

Did something happen on that day?

Yes.

While folks were reading and worrying over discussions concerning numerology and the SEARS TOWER in Chicago,....
... Bush, the U.S. Senate, and House of Representatives passed the re-instatement of the PATRIOT ACT with all additions and amendments included.

The American general public at large, ... for the most part, ... has NO IDEA what was done to their constitutional / civil rights on that day.

What happened was not "extraordinary" from OUR point of view, such as a devastating attack would be.
It was however extraordinary, and an item worthy of note from the future's point of view.
I remember learning in school the dates of important political events....such as the signing of the declaration and whatnot.

this date would be worthy of note from the view point of a visitor from the future who would have been schooled in geopolitical events such as the reinstating of the Patriot Act, in essence maintaining the unparalleled level of power it prescribes to the executive branch of the united states government at this time.
 
Titor makes mention of MWI, Multiple Worlds Interpretation. So in theory, since multiple worlds exist, it is possible that 2 Titor's traveled back in time. One Titor got his computer and posted on the net and went back. The second decided he liked it in 1959, and decided to stay, and wrote a book about what he knew, based in contemporary time, and sold it.
 
Pinleg,

Sounds like an interesting book, wonder how well written it is.
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It's a classic from the period. It is one of the three nuclear nightmare books that define how people felt during that period of time when we practiced "duck and cover" air raid drills in school.

The three books are:

Alas, Babylon, Frank, Pat. JB Lippincott (1959);

The Bedford Incident, Mark Rascovich. Pocket Books MM paper. 1964;

Fail-safe, by Burdick, Eugene, And Wheeler, Harvey. Dell Publishing Company, 1963.

All three are available in paperback at most large bookstores.
 
Was there any mention in the book about China sending a man into space? Titor did in February of 2001. Just a thought.
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quoting Wiki:
" The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China.[19] The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, the latter of which describes it as "a hybrid of the Chinese term taikong (space) and the Greek naut (traveller), or astronaut"; the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft "

end quoted...

Also:



chinesse1.png
 
Interesting thread, especially the Alas Babylon comments.

Someone copying a plot from a novel isn't going to slavishly copy all of the details (usually). They will make a few minor changes.It's very easy to do this. And Celebration is just up the road from McDill and Tampa. I've looked at Buc's stadium numerous times while standing in the parking garage at TIA: the stadium and both airports are quite close to Tampa. I lived in New Port Richey, north of Clearwater while the Titor saga, unbeknown to me, was supposedly unfolding.

Aside from a few details, the Titor saga is pretty well wrapped up: there was no known crime involved, or money changing hands, or overt law-breaking. All of the interesting rocks have been turned over, so there is no legal or social value, except for curiosity of fans, to violate the privacy of those involved.

It would be fine if this were the end of it--but it will not be. What is it they say about a bad penny? John Titor will, I fear, forever haunt cyberspace.Every time someone sets about the write the history of the internet the ghost of Titor will appear. That is one prediction about the future that is safe to make, I expect. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/devil.gif
 
Perhaps this message board will survive in time.

If so, perhaps one day a hundred, thousand, million years from now...

Those with the technology will remember and name the operation "Titor".
Perhaps the storyline here would give the hypothetical OPS
a humorous backdrop storyline & experiment?

Possible? There's a few that could drop a heavier pebble in the pond if they wished than I.
Hugely so /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Thoughts?
(C'mon RMT, you have a chance of becoming Titor, ever think of that?) hehe.
Get that "time capsule" going
 
Someone copying a plot from a novel isn't going to slavishly copy all of the details (usually). They will make a few minor changes.
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Or better still.......combine two stories, such as Alas Babylon and Back To The Future.

There is hardly a single original idea in Titor's hoax. The whole nuclear war survival genre has been done to death decades ago.....and I'd add the 1968 book 'The Megacull' ( Duff Hart Davis ) to the list, though these days hardly anyone has heard of it.
 
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