Morality/Science question

[weemadando]

Someone has developed a time machine. As yet it is untested, but everything would seem to show that it will send a single person back in time without a problem.

As the person chosen to travel back you must choose when you are sent to, what you take with you and what you do when you get there.

So, what do you do? Kill Hitler and possibly alter the entire timeline (assuming that there is causality and not predestiny)? Go back and see if Jesus really did exist? Talk to Buddha? Try and warn the people of the world about September 11?

[HemlockGrey]

Go back and kill Caesar before he can conquer Gaul.

See what happens.

[Enforcer Talen]

build a religion about myself. assume divinity in the yr 2003. rule the north american hegemony.

[Darth Wong]

So, what do you do? Kill Hitler and possibly alter the entire timeline (assuming that there is causality and not predestiny)?

Didn't you ever play "Command and Conquer: Red Alert?"

Go back and see if Jesus really did exist?

Of course he existed. Dozens of him existed. The region was overflowing with self-proclaimed Messiahs at the time. His followers were the most persistent, that's all. But it would be interesting to see what happened if you took his family in when he was young and provided them a comfortable lifestyle, freed of the stigma of his illegitimate birth by moving to a new city. He'd probably grow up normal.

Talk to Buddha?

Teach him about weight loss techniques.

Try and warn the people of the world about September 11?

There were people inside the FBI who warned them. Nobody listened.

[Darth Wong]

But to answer the question, if I had a time machine, I would make a killing on the stock market.

[weemadando]

People are forgetting about causality...

For example a couple of guys think that they are close to being able to send a few grams of matter a few days back in time...

Whats the bet that the first thing they send is a scrap of paper with the lottery numbers on it.

The people back in time buy a ticket with those numbers...

Do they:

a) Win.
b) Win, but then are too busy celebrating to remember to run the experiment and as such ... PARADOX!
c) Use the numbers, but because they never won originally they don't this time for some reason.
d) Other.

[Singular Quartet]

But to answer the question, if I had a time machine, I would make a killing on the stock market.

Doesn't chaos theory say that might not work? (The whole "How a butterfly in china could determine Hurricane in Atlantic" thing...)

I, however, would kill the Young Turk resigme in the Ottoman Empire before they assumed power, thereby possibly preventing both the Armenian massacres between 1915 and 1923 and the Holocaust.

[SWPIGWANG]

Go back to 1AD, throw a rock at a random person.

Go to 2002AD and see what has has change.

[Kuja]

Go to http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/index.html go to essays, go to Trekkie Arguments, and click on Time Travel. You'll get a bigger answer than you ever wanted.

[Mr Bean]

Teach him about weight loss techniques.

Heh heh, Lemme fill everyone else in

Buddah was never fat, they always drew him as such but in reatliy and all the First hand accounts we have describing him, He'd Give Gandi a run for his money in the weight deparment

Seriously the guy fasted accorind to some reports a minum of twice a day and during 3 months out of the year he sustanted himeslf on a bowl of rice and water a day sometimes


Acutal I wonder what would happen if one went back to Eniestin when he was thirty, handed him a complete set of his Theorys and tell him to cut loose on making more

Or as some asked if we took Micalagolo and gave him a modern education...

[Joe]

I would go back and convince Nicholas II to not enter into WWI (by force, if necessary). This would probably prevent the Bolshevik overthrow of the Czarist regime, which achieved popular sympathy because of its opposition to Russian involvment in the war. Sure the Czarist regime was far from perfect, but the Russian people (as well as millions of others) would have been spared years of Communist hell on earth.

I would also go back and prevent that damned French bastard Clemenceau from placing a ridiculously unfair program of war reparations on Germany. Or better yet, prevent the U.S. from entering the war and allow both equally moronic sides to wear each other down.

This is of course, assuming that there are none of these pesky time travel quirks and paradoxes and such.

[Edi]

I wouldn't be overly eager to muck about with the past, especially the recent past in Europe. If Durran Korr were to get his way and try to change things as he described, I would probably do my best to oppose him because if he succeeded, I would most likely cease to exist. Without the communist revolution in Russia, there would likely not have been cause for the Winter War (1939-40) and the Continuation War (1941-1945), Finland would not have lost 10% of its territory (assuming we'd gone independent in the first place), in which case my parents' families would not have been forced to relocate away from the lost territories in which case my parents likely would not have met in the first place.

I would choose not to use the possibility at all.

Edi

[Durandal]

Doesn't chaos theory say that might not work? (The whole "How a butterfly in china could determine Hurricane in Atlantic" thing...)

Chaos theory doesn't necessarily say that such things will happen. Lots of butterflies flap their wings all the time, but we've been able to actually predict hurricanes to some degree of accuracy.

Chaos theory focuses on the inherent sensitivity of a system to certain, small initial conditions. Sometimes, this sensitivity is such that the system is completely unpredictable; lots of the time, the system is predictable to a usable degree of accuracy.

So, depending on where and when Mike goes back to kill the stock market, he could adversely affect it. For example, if he starts running around in a World War I kaiser helmet singing "Clang Clang, Went the Trolly" outside of the trading floor, he could definitely affect the outcome due to distraction of investors. :)

[Tsyroc]

I'd probably go back in time so I could be around my mother's parents. They died right after I was born so it would be sort of cool to see what they were like.


