you obtain a time machine. what do?

[Synthetix]

No killing hitler

 

[Cavallier]

Kill Hitler's mom?

Ummm...go forwards about 200 years. I already kind of know what happened 200 years in the past.

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

Sports Almanac. Make bank.

 

[Synthetix]

No ripping off Back to the Future ideas, next

 

[SpaceYeti]

Go to myself when I was fourteen, advise myself which stocks to invest in, advise myself which girls to avoid and which to not avoid, and share some of my modicum of wisdom otherwise.

Then; go to Jesus' birth and death and wait to see him ressurect. Document the trip via video cameras.

Then; have sex.

 

[KMaki]

Go back in time to make extensive research to find out who you are, get to time and place of you writing "no killing hitler", distract, Edit your post into "post your wildest ideas". Swoosh back. Post "kill hitler". Laugh out loud.

Nah.

I'd probably go back into time before I post this, and prevent it somehow.

 

[Auburn]

Trip 1:
I'd rewind to the very beginning of time.
And re-watch the whole universe unfold as it has.
With a bag of popcorn.

Trip 2:
Assuming that in trip 1 I was able to see the formation of other planets in the galaxy with intelligent life, some more advanced than ours, I'd rewatch their advancements carefully and take note of how they did it, then use their methods back on earth and advance humanity toward the singularity in just a few years.

Trip 3:
I'd rewind the history of my parents and their ancestors all the way back down to single-celled oranisms, and note down my complete genealogy.

Trip ???:
After I'm done investigating everything I want about history as it originally is, I would begin tinkering with it. Before their deaths, I'd bring Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Carl Jung and other great minds into the present -- and into the advent of transhumanism.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I'd want to witness and investigate the greatest moments in documented history, as in travel to see Egypt as the pyramids and Sphinx are being built; travel to prehistoric times to investigate dinosaurs; look for Jesus and other reported mythical beings; witness God back to if and when he was actually involved and spoke to his creations; travel back to Roswell, New Mexico, USA in the summer of 1947 to see the UFO crash etc.

These are pretty similar:
Bring future technology to the past just to amaze everyone, or to preinvent trends.

Use future knowledge to make myself generally lucky, redo previous outcomes, and become rich through gambles and investments.

I don't have much interest for the future, but I'd probably check it out if I ever got bored with the past.

 

[GYX_Kid]

Extra lives/Second chance by means of going to X moment and telling myself whatever plans to put forward. Dodge parallel fate

 

[eagor]

go to random points in time, kind of like the doctor except i won't be helpful.

 

[Cognisant]

I would go back and create the single greatest repository of philosophical musings there has ever been so I'll forever be known as that one guy who figured everything out first.

 

[Irishpenguin]

#1. I'd paint dat shit Green...god I hope it isn't that big of a machine T_T

#2. Give a bunch of people bro-fists throughout time: Einstein, Gandhi, Bruce Lee, and whoever else I think of

#3. I would somehow find out how to get those sweet-ass clothes that Cognisant's avatar is wearing, with the exception of wearing my corduroys, gotta have my nice pants

#4. use it as the best pick-up line ever, I mean syrsly, "Hey babe, wanna see my time machine?" of course they do, it's a fucking time machine, and if they don't...well they are just dumb and it;s just a signal for for me to got pick up space-babes from another time period anyhow.


...yup sounds good

 

[eagor]

#1. I'd paint dat shit Green...god I hope it isn't that big of a machine T_T

#2. Give a bunch of people bro-fists throughout time: Einstein, Gandhi, Bruce Lee, and whoever else I think of

#3. I would somehow find out how to get those sweet-ass clothes that Cognisant's avatar is wearing, with the exception of wearing my corduroys, gotta have my nice pants

#4. use it as the best pick-up line ever, I mean syrsly, "Hey babe, wanna see my time machine?" of course they do, it's a fucking time machine, and if they don't...well they are just dumb and it;s just a signal for for me to got pick up space-babes from another time period anyhow.


