if we could go back in time?

Question

would gambling be outlawed?, would the stock exchange be pointless? would this be a better thing? would i forever keep going back 1 hour just as my alarm clock rings?

Answer 1

Many Science Fiction writers have dealt with the subject of time travel. They fall into a couple of categories.

I like Isaac Asimov's "The End of Eternity" about an organization that tried to use time travel to make Man's existence safer. Asimov is a "paradox" hater and uses a multi-dimensional time-line to avoid the paradox.

Michael Crichton's "Timeline" is about time travelers who SHOULD have caused a paradox - but his view apparently is that whatever they did while in the past was SUPPOSED to happen. Therefore no paradox occurred.

Robert A Heinlein's "All you Zombies," on the other hand, is such a TWISTED little tale that if you try to define the time line of the primary character you'll end up going slowly nuts.

Would gambling be outlawed? Nope! Man is a perverse animal. We'd find a way to gamble anyway. Would the stock exchange be pointless? Nope. We'd find a way to gamble there, too.

As to your alarm clock problem, can't help you.

Actually, time travel would probably HELP stabilize some markets. Right now they are volatile because of people's speculation. But if everyone could know the outcome of something ahead of time, they would know what course of action was best. It would also make criminal trials easier. Just go back in time and photograph a criminal act.

So let's go back and VISIT the grassy knoll in Dallas. Let's go back and watch as the meteor hits the area of the Yucatan Peninsula and kills the dinosaurs. Let's go back and see if OJ really did it.

Time travel might actually make us more respectful of the law since it would allow us to catch any criminal with irrefutable evidence. There is no telling how such a thing would change the world. But it wouldn't be limited to gambling, whether in a casino or on Wall Street.

Speaking of time travel, one more for you to read. Asimov wrote this under a pseudonym and published in the "Journal of Irreprducible Results." The article title was something like "The Endochronic Properties of "... "Thiotimoline". (Ellipsis because I don't recall the whole title.) About a guy who discovers a way to predict the future accurately - and what does he do with it? Turn it into a test for salt concentrations in estuarial waterways.

Answer 2

We could change everything, and yet, would we not go back again to change things again? I think we'd find ourselves in an endless loop of going back trying to perfect things, only to encounter new things that we don't like and would want to change. And so we would enter a vicious cycle.

Answer 3

well yes, if we go back to the beginning of time there would be nothing think about it.