A time traveller comes back from 50 years in the future. You have 3 hours with them. What do you do?

Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 82 points –

Rules:

  1. The time traveller is able to travel backward and forward through time (max forward is 2074) and they can only transport things that can fit in a small backpack.

  2. You can choose when the 3 hours begin but it has to be in 2024 and once it has begun the timer can't be reset or stopped.

  3. They will answer to the best of their ability but imagine this is a random person from 2074.

60

First couple of minutes would be nice to catch up with world events. I would take some time to find money making strategies, like learning what to invest in, or what about to buy. If the person has any knowledge about some revolutionary technology, it would be nice to learn about it. Maybe we could use the knowledge to advance mankind. I would also want to learn about things to watch out for. Maybe I should move to some other country because the one I'm in goes to shit.

The fun thing about this is if you use it to advance technology then 50 years from now technology will be even more advanced allowing you to advance things even further, depending on time travel rules of course.

If I get to ask them to bring something, I guess all the major world news and science media of the previous 50 years on a hard drive would come in handy. I'd use it to bankrupt all the billionionaires and bring peace and prosperity to the world.

The power you held would consume you, and you would become the most powerful, rich, and corrupt being the world has ever seen.

That's almost certainly true. But I'd give it a go.

And thats if rich and powerful people /organisations didn't catch on that one individual was costing them money/business ventures and have that individual killed.

He can travel back in time so I'm going the other direction with this.

I have about six hundred ounces of silver bullion.

So I'd send him back to around 2010 when silver was going for thirty bucks an ounce and Bitcoin was going for a buck a coin.

Cash out silver, buy Bitcoin, bring me the wallet.

This could be done a little more efficiently with a stop on whatever year Bitcoin was over sixty thousand, but even at today's rates, I would instantly have several hundred million dollars. I wouldn't even mind paying the taxes on that.

Why get future information that's going to take time to manifest itself when I can cash instantly?

Edit: Six hundred ounces of silver would physically fit in a backpack, but the weight would likely tear it to shreds. I'd have time for him to make multiple trips so he doesn't destroy his backpack or his spine.

To shreds you say?

Not sure what you're getting at there, but yes.

I took two hundred ounces on a plane once. Even though that's only about fourteen pounds, it's in such a dense area, that it gave my reasonably sturdy duffle bag a tough time at its seams.

It should be possible to get the boot strap paradox out of the way and establish a stable time loop in which case the traveler just hands me a storage device full of everything I need to know to make a lot of money and establish a time travel research organization that will 50 years later send the traveler back to me.

50 years?

I would ask them how we survived the chaotic weather, massive parallel famines, collapse of trade & technology, and lethally high wet bulb temperatures of climate change.

Plus, there is also the high likelihood of all these causing a massive drop in human population that compounds the irreversible and permanent collapse of human civilization. To the point where any high tech is increasingly unlikely to exist.

People in time travel movies always talk about going back in time and accidentally changing one small thing that reverberates into an immensely large change today. In real life people never talk about making a small, deliberate, positive change today in their own life timeline for an immense positive change in their future.

The one thing we learn from history, is that we do not learn from history.

I guess that's why we dream of time travel -- so we can just go back and do those small things, instead of picking up a pile of history books and reading about what the Romans or Chinese (or whoever) wrote about what they wish they had done (and then maybe doing it). It's a technology that lets us pretend to be wise and have made the right choices all along -- a device that lets us escape regret.

To be fair though, reading some small fraction of those history books is quite a time investment for most people, and we seem to need those lessons (and be wise enough to take them to heart) at the exact time in our lives when we don't have any free time to learn them. I'm feeling this personally a lot right now. It's like we all learn why our reach exceeds our grasp just barely too late to really do much about it, except maybe read the stories of how that happened to everyone else, and know we are in good company.

When we go back in time, we worry about changing the past. But we expect this person from the future to tell us all the stuff so we can fuck around with (for them) things that already happened.

Sports almanac, any kind of history of the stock market, and the history of Power Ball and Mega Millions.

Ok you have 2 hours 40 minutes left. What else?

Dang!! Good point.

Then I think similar to another post. Catch up on huge world events.

I would love to try and direct the future in a better direction but doing so would mess with time. So maybe just do the best I can for my family and friends.

Gonna have to go the Bill and Ted route.

