The whole counterfactual exercise of "Who would I be if I were born 400 years earlier" will make your head hurt if you think about it "I would've been a heretic" I mean, maybe, but you probably wouldn't believe any of the same things you do now, like why would you https://twitter.com/avoiding_bears/status/1218138545212264449 …
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"Who would you have been in 17th-century New England" Well I dunno Would I still be Asian or would I be a white guy If the former, how would that happen
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"what are the odds I would be born king of France?!" Wonders the king of France
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So I'd be living in the desert and selling my kid for drinking money, obviously
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Charlie Stross said that if he was born hundreds of years ago his medical problems would have killed him in childhood. OK, but if he's imagining being born in the past, is imagining being healthy any more of a leap?
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Hofstadter did a whole thing about the problem of counterfactuals in Gödel, Escher, Bach The guy who said "my grandfather was almost President" "Almost" in the sense he was the captain of the PT 108
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