There has been a lot in the news in the past weeks. Continued unrest in Libya and the Middle East. A near government shutdown in the U.S. due to political squabbling. Continuing nuclear issues in Japan. The Royal Wedding (OMG!). But among all these there was a story that stuck out, even if it was lost under all the other headlines. It stuck out due to it's Onion-esque ridiculousness, but was very real. And that was that China is banning time travel.
That's right. TV shows and movies that depict time travel will be no more in China, or at least, will face very strict scrutiny. The reason for this? Apparently the Chinese government feels that these time travel stories are disrespectful to history, because they depict things that didn't actually happen in said history. They are "treating the serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore." Right. Makes total sense.
No wait, the opposite of that. This makes no sense at all. If they find time travel stories disrespectful because they depict things that didn't actually happen, then ANY fictional story would be just as disrespectful. Any TV show or movie set in the present time would be disrespectful to the present, as the events shown are not actually occurring in reality.
More importantly, everything becomes history at some point. Fifty years from now, current events will be seen as historical, so any contemporary stories made about the present will be about the past in the future (that was fun to write). So if China wants to take their history so seriously, the will eventually have to ban every fictional story ever, as they will all eventually be about a past time period.
Of course, this is China, so that very well could be their end game, and this is merely the first step. However, if they want to convince the rest of the world that there is a reason beyond blatant censorship for doing this, they're going to need to do a much better job.
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