I admit my opinion may be limited by my practical nature,
but it seems to me that going way back in time (i.e. years or more) would have
a LOT of downside. Say I want to go back to before Apple stock went
crazy so I could cash in and become a millionaire today.
For the sake of this argument, let’s go with January 2003,
where the stock was still selling for about $7.50 per share (roughly 1.14% of
the current value of $660) and that you had enough money back then to make it
worthwhile (in reality I would have only been able to buy about 300 shares,
netting me a meager $195,750 pre-taxes).
Now I just have to wait a decade and I’ll be set for life, assuming I
don’t cash out earlier. What could
possible be wrong with this scenario? I’m
glad you asked.
Having now set things in motion you merely have to relive the next ten years of your life. Now this is great if those ten years sucked
and you’re happy with anything or everything potentially changing, but if life
was pretty sweet you’ve got some problems.
Namely, you’re burdened with ten years of memories that never happened. Trying to duplicate those years to properly
set up and maintain all the relationships and experiences that you accrued over
that time seems really difficult.
Imagine accidently referencing some shared experience or some
personal piece of information someone hadn’t told you yet. Say you’re talking to your future girlfriend
or wife, and mention some little known fact from her childhood that she told
you years into the relationship. It
would be really creepy, right? Maybe it
would freak her out and ruin your chance to have that relationship. Now it’s always possible you could excuse it
as being confused or a strange coincidence.
But what if it kept happening on and off over the months or years? That could damage or completely ruin
friendships that you had come to cherish.
Just not worth the risk to me.
Short term time travel has a much smaller risk-reward ratio
though and I would totally go back a few months in time (even more than once) in
an effort to tweak my choices for maximum awesomeness and/or moderate financial
gain.
So in closing, if anyone has a time machine I can borrow I
really appreciated it.
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