...yup sounds good

strangely similar to the show megas XLR, just substitute time machine with giant robot

 

[Amagi82]

Because the only way for a time machine to function without paradox is for there to be a 5th dimension(i.e. a multiverse), changing the past would be irrelevant. If you went back and killed Hitler, you'd simply create a new worldline where Hitler died, which would have zero effect on the history of your own worldline.


What I would do is travel into the distant past to confirm some suspicions about the origins of religion, go further back and see what the dinosaurs looked like, and then go back forward, and travel into the future in 50 year intervals to see the destiny of humanity. If I found a particularly good time in the future, I'd gather up people I like from the present and move there, permanently.

 

[Cognisant]

I would somehow find out how to get those sweet-ass clothes that Cognisant's avatar is wearing, with the exception of wearing my corduroys, gotta have my nice pants

Whereas my avatar isn't wearing any.

Ladies.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Because the only way for a time machine to function without paradox is for there to be a 5th dimension(i.e. a multiverse), changing the past would be irrelevant. If you went back and killed Hitler, you'd simply create a new worldline where Hitler died, which would have zero effect on the history of your own worldline.

Science fiction hog-wash. It presumes the universe is somehow aware of what will or what "should" happen. It presumes there's actually this meta-line travelling from the past to the future. If you travel to fifty years ago, guess what; It's fifty years ago. You essentially just spawned from nothing, the cause of you being there not even having happened yet. Since the cause hasn't yet happened, there is no cause. You're just there. In the sixties. You now begin interacting with the universe in a causal way, definitely altering the past. I mean... you weren't there the first time. Simply being there is enough to make things different. And here's the kicker; there's no reason to presume the universe would or should notice that anything's different, because each moment in time only happens once. There is no meta-line, functioning to somehow correct what you've done, because fate is a silly idea.

Of course, traveling through time is a ridiculous idea in the first place, specifically because it doesn't logically function. However, granting the assumption that it does work, the universe doesn't suddenly become alive and aware that you're fucking with it, it doesn't mean you're traveling to alternate universes, it means you friggin traveled through time!

Traveling to the future is no problem. You basically just go away for a while and then show back up. Which, of course, means you can't find out what happens in your future... because you removed yourself from the picture. If you already have kids, though, you can go see what happened with them and their descendants. And if you want, you can wholly erase that future you've seen, and go back and re-insert yourself.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Keep going back in time to delete this post.

 

[perkins]

As a kid I always questioned the safety of time travel. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and Back to the Future come to mind. Time travel in a telephone booth, or a DeLorean jalopy seems very problematic.

 

[Amagi82]

Science fiction hog-wash. It presumes the universe is somehow aware of what will or what "should" happen. It presumes there's actually this meta-line travelling from the past to the future. If you travel to fifty years ago, guess what; It's fifty years ago. You essentially just spawned from nothing, the cause of you being there not even having happened yet. Since the cause hasn't yet happened, there is no cause. You're just there. In the sixties. You now begin interacting with the universe in a causal way, definitely altering the past. I mean... you weren't there the first time. Simply being there is enough to make things different. And here's the kicker; there's no reason to presume the universe would or should notice that anything's different, because each moment in time only happens once. There is no meta-line, functioning to somehow correct what you've done, because fate is a silly idea.

Of course, traveling through time is a ridiculous idea in the first place, specifically because it doesn't logically function. However, granting the assumption that it does work, the universe doesn't suddenly become alive and aware that you're fucking with it, it doesn't mean you're traveling to alternate universes, it means you friggin traveled through time!

Traveling to the future is no problem. You basically just go away for a while and then show back up. Which, of course, means you can't find out what happens in your future... because you removed yourself from the picture. If you already have kids, though, you can go see what happened with them and their descendants. And if you want, you can wholly erase that future you've seen, and go back and re-insert yourself.

I think you wholly and completely misinterpreted my post. The whole point of the multiverse theory is to prevent paradoxes, and avoid the "universe will just work it out so paradoxes don't happen", hand of god bullshit. There are an infinite number of realities. When you travel into the past, you land in a similar universe, but not the exact one you were born in. You probably couldn't even return to your own, but it'd be so close you'd never know the difference, provided your time machine worked well.

