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Having a REALLY crappy childhood I could of left home at a much earlier age then I did. At least I would be able to correct that part of my life. The rest would be a fresh start.
I wasted a huge percentage of my youth. I kind of feel like one of the problems with the public school system is that, after about middle school, it's not worth the time it takes up...if the student would put that time to better use, whether through socialization or exploring or learning about the world in general.
That said, without it we might have more roving teenage gangs and such because of too much free time not spent wisely. A lot of people wouldn't spend their time wisely.
I would have spent my time wisely. The only part of high school I think I really got anything useful out of was a typing class, and the running team. It would have definitely have been better for me to not have been in high school, if I'd have put my time to better use.
That would have affected my decisions too. I would have used my time better...talked to people online more...start up a Youtube channel back when it was easy to do so.
Regarding the predicting of future events...I'd have to start preparing early to show evidence of my skills so my future knowledge would be of value. At fifteen, I'd only have had about three years before 9-11, so I couldn't have had time to stop that. I could have predicted the coronavirus though. I think that's probably the only disaster I'd remember well enough to do anything about. I'd have to focus on remembering everything so as to prove I can predict the future before that happened.
Special relativity describes how one might travel into the future al though you can never come back.
Real-life time travel occurs through time dilation, a property of Einstein’s special relativity. Einstein was the first to realize that time is not constant, as previously believed, but instead slows down as you move faster through space.
"If one were to depart from the earth in a spaceship that could accelerate continuously at a comfortable one g (an acceleration that would produce a force equal to the gravity at the earth's surface), one would begin to approach the speed of light relative to the earth within about a year. As the ship continued to accelerate, it would come ever closer to the speed of light, and its clocks would appear to run at an ever slower rate relative to the earth. Under such circumstances, a round trip to the center of our galaxy and back to the earth--a distance of some 60,000 light-years--could be completed in only a little more than 40 years of ship time. Upon arriving back at the earth, the astronaut would be only 40 years older, while 60,000 years would have passed on the earth. There is no paradox as one would feel acceleration and the other would not and would know who the time dilation applies to. Under current physics except for the engineering of such a ship it would be possible to travel into the future its just not going to be like some science fiction story its based on what they actually know.
Best to let go of old memories and accept new ones. I wouldn't want an alternate history with exactly the same results the last time around.
Agreed. I have already lived my life once, why would I want an identical run through it? Yes, that means I will miss out on some of the highlights of my life, but I will develop new highlights, while still retaining the memories of my first time through.
Making money would be pretty easy. While most people do not remember all of the details of the stock market, or who won each Superbowl or World Series, there are enough things that are fairly common knowledge that anybody could make a few bucks here and there.
Most people know that if Tom Brady plays in the Superbowl, he usually wins. Similarly, invest and hold Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple. Avoid Enron. Don't buy real estate in 2008, wait until 2009. Even if it is expensive, most real estate in San Francisco is a good investment. If you happen to be 15 in the 70s/80s, buy Star Wars toys and keep them in the original packaging, sell them for a great return in the 90s.
Unless you are a truly exceptional person, influencing future events to prevent 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombing is probably not going to be possible. You wind up being just one more crank phoning in a tip to the police.
I think a do-over would give you a head start on life, you could avoid some big life mistakes with the opportunity to make others. I would certainly be happy for the chance.
You can't.
You missing one very simple fact. Even if you return to exactly the same point in your previous life, down to the last particular circumstance, from that point on, life will be different. Unless everyone else, entire universe including, you as well, will dedicate to playing a staged play, called "My Next 30 Years of My Life" according to the script, your life, before this time jump, was played.
What is impossible.
Not necessarily. I assume our assumption here (worst sentence ever) is that all events will remain exactly the same-- your dog will run away on June 4, 1980; your mom will get a promotion at work on December 17, 1985; your soon-to-be-best-friend will move into town on March 25, 1990, etc.-- unless you choose to change things (you don't go to that party where you got caught smoking weed; you advise your grandpa to see his doctor so he doesn't have that heart attack; you invite your friend to your house so she doesn't climb that tree instead that she's going to fall out of and break her leg, etc.). (After all, I think this exercise is about going back in time to the same circumstances you were in before, not going back in time and everyone knows this is a do-over and has to try to act the same ways.)
The question is how significantly larger circumstances might be changed by changing small things-- will keeping your friend from breaking her leg make things "different" enough that something major will be changed down the road? (I know all the movies would like to think so-- she doesn't break her leg, so her dad doesn't come home from work to take her to the hospital, and instead he's in a big car accident on his way home from work at the usual time that day, plus she never meets her classmate who would have some day become her husband because he helped her carry her books while she was on crutches, etc. etc. I don't think real life is usually that dramatic, though, plus in the movies, changing the past never leads to *good* things-- you never see that her dad got a promotion because he was still at work that day to help with some crisis, or she never marries the classmate who carries her books who will become the loser who beats her, or something...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by TMBGBlueCanary
Sounds like a nightmare.
I would have to make sure the tragedies still happened or else it would change things in my life that were wonderful. For example, I would have to date someone I now strongly dislike because that's what lead to the chain of events that lead to me meeting the one I am in love with now. Or, I would have to take that stupid move for a job that ended up being horrible because without being in that place at that time, running the errand I was for work, I wouldn't have found a starving, tick and flea infested dog that ended up being my best buddy for nearly 16 years.
And if you mess up just one thing and your future changes as a result, there would be so many regrets. What if my changes result in my brother not meeting his future wife and my niece never being born? No one else would know, but I would be in mourning/blaming myself and I wouldn't even be able to talk about it without people thinking I was crazy.
Again, sounds like a nightmare scenario.
But what if your changes result in your brother meeting a different woman and having twins or something? As I noted above, people always assume the changes would be bad.
And remember-- if you have the memories of the past, then you know where and when to go to meet the love of your life or pick up the dog who needs rescuing. Or, maybe different wonderful things would happen in your life that you couldn't imagine changing.
I've always wondered... what if in It's A Wonderful Life, he had found out that other people's lives would be *better* without him?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BT3241
Special relativity describes how one might travel into the future al though you can never come back.
Real-life time travel occurs through time dilation, a property of Einstein’s special relativity. Einstein was the first to realize that time is not constant, as previously believed, but instead slows down as you move faster through space.
"If one were to depart from the earth in a spaceship that could accelerate continuously at a comfortable one g (an acceleration that would produce a force equal to the gravity at the earth's surface), one would begin to approach the speed of light relative to the earth within about a year. As the ship continued to accelerate, it would come ever closer to the speed of light, and its clocks would appear to run at an ever slower rate relative to the earth. Under such circumstances, a round trip to the center of our galaxy and back to the earth--a distance of some 60,000 light-years--could be completed in only a little more than 40 years of ship time. Upon arriving back at the earth, the astronaut would be only 40 years older, while 60,000 years would have passed on the earth. There is no paradox as one would feel acceleration and the other would not and would know who the time dilation applies to. Under current physics except for the engineering of such a ship it would be possible to travel into the future its just not going to be like some science fiction story its based on what they actually know.
We might arguably exist in a historical time warp in the archives of some cosmic entity that is on infinite replay. There is no present, future or anything else that can be comprehended by human beings.
Isn't this the premise of the movie "Peggy Sue got Married"?
She tells her friend about pantyhose which didn't exist in her younger days. You could make a fortune on that.
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