Suppose you were offered an opportunity to use a one-way time travel machine to go to the future. Here’s the conditions:
1 - It’s one way obviously. Once you go you won’t be coming back.
2 - You can go together with other people.
3 - You can set it for any point in the future. But the minimum jump is one year, so no jokes about skipping ahead to the weekend.
4 - Because it only works one way, you have no information about what the future is like.
5 - For reasons too complex to go into, you can only use the time machine once. So no skipping ahead by increments.
So I guess this is a poll about whether or not you think the future will be an improvement over the present. And if so, would you be willing to skip ahead to get there. And how far are you willing to go?
Interesting in that this is a theoretically possible scenario. I think I would go for something of the order of 10000 years into the future. Not enough time for any natural evolutionary changes in Humans but time enough for most if not all aspects of science to be known and fully understood. If reverse time travel could be possible it would likely be understood by then, if not then I could hopefully give insite to those of the future about life in these barbarian times.
If you had asked me 15+ years ago I would have jumped at the chance and went for anywhere from 200-1000 years in the future.
Now, I have a wife and 2 young kids. I would not be capable of leaving them. I would have been a bit fearful of societies collapse, but I would have taken the chance.
I guess the process is like freezing in a cooler like Austin Powers.
I could stand that for about 10 years. Probably I’d miss my mother’s final years, but then I’d have 10 more years with my own children and grandchildren (if we all survive the interval, never a sure thing.)
The main advantage would be hoping they’d have a way to extend life.
The main drawback would be the disconnect from family.
If the family were somehow gone anyway through tragedy (or their own time travels), then I would probably opt for 50 years. More than that and I wouldn’t be able to catch up. I’d hate to go from fearless pioneer to backward relic in the future.
He said you could take a posse with you if you wished.
I am personally not that optimistic about the future - global warming, religious wars, disease, over-population, depletion of natural resources, the dumbing of the masses…so I don’t envision an particularly enlightened society in 1000, or 10,000 years.
I might want to skip ahead the next three years and be at the swearing in of the next President of The United States. That way I could just put this inevitable, upcoming three year disaster behind me and be either pleasantly pleased with the new political outlook, or just go jump off a bridge on the Potomac - whichever seems more practical at that point.
Too bad I couldn’t use the machine to go back in time…quite a few places I would like to go check out then.
I would also then be making a possibly unfair choice for my kids and take them away from their Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents. This would be very selfish of me.
I’d be able to take my SO and go - I can leave my family behind quite comfortably. He would have a much harder time, rightfully, as his family is much more loving.
I’ve thought about starting a thread like this, but I would allow jumping forward in increments (at least 5 years at a time) and you could choose to stay whenever you wanted.
With my luck, I’d end up in a future like the alternate ending of Army of Darkness.
Just remember if you do, get one of those savings accounts with compound interest. And don’t get greedy and make that extra jump to when the banking system has collapsed.
[hijack]This has been a comic book reference. I do not remember the name of the comic book. If anyone has the answer, and can provide it in an unobtrusive way, please do so.[/hijack]
I’d probably want to jump ahead about, oh, 1000-2000 years.
Not taking any family – it might be a route into fast death – but if I could, I’d just have to go ahead and see how things have turned out!
As for the posse – I’d gladly take any otherDopers who would like to jump ahead with me to that timeframe. Strength in numbers
If I were able to disregard the existance of my immediate family (parents, brother, dog) and close friends, I’d happily take the jump, say 2000 years into the future.
But I can’t, so I won’t.
I would love to though. I’d like to believe that some of the things I read in science fiction novels would have been achieved by then… Star Trek:TNG, here I come
No. Frigging. Way. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. This time and place may have its flaws, but at least I’m not living in a postapocalyptic wasteland where I have to fight vicious cannibal mutants for scraps, and at least I’m not enslaved by a brutal race of cyborgs who see me as an animal, and at least I’m not inside a gigantic humanity-hating supercomputer. And so forth. You get the picture.
I’m not sure I would jump too far. Think about how a person from one hundred years ago would cope with today’s science and society. Now think about someone from five hundred years or even a thousand years in the past. I think there comes a point where you become incapable of adjusting to a new world because there are not enough recognizable reference points to be used as “reality” anchors.
I think you’d be surprised. While I agree that a person from 1000 AD would be hard-pressed to find their place in the 21[sup]st[/sup] century, I don’t think this is typical for 1000-year jumps. I doubt somebody from Rome, circa 500 AD, would have that much trouble adapting to Rome, circa 1500. Likewise, I think we are near the tail-end of the period of really rapid change – “Future Shock” is starting to look a little bit ridiculous; the 31[sup]st[/sup] century may be more accessible to you and me than 2005 is to a person from 1905!
I, too, am worried about the social changes. Inhibitions appear to be breaking down across the board, and one hundred years from know I worry that the dominating philosophy will be totally nihilistic and hedonistic. Further, the United States has no means of dealing with the upcoming budget crisis caused by the retirement of the baby boomers. The eventual bankruptcy of the country looks like the most probable option, and the entire world economy depends on the American government. So in 2100 we mihgt well be looking at an economic and cultural wasteland. I think it’s better to just stay here.
