Conrad Dougherty

Mr. Pace

DC English IV

3 March 2019

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Michael Crichton’s novel ​Timeline ​is a realistic fiction book written about the late

90’s and the major technical advances made during that time. The main focus of the

book is a new development made in the field of Quantum mechanics. A company by the

name of ITC has developed a way to “travel” back in time, and promptly doing so,

creates a large quagmire that drags many more people in. Crichton hints in ​Timeline

that humans should learn to be happy with what they have, for each time new

technology is developed, it has done just as much harm as good. He does this by

referencing historical patterns, human nature, and excuses that have allowed terrible

developments to be made in this world.

The first lesson taught to a child is learn from your mistakes, but yet mankind's

biggest failure is forgetting to do just that. Crichton writes “History tells us what is

important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us why the things we value are the

things we should value. And it tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true

power - profound power. The power to define a whole society’”(480). There are many

patterns in history, and these patterns show how things happen and the different ways

to prevent them. The consequences of what we do are also laid out. If we understand

ourselves, which history helps us with, then we have true power. But unfortunately, the
history of our world tells us that humans aren’t responsible enough with new powerful

technology, so of course they dive right in and pay the price.

Human nature hasn’t changed in thousands of years, it is how many of the

writers in the early 1900’s were able to guess with such unerring accuracy the AI, space

travel, computers, and other new inventions of the past years. They knew that humans

are lazy and always looking for ways to get work done with less effort and less time. As

shown in this example; “‘You’re not bringing that stuff with you,’ Gomez said. ‘The hell

I’m not, sister.’ ‘You’re not. You know that’s not allowed. Gordon would never permit

modern weapons to be taken into the world’”(Crichton 191), there’s always someone

who will corrupt important tech. There’s always a bad apple in the group, and this bad

apple will want to break the rules for his own personal reasons and not following them

for everyone else.

Many people have become experts at justifying with themselves that which they

know to be wrong. The CEO of ITC in ​Timeline ​does a very good job of exemplifying

this. Crichtons character does this by saying; “And I will tell you why, for the last ten

years my company has been developing a revolutionary new technology. It is not a

technology of war. Nor is it a commercial technology to be sold for profit. On the

contrary, it is a entirely benign and peaceful technology that will provide a great benefit

to mankind. A great benefit. But I need your help”(141). Almost every mass weapon or

big mistake done in mankind’s history was done under the name of “peace” “prosperity”

“great benefit.” There is no such thing as a important bit of tech that can only be used

for good. It may start with that intention, but the tech will always be taken by someone
with bad intentions. It will then be turned to evil as it does in this book, where they

almost single-handedly change the future they themselves were used to.

As demonstrated in ​Timeline,​ the development of technology invariably comes

with repercussions and bigger problems caused by a lack of learning from mistakes,

human nature, and justification where none should be had. Justification allows for

terrible things to be made under the excuses of “for the greater good” or “in the name of

peace. Human nature will always find a way to bend new inventions to the benefit of

one and detriment of others. History tells us how this has happened over and over, and

each time there are large consequences to everyone on Earth, and yet no one seems to

realize this repeating pattern. The only way to not have the tech fall into bad hands and

do bad things is to not create it. The only way something should be made is if the good

it does is greater than the evil it could do. Either that, or it should not be made at all.

Everyone can live a happy life how they want, it does not need to be changed anymore

than it already is.