I'll figure out what I need in the next 50 years and let him know there. Now the time traveler can just tell me whatever I want to have wanted to know.

"ok Ted, we have to remember to come back and put this key here when we're the good future us's"

Kill them and steal their time machine.

Why kill them? Just ask if you can use the time machine, they'll probably say yes. Otherwise you can steal it, but no need to commit murder.

Time travel without killing? The Master does not approve... Just look at his face!

Well, if they are over 50, then how could you have killed them if they are still alive?

That's going to be a headache for the courts, to say the least. The real victims of time travel are the bureaucrats.

I'll fucking torture them and steal their time machine. Go forward in time myself collect all stock market data, all the research paper published, all the politicians who got elected, details on all the wars that happened, details on all the influential people, etc. And then go back as far as possible and establish a secret society with me at the helm of and achieve complete world domination ....ultimate rice pudding..... Shout out to exurb1a

Why the torture?

I wonder how light-handed you'll have to be to keep that market, election, and war info accurate.

##3. They will answer to the best of their ability but imagine this is a random person from 2074.

Oh, I love this rule. Everyone is planning on asking this guy how time travel works and detailed accounts of world history, but if the brain drain we've experienced as a society is going to continue, how exactly do you expect an average person half a century from now to answer?

I'm imagining this exact scenario playing out but instead we are the time traveler, returning back to 1974.

"Oh wow, so can you explain all the geopolitics of the next fifty years?"

"..."

"And this 'Internet' thing you speak of? It sounds amazing! How does it work?"

"......"

"I'm also very excited to learn about these 'smart phones', they sound very powerful. Could you describe how they're built?"

"........."

Yeah I was sort of expecting someone who tried to play into that aspect but I've still been getting good answers anyways.

I ask them about the history of time travel and either listen to them, or accept the recording they give me, and carefully record it myself. Then I ignore them and try to metagame time travel, assuming they've set up some form of time loop.

The first step is to buy lottery tickets (with choices based on a quantum RNG), and if I win, buy more lottery tickets until I have an arbitrary amount of wealth. If I'm in a time loop, there will exist an iteration where I win all attempted lottery instances (note that only non-deterministic RNGs will work for this, like the one I have on my desk). I then use that wealth and my foreknowledge to adjust the future history of time travel such that I exclusively control the technology. Then I send someone back in time with the recorded history (now incorrect) of time travel.

That ought to destabilize any loop they're trying to set up after a finite number of iterations, and wrap my loop around it. If you're a time traveler looking to prevent me from doing this, I accept cash, money, and filthy lucre. Just make sure the dates on the bills make sense for this period.

Just to confirm, can they go back and forth through time multiple times?

So in theory they could make 100 trips through time and then I sit down with them for 3 hours?

Yeah. They can also travel during the conversation since time travel is instantaneous.

i'd type up a letter for the time traveler (remember i don't know their background, they might have a hard time remembering things).

  1. has dementia/Alzheimer's been cured? if so, get all needed info on how to cure it. formulas, proofs, sample vials of the cure. if there is a side effect of the cure, what is the solution to that side effect?

  2. is global warming going to get as bad as we think? is there a fix for it? a piece of tech or combination of technologies to solve it? gather all needed information. how to build said tech. any new math/formulas that is needed to understand the tech. if possible acquire the tech. (even if you have to make multiple trips to get it back to 2024).

2a. if there is no solution to solve / reverse global warming what have we done to save as many lives as is possible?

  1. how do we solve the problem of disposing of all the batteries that are going to show up because of electric cars? is there a better and more environmentally friendly battery? get the needed documentation for building and using said battery.

  2. do the Minnesota Vikings ever win a Super Bowl, i don't want to know when, just if they do it?

  3. a complete history of the stock market (ups, downs, crashes, etc)

  4. how bad does nationalism in the U.S. get? Is there a way (with 50 years of hind sight) of stopping it? (for those that are reading this .. yes there is a difference between patriotism and nationalism.)

  5. does AI have the devastating effect that so many people think it will have? if so what should we be doing to fix the problem before it becomes a problem?

  6. What are all of the pandemics that happen in the next 50 years? How do they start? Where do they start? Is there a way to stop them from starting? Is there a needed or even a known cure for them? If they can be stopped before they start then bring the cure anyway just in case.