 

[SpaceYeti]

I think you wholly and completely misinterpreted my post. The whole point of the multiverse theory is to prevent paradoxes, and avoid the "universe will just work it out so paradoxes don't happen", hand of god bullshit. There are an infinite number of realities. When you travel into the past, you land in a similar universe, but not the exact one you were born in. You probably couldn't even return to your own, but it'd be so close you'd never know the difference, provided your time machine worked well.

That's not a time machine, that's an inter-universal transport. You're essentially "solving" the problem with time travel by saying you're not time traveling at all, thereby negating the very premise of the hypothetical situation in the first place.

 

[AkaruiRain]

Wanted to see the baby steps in how we shifted from cavemen to intellectuals.. Would like to see the creation of the wheel, the idea to create axes and such, the thought to chop wood, build, create.. Would like to see the first "schools.." Just that leap really.

And on another idea.. Maybe seeing how the universe was made would be sweet.
But not sure if there'd be any space to put the time machine..

How big would it be? .-.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Wanted to see the baby steps in how we shifted from cavemen to intellectuals.. Would like to see the creation of the wheel, the idea to create axes and such, the thought to chop wood, build, create.. Would like to see the first "schools.." Just that leap really.

And on another idea.. Maybe seeing how the universe was made would be sweet.
But not sure if there'd be any space to put the time machine..

How big would it be? .-.

Seeing the birth of the universe would be problematic at best. Firstly, how do you survive the harsh conditions, namely the millions of degrees of heat. If you try for the very first moment of time, how would you prevent you and your machine from getting squished into your constituent quarks?

 

[AkaruiRain]

Seeing the birth of the universe would be problematic at best. Firstly, how do you survive the harsh conditions, namely the millions of degrees of heat. If you try for the very first moment of time, how would you prevent you and your machine from getting squished into your constituent quarks?

That's what I was wondering! Probably couldn't see the creation, but maybe a bit after its beginning.. Really depends on how big the machine is! :/

 

[snafupants]

Sports Almanac. Make bank.

That was my thought too: we may become adversaries and, consequently, be found out. I advise you to halt your efforts to deflect attention.

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

No ripping off Back to the Future ideas, next

So it's not okay for me to use an idea from Back to the Future but it's totally cool if SpaceYeti uses an essentially identical idea? Besides, I said Sports Almanac as an example or allusion which I pretty much just meant to say use knowledge learned in the future to improve my present situation.

 

[snafupants]

So it's not okay for me to use an idea from Back to the Future but it's totally cool if SpaceYeti uses an essentially identical idea? Besides, I said Sports Almanac as an example or allusion which I pretty much just meant to say use knowledge learned in the future to improve my present situation.

Pretty much. Can I be a dick and correct that to past-present situation?

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

Pretty much. Can I be a dick and correct that to past-present situation?

Go for it.

 

[BigApplePi]

Get a copy of next year's newspaper and bring it back here.

 

[Reluctantly]

That's not a time machine, that's an inter-universal transport. You're essentially "solving" the problem with time travel by saying you're not time traveling at all, thereby negating the very premise of the hypothetical situation in the first place.

Depends how you understand time though, doesn't it? If time in its simplest form is just change occurring due to thermo-dynamics and it becomes relative, depending on how everything affects one another, as you move through it and increase your rotational or directional speed, then any scenario is possible. There are then no bounds on time other than that change must happen. The idea of previous and future, forward and backward, beginning and end, death and birth, is null because there is only the present.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Depends how you understand time though, doesn't it? If time in its simplest form is just change occurring due to thermo-dynamics and it becomes relative, depending on how everything affects one another, as you move through it and increase your rotational or directional speed, then any scenario is possible. There are then no bounds on time other than that change must happen. The idea of previous and future, forward and backward, beginning and end, death and birth, is null because there is only the present.

Time is not merely thermodynamics. Time is a backdrop of thermodynamics. Things change forward through time. It's one moment, then the next, never the previous.

