Future Dated Pony and Trap (You find tomorrow's newspaper. What would you do?)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	You find tomorrow's newspaper. What would you do?
Date:	30/04/07 (224 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: We could win the Lotto!!!

Disadvantages: It could be baaaad news man

Perhaps one of the most boring questions on Earth is the rhetorical question. I mean, there’s nowt more boring than talking to yourself….unless you happen to be really interesting which, in reality, most people aren’t *really* that fascinating are they? So to ask a question like “What would do if you found tomorrow’s newspaper today?” or words to that effect is a bit of a no-brainer as most folks would go straight for one of the Sundays, look up the lotto numbers then go and bung a quid on the winning line. Bob’s your uncle, Hannah’s yer aunt and everyone’s a winner. Then again, finding tomorrow’s newspaper may depend on your stance around free will. If you are a fatalist who believes in the fickle hand of fate then maybe you could find tomorrow’s newspaper but if you happen to be a non-fatalist then maybe it’s not quite so likely. As I’m sure you are aware, the main issue around free will is whether rational agents imagine or really do exercise control over their own actions and decisions. To understand this we need to understand the relationship between freedom and causation, and whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic or not. This philosophical dilemma as to whether all events are governed by determinism or interdeterminism could make the physical act of finding tomorrow’s newspaper statistically improbable, impossible or simply unlikely. Personally, I really *do* think that the answer to everything is 42 in which case, finding tomorrow’s newspaper wouldn’t make a jot of difference to my life at all anyway.

Let’s just say that we’ve managed to make a judgment call on the issues around free will and we do stumble across the said newspaper. There we are, strolling out of a Victorian Tesco (or Waitrose if yer porsh) and we spot The Times dated January 1878. It’s at the time Swedish explorer Nils A.E. Nordenskjöld discovered the water route along the northern coast of Europe and Asia between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans called the Northeast Passage. The headline screams “Up the Back Passage” and a 19th Century Julian Clary licks his lips and reaches for his double entendre notebook. In this case, you could get very excited about the whole thing a day early, write to the Swedish government congratulating them on their honorable son’s achievement or simply kick the paper back into the gutter and carry on home to your evening of drinking imported gin and local potato hooch. So in this case, perhaps it’s an opportunity missed by taking things at face value although, realistically, the Lotto wasn’t around then and that’s all we could think of as a use for tomorrow’s newspaper.

OK, OK….let’s look at present day then (for those still reading). Well, there’s the answers to today’s suduko puzzles that could be worth a fortune if they get into the wrong hands. You can just see them changing hands for thousands of pounds on Ebay now as enthusiastic suduko-ers (is that a word?) scramble for the solutions. What about the following day’s TV schedules that saves you buying this week’s copy of TV Quick? This means that you don’t buy this week’s copy, that copy is the difference between the magazine being solvent or not, the company goes bust, hundreds lose their jobs and you walk past the former editor with a cardboard sign hanging around his neck and a tin cup on the floor. Consequences, there’s always consequences *tuts* Then again, you could read a future dated column of Bizarre, the showbiz page in the Sun, find out about all the celebrity gossip, ring the Sun with the latest gossip, get paid for your inside information and then read it all again on the day smug in the knowledge that you’ve outwitted yet another publishing editor (Well, you didn’t outwit the last one but rather made him unemployed you *bad word*)

OK, so you’ve found a copy from history, you’ve found one in the present day so what about the future? You are sashaying along the avenue with your walking stick with silver pointed end and you find The Observer dated 2013. The headline states that Roman Abramovic now owns the whole world with the exception of Bill Gates who still retains the deeds to a small lock up in Peckham with an old Commodore calculator as his only remaining possession. Chelsea have won the Premiership sponsored by Smirnoff-Abramovic for the last 5 years running, the FA Cup sponsored by Powergenski (owned by Roman Abramovic) for the last 5 years, the League Cup…..yader yader, you get where I’m going with all of this. So you finally realise that the world of Corporations and conglomerates has found its ultimate fate, consolidated and consolidated with takeover after takeover just leaving one Russian captain of industry and the Queen wondering where that pesky Monopolys Bill disappeared to five years ago whilst she was out watching polo. The strange truth is that this is the suggestion for a forthcoming film by Danny Boyle for which I’ve seen the script….6 months from now *cue Twilight Zone music*

Ho hum, there you have it and, in reality, you do realise that finding a future-dated publication simply can’t be as exciting as traveling forward and back in time like in a TARDIS or a time machine from a HG Wells story or even a De Lorean? I mean, how groovy is it to have your own time travel device rather than relying on a boring old future-dated newspaper? Of course, Dr Who, that bloke in the HG Wells story and Michael J Fox were always finding future dated newspapers, Sports Almanacs and all kinds of hassle as a result. Would you really want all that trouble with the daleks, the morloks and Biff the 1950's bully?

Thanks for Reading…it’s a very nice place

Mara

Summary: My pony and trap