Then I'd pull a Biff and make a killing betting on Super Bowls. I can usually remember who played an won but not the point spread. Super Bowl III would be a mondo money maker because I could make that bet a year ahead of time.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

Go back to 1AD, throw a rock at a random person.

Go to 2002AD and see what has has change.

That's what I would do. Fuck with history for the sheer enterainment value.

Oh I wish, I wish I hadn't killed that fish.

[EmperorMing]

But to answer the question, if I had a time machine, I would make a killing on the stock market.

You probably wouldn't have to go back any further than a year to 18 months; then you could avoid any paradoxes if they did exist.

[victorhadin]

The stock market idea gets my vote. People can whine about the whole 'butterfly-hurricane' hypothesis as much as they like but that won't prevent gross trends from occuring. The rise of the telecommunications industry and Microsoft alone could set me up for life. Simply spread your investments a touch and your influence will likely be too limited to cause any major change, whilst capping the risk as well.

[kheegster]

Teach him about weight loss techniques.

Heh heh, Lemme fill everyone else in

Buddah was never fat, they always drew him as such but in reatliy and all the First hand accounts we have describing him, He'd Give Gandi a run for his money in the weight deparment

Seriously the guy fasted accorind to some reports a minum of twice a day and during 3 months out of the year he sustanted himeslf on a bowl of rice and water a day sometimes


Acutal I wonder what would happen if one went back to Eniestin when he was thirty, handed him a complete set of his Theorys and tell him to cut loose on making more

Or as some asked if we took Micalagolo and gave him a modern education...

[/digression] The image of the fat Laughing Buddha is NOT Gautama Buddha who founded the religion. That's a monk from China who was deified after his death. The Buddha was always a trim and tall person from all accounts. The only period when he was on a weight-loss program was when he went into ascetism in his search for enlightenment, BEFORE he gained the actual Buddhahood.[/digression]

I'll go back in time to just before the fall of Alexandria and save as much of the material of Alexandria library as possible. By many accounts the material in there was so advanced that it was not until the 18th century that mankind rediscovered the lost knowledge. This shouldn't affect the timeline and prevent my existence, I hope...

KG

[Mr Bean]

Indeed, For example things you could do that would not affect anything

1. Borrow/take a great deal of physical money(Loan sharks and the like)
Make sure you get it in money for the time period your going to

Now take it back, slap it in a bank under a diffrent name(30 years should do it)
The Compund intrest will have gotten alot in ten-fifty years(The 60s would be the best time period to drop it off though money of that period might be hard)


Now after you have a million or two built up in intrest, pay of the loan shark then go back four years

Buy lots of Yahoo Stock, AOL Stock, Ebay stock before 95

Then sell out as of December 1 when each of those stocks toped out at hundreds per share(They where all less then ten or thirty before 95)

Laugh it up as you make 40-80 Million off of this and repeat with each stock , though no more than a million at time

Also establishing a false identiy would be paromount incase the FCC came knock as to make sure you *Leave the money to yourself

[weemadando]

Ummm... Causality would be kicking in all over the show.

By taking the money from a loan-shark in the "past" and investing it you are changing things, even marginally.

The moment you buy big into the stock market you change the trends and the entire market changes. You return to the current time and find that Pizza Hut runs the White House after being the only company to survive a massive market crash and buying the 2000 presidential election.

Causality's a bitch. And if the universe hates you it can be even worse.

[Mr Bean]

By taking the money from a loan-shark in the "past" and investing it you are changing things, even marginally.

PRESENT YOU FOOL THE PRESENT!

The moment you buy big into the stock market you change the trends and the entire market changes.

futhermore thats why I said a limit of a million
Or do you acutal think that the sale of 1 Million dollers worth of stock(NOT shares) will affect AOL so much that A monkey will be in the white house five years from now?

This is LESS than five years ago, people sold out quite a bit the next week, or do you think the fact the stock is worth .11C today instead of .12C is going to DESTROY THE WORLD?

Seriously though I delebratly picked overhype *fall stocks

[weemadando]

Ah, but like I said, if the universe hates you...

Anyhow, whats to say that you invest this money, and because you reap the benefits in the future and are inherently unaware of them because you are still in the past (argh) whats to say that when you return to the future/present (argh) that your life won't be utterly different?

You'll have more money, but unless you live an identical life to the one in which you went back in time...

[Mr Bean]

Anyhow, whats to say that you invest this money, and because you reap the benefits in the future and are inherently unaware of them because you are still in the past (argh) whats to say that when you return to the future/present (argh) that your life won't be utterly different?

The point is the second identity, you don't TOUCH/collect the money until the present, The best way is a double blind whereby two people do it at the same time but for each other

The main thing though the money exist in the PAST it is not exercised until the PRESENT(At your perception of the present)

[Wicked Pilot]

I would go back and convince myself to not watch Star Trek V.

[Tosho]

I'd go back to 1812 And convince Napoleon not to invade Russia.