 

[Rakshasa]

Step one: discover the results of a miraculous horse race. One which I could yeild maximum profit from a well placed bet.
Step two: Bet a lot of money.
Step three: Repeat step two with your new winnings for as long as you can maintain your sanity.
Step four: Build an INTP commune.
Step five: We take over the world.
Step six: Moon Napoleon Bonaparte just to see his reaction.
Step seven: Have a conversation with Bruce Lee.
Life = Nearly complete.

 

[TriflinThomas]

No killing hitler

See how Tutankhamun died.

 

[snafupants]

I would be vastly more interested in the future than the past. You can read about the past, the past is dead. Folks entranced with the past also seem largely spellbound by money, fame, sex and opportunity. These things fail to grab my attention. To the future!

 

[Antediluvian]

I'd hang out with Boris Sidis for awhile, to find out why Freud hated him so much. After that, though, I'd zip to the future because I'm also a forward-thinking man.

 

[BigApplePi]

I'm expecting one. What do?

Having obtained a so called, "time machine", I'd realize I had something important on my hands. I would need to have a secret conference with a bunch of INTPs for advice on what to do. (Any volunteers?) For example, if I went back and killed Hitler, how many people would not be born today? Would a stranger be lying in your bed today? If I went forward in time, would I discover a WWW (worldwide warrant) for my arrest for having possession of a dangerous weapon?

Having a time machine is a serious responsibility. Would there be a need to hire some ISTP's to take the machine apart and see how it worked? Get real! I'd want to know if the instant I put it to the test I might enter one of many multiple universes and not be able to return to this one. Let's not take this thing lightly.

Someone told me UPS might deliver one to me on Thursday. Do you want me to post if I got it or not? Please advise.

 

[snafupants]

Re: I'm expecting one. What do?

Having obtained a so called, "time machine", I'd realize I had something important on my hands. I would need to have a secret conference with a bunch of INTPs for advice on what to do. (Any volunteers?) For example, if I went back and killed Hitler, how many people would not be born today? Would a stranger be lying in your bed today? If I went forward in time, would I discover a WWW (worldwide warrant) for my arrest for having possession of a dangerous weapon?

Having a time machine is a serious responsibility. Would there be a need to hire some ISTP's to take the machine apart and see how it worked? Get real! I'd want to know if the instant I put it to the test I might enter one of many multiple universes and not be able to return to this one. Let's not take this thing lightly.

Someone told me UPS might deliver one to me on Thursday. Do you want me to post if I got it or not? Please advise.

Apparently Stalin killed more people than Hitler. The craziness of the Aryan race, Mein Kampf, the Holocaust, the photogenic oddity of Hitler and the more theatrical way in which Hitler killed Jews sticks in the minds of most people more than frosty and comparatively uneventful Russian gulags. Many outraged and voluble Hollywood screenwriters and directors, in addition to critics and newscasters, after WWII tended to be Jewish as well, so there was little fear that the Jewish narrative would go untold.

 

[eagor]

right before bin ladin bites the bullet i swoop in and punch him in the face

 

[Jah]

So many want to travel back ?

How about leaping forwards, just some weeks at a time, or making use of the machine to duplicate oneself at times.

I mean really wild shit, like having a Threesome with yourself from the future,
Massive manpower for whatever cause you desire. (Just loop it enough times)

Make a business where you're the only emplyee, yet do work for 100.
A university of Self.

Become super-organism.


or skip all the boring days, just jump ahead in time, consider it weeks where you don't need to concern yourself with food or sleep or anything. Then; Go back and live those days when you have all the technological benefits of your travels to the future, so that you won't have to miss out on all your nearest and dearests endeavors and lives.

 

[Oedipus]

Win the lottery, be selfish.
Also I'd eat a lot of food, enjoy it, then go back to before I ate it. Repeat daily.
That probably wouldn't work actually, but it'd be nice.

 

[BigApplePi]

Re: I'm expecting one. What do?

Apparently Stalin killed more people than Hitler. The craziness of the Aryan race, Mein Kampf, the Holocaust, the photogenic oddity of Hitler and the more theatrical way in which Hitler killed Jews sticks in the minds of most people more than frosty and comparatively uneventful Russian gulags. Many outraged and voluble Hollywood screenwriters and directors, in addition to critics and newscasters, after WWII tended to be Jewish as well, so there was little fear that the Jewish narrative would go untold.

