The killing of Doc Brown....murder or self defense?

[Stu Pidasso]

Here are the pertinant facts.

Doc Brown is a mad scientist who creates a machine that allows him to travel back in time.

On Dec 18th 1955 your parents were driving to a Christmas Party in the next town. Your parents car ran out of gas on a very lonely road during a freakishly strong snow storm. Bored and horny, your parents had sex and you were conceived in the back of a 1951 Studebaker. Were it not for this exact set of circumstances you would not have come into existence.

Doc Brown knows the circumstances of your conception.

Doc Brown confesses too you that he hates you as much as any man could hate anyone. He also tells you he has plotted the perfect plan to do you in. You ask him for the details of the plan. He is so confident of his plan he tells you that he intends to go back in time to Dec 18th 1955 and put 5 gallons of gas into the gas tank of your parents 1951 Studebaker. In all the years you have known Doc Brown, you have never seen or heard of him lieing to anyone. You are 100% certain he has the means, the motive, and the opportunity to end your existence.

The only way to prevent Doc Brown from ending your existence in the manner he has described is to kill him.

Would you kill Doc Brown? If your were on a jury deciding the case of someone who killed Doc Brown would you decide the killer was not guilty by reason of self defense?

Stu

[kerowo]

It's a different timeline FTW.

[RoundGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
It's a different timeline FTW.

[/ QUOTE ]
Correct. OP assumes there is only one time line. Star Trek has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that this is simply not true. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[btmagnetw]

wait are we using terminator rules or back to the future rules?

[Stu Pidasso]

Hi btwmagnetw

The only rules we are using are the ones specified in the OP. Here's the answer to your question.

[ QUOTE ]
The only way to prevent Doc Brown from ending your existence in the manner he has described is to kill him.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I'm not surprised that even after spelling that out in the OP a bunch of sphomoric answers would come.

Stu

[btmagnetw]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi btwmagnetw

The only rules we are using are the ones specified in the OP. Here's the answer to your question.

[ QUOTE ]
The only way to prevent Doc Brown from ending your existence in the manner he has described is to kill him.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I'm not surprised that even after spelling that out in the OP a bunch of sphomoric answers would come.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]south park reference, but you're probably too good for that show, since you appear to be a pretentious douche.

[kerowo]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi btwmagnetw

The only rules we are using are the ones specified in the OP. Here's the answer to your question.

[ QUOTE ]
The only way to prevent Doc Brown from ending your existence in the manner he has described is to kill him.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I'm not surprised that even after spelling that out in the OP a bunch of sphomoric answers would come.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

You propose an evil villain so dead set on killing you that he invents time travel to do you in and wonder why people give you the business?

Here are a few reasons:
1. Why the hell didn't the guy just shoot you? I mean really, just pull the trigger instead of changing physics as we know it.
2. If the only way to stop the villain from killing you is by killing him what exactly is the question then?
3. Bacon. Mmmm, bacon.

[MaxWeiss]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's a different timeline FTW.

[/ QUOTE ]
Correct. OP assumes there is only one time line. Star Trek has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that this is simply not true. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Not guilty by reason of saving the time line from contamination. Temporal Prime Directive.

[luckyme]

There are so many confused concepts mixed up in the scenario a meaningful answer isn't possible to the whole. So skip the time travel part and deal with the concept of 'potential X"

Today Switzerland has the potential to build a nuclear bomb and attack us. Are we justified nuking them tonight?
A cabinet at work has all the components needed to assemble a good computer worth several thousand dollars. An employee smucked them. Should he pay me $3000 or the $500 the parts are worth?
My neighbor planted a seedling of an exotic fruit tree. My iguana ate it. Do I owe him replacement cost ($300) or the $12,000 the tree will be worth in 10 years?

My answers are that only X's are X's. Y's that can be/willbe converted to X are Y's that can be/willbe converted to X.

So, Switzerland should be spared, my employee owes me $500 and I owe my neighbor $300.

If your answers are different, beware that I'll be leaving acorns scattered around my house when you're over with mega lawsuits in mind.

next question.

luckyme

[Duke]

Any self-defense killing has a time variable associated with it. "In the act" means absolutely nothing, aside from the fact that it was close enough to the point of no return that you could be certain but still prevent it. Say T is like 1 second in some case where a guy pulled a gun, aimed it, and is obviously going to shoot you.

Well, if you were paying attention, you could probably have known that the guy was going to shoot you a few seconds earlier. The more information you have, the longer that lag time becomes (between knowing, and it happening).

This is fundamentally the same thing, aside from the fact that T is really really big, because we have the Delorean and can alter the size of T in whichever direction we'd like. In everyday life, we don't have to worry about that because we don't have 88 MPH Deloreans. Laws would definitely have to change if we did.

See: Minority Report.

Then see: The Twilight Zone episode where the mind-reader guy KNEW that the old man was going to rob the bank, and he didn't. He did think about it every day, though.