  7. Is there any major space to earth impacts in the next 50 years? For example: a meteor strike. where and when do they impact? where should we be looking in space to detect the object? If they bring a deadly spore to earth, how do we alter the course of the object so it gets sent close to the sun?

  8. do aliens exist? when do we find out? when do the governments of the world acknowledge the existence of aliens? if they invade, what areas are destroyed and when?

again for anything on the list, always get all needed and remotely applicable information.

  1. do we solve cold fusion? is it possible to weaponize it? (the weaponizing it is important as i'll explain in a moment).

I'd tell him to go to the future and compile all this information and print it out on paper (yes paper) . also have it on a portable drive that a computer in 2024 can read. (why both? simple . drives can get corrupted.)

Most of the information I'd "discover" and then release the discovery to the world for free on the internet. With instructions on how an individual could make it themselves (if humanly possible). Obviously if (for example) cold fusion can be made into a bomb many times worse then a nuclear bomb then I would not release that info to the world. I'd just "discover" it and then give the electricity at as cheap of a rate as is possible to the world.

the stock market info i'd keep for myself. be no point in releasing that to the world. it would just make the info worthless. as long as i didn't get stupid and make 8 trillion USD, i could live a very comfortable life and help out all my friends and family.

the aliens part i'd most likely just keep to myself as trying to go public would just get me killed or discredited.

it would take all 2 hours for the time traveler to explain the info and how he had it filed and categorized.

Ask if they'd like a cup of tea and tell them I'm really sorry we fucked up the world. Then I'd leave them be, to enjoy the 3 hours they can spend here.

Guy from 50 years in the future: β€œwhat’s tea?”

Ask why. Then probably work on subversion... because it is seriously doubtful they've come back for any good reason.

You don't need three hours. Just read their demeanor to see if the future is going to be shit or not.

I just want to know if artificial general intelligence is real, and when that'll happen.

Oh, and go back to 2011 and buy me some bitcoin please.

Map out what stocks to buy and when over the last 40 years, print it out and have the time traveler take it back along with a video of me explaining what to do to become insanely wealthy to my 5 year old self.

I love the idea of this and then thinking of me at 5 I'd think it was funny and ignore it my whole life then find it at my exact age now only to hate my younger self

Guess I'll be sucking the dick of the person who is technically the youngest person I've met.

I give them some water, because it is probably pretty scarce and valuable by 2074. Then I ask them if they remembered to bring me the lottery ticket numbers for the big lottery that I win in October of 2024.

3 hours from whose perspective? Time limits are rather complicated when you have time travel.

Yours.

(assuming the time traveller cooperates)

Then it depends on whether the future is mutable, or if we're forced into stable time loops. If time is stable, I'd get some friends. I would never speak to the time traveller directly, but I would text back-and-forth with my friends as they talk to the time traveller. When 3 hours are up, the traveller goes back in time to talk to a different friend in the same three-hour window. (If they're tired, they can travel back 12 hours and catch some sleep before the next meeting.) It would be an interestingly acausal conversation, but Objective 1 would be finding a more permanent way to bypass the three-hour limit, maybe setting up an AI that will ask good questions of the time traveller. (If they can bring a USB stick with some good AI on it, for instance). We'd also want the future version of Wikipedia, and detailed plans for whatever useful technology gets invented in the future. As well as enough almanac knowledge to get seed money for a future-tech company, and useful news items. I wouldn't ask about mounting crises like global warming, though, so that my company can do something about it -- if I base my actions on knowledge of the future, the future is set. I think.

If the future is truly mutable, though, I just resolve to send a detailed summary of our conversation back in time to a week before I schedule the traveller to come. I get a conversation summary, use it to make the conversation more productive, and then send the new summary back. Repeat until I can take over the world, build a time machine, send a large expedition back to 12,000 BC to do an industrial revolution, and then send an even larger expedition back to the early Universe. When entropy starts to become annoying, go another century before the previous expedition and just accept them as citizens. Repeat until godhood achieved.

I would ask

how did we survive climate change?

and if we didn't try to get any details we tried and didn't work or wasn't fast enough to try again for a better outcome but realizing I would create a bootstrap paradox I would get really depressed.

Then I would spend the rest of the time. Showing the traveler a good time as my time is much nicer then where they came from and I want to let them enjoy what they can before they goes back.