Yep. Quantity counts. Apparently the Jews have the audacity to complain. Where do you hear about the Cambodians who got wiped by Khmer Rouge or the Scottish tribes who were destroyed by the English or the Chinese who were eliminated by the ruling party or the Carthaginians who were zeroed by the Romans? Apparently it's a case of the squeaky wheel ...

 

[BigApplePi]

Win the lottery, be selfish.
Also I'd eat a lot of food, enjoy it, then go back to before I ate it. Repeat daily.
That probably wouldn't work actually, but it'd be nice.

If that doesn't work, here is a movie where Bill Murray gets to go back in time to try and fix his mistakes of the day. He can't get the girl. He keeps going back again and again trying ...

Groundhog Day

 

[7even]

Alright man, I'm going to start with some serious improvisation and brain-motherfucking-storming right now, here the fuck goes:

Right, a time machine, first I will grab the finest armour there is in the 21st century made out of carbon fibre impermeable to any weapons in the the Middle Ages, and some fucking microwave popcorn just to look cool. I will require no weapon of such. It is then where I will proceed to entering my time machine, casually munching away on my microwaved popcorn. I will ask my time machine (it's very sophisticated) to take me to WAR!

It is then when I will be teleported to the final battle in the movie 'The 300'. Where I will stand, in the center of the land inbetween the two opposing enemies, and shout: LET'S FUCKING DO THIS!

But obviously at this moment there will be a really awkward and confused silence to what the fuck I am. The popcorn's really mind fucking with some of these guys too, they've never seen anything like it.

I break the silence with a fart.

... Fuck I can't carry through anymore..

 

[BigApplePi]

LOL, I say that's an f'n good idea. Do it.

Edit. After you do that I'd advise getting the hell outta there FAST. Both sides are gonna catch on to your heavy duty carbon fiber armor and dunk you in the lake.

 

[Cosmic]

party with flappers and brag about it when i'm back

 

[BigApplePi]

Go half-way back, sneak up on myself and kick my own butt.

 

[Meer]

I would go back 1000 years and help the Vikings make friends with the Native Americans. Then I would give their descendants a quest to travel south, make friends with the Aztecs and prepare to whoop Cortez's butt. Then I would watch the Aztec/Viking culture flourish and eat lots of chili.

 

[7even]

Hahah touché ... Minor flaw I overlooked.

 

[MentalBrain]

Take a few mundane objects like guns, lighters, kevlar, electronics, and the like, back in time, along with as many textbooks as I can get my hands on (which should be very many, given the fact that I effectively have all the money I could ever want or need). Use these objects to demonstrate my power to some middle-ages village. Have them instate me as their wizard-king. Use the textbooks and equipment, as well as anything else from the modern era I need to acquire through use of the time machine, to cause my little village to become a major world superpower. Use my new city-state's influence to cause a massive jump in humanity's technological capabilities. Lather, rinse, repeat until the Singularity occurs in the present and brain uploading is finally perfected. Then upload my brain, return once again to the past, and establish in my city-state a utopia under my immortal computer rule.

 

[BigApplePi]

I would definitely let Hitler live cuz if not I wouldn't have been born. Am I allowed to go back and forth in time? If I went forward, I'd want to know I wouldn't wind up inside some mountain and smother to death. After all an untried time machine could be fragile.

I might want to go forward a hundred years to see if they cured cancer or not. A certain amount of care would have to be taken as future people might know there are time machines and confiscate mine. A time machine is a heavy duty responsibility.

I would return to five years hence and get the financial news. After memorizing a few tidbits, return to my own time. After all my home and people are here and I can't go about getting a new one and new people.

I would invest in futures and grow rich attempting to keep secret how I did it. Then I'd settle down as is until I could think of better things to do with the machine. It is reusable, isn't it?

One can see I've thought about these things. I'm a practical man!

 

[redbaron]

Win a jackpot to take care of mundane necessities, then spend the rest of my life studying and researching.