"We did, and you didn't listen then, either."
Time travel doesn't exist because time travel wiped out the timelines where it did
- Thread starter Whizbang Dustyboots
- Start date
"We did, and you didn't listen then, either."
GMMichael
Guide of Modos
I feel like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sheds light on this. To quote the entry on humans (from the fandom site):
". . . they actually still think that digital watches are a pretty neat idea, and they spend most of their time concerning themselves with moving about little green pieces of paper."
SidneyBroadshead
Villager
There's also the Hitler Paradox. A high-tech thinktank develops time travel. They try to kill Hitler.
Paradox 1) Killing Hitler at any meaningful point in the timeline prevents World War 2. Doing so removes the postwar Military Industrial Complex that never gets created. This prevents the accelerated postwar technological development that leads to the thinktank being created in the first place and the technology to build timetravel technology.
Paradox 2) So many people will be trying to kill or protect Hitler that they will cancel each other out. Eventually the factions will try to destroy timetravel before it is developed to end the conflict on their terms. Also known as the Rick & Morty paradox.
Paradox 3) There are two time-traveling factions: the "Snakes" (symbol is an upright arrow or an oroboros), who want to preserve the historical timeline, and the "Spiders" (symbol is an eight-pointed Chaos Cross or a spiderweb), who want to disrupt the timeline. The latter either wants to impose their moral and political beliefs on the space-time continuum and right perceived wrongs or nihilistically disrupt the timeline for their amusement. Either the Snakes want to protect Hitler and the Spiders want to kill Hitler or the Snakes support and foster the Allies and the Spiders support Hitler's rise to power and the creation of the Axis to trigger a world war. Hitler would never have been important without the events of the Time War.
Paradox 4) Adolph Hitler becomes a paranoid with a strong persecution complex because random people keep trying to kill him throughout his life. He creates a group of loyal followers to protect him that leads to the creation of an autocratic police state with him in the center. The perceived enemies are Jews and people with Left Wing politics because those are the two biggest Venn Diagram circles among his would-be assasins. Israeli and Soviet hit teams reinforce this hatred. His entire worldview and political bent are created from this persecution. In Atlas Games' Over the Edge rpg, this is called the Throckmorton Paradox.
Paradox 5) Timetravelling assassins try to kill Hitler. Interrogation / torture of the assassins provide a rudimentary understanding of the mathematical theory and/or mechanical instrumentation of time travel. A fortune of resources and manpower is attached to timetravel research, but the mathematicians and intellectuals who could have fathomed the notes have all fled to Britain or America. After the war American, British, French and Soviet thinktanks using captured German scientists and recovered document troves build on the German's crude attempts at timetravel. Eventually one of them succeeds and builds the early prototype of a functional time machine. The others use their spies to steal information so they can catch up. This forms a club of nations that have timetravel. The fear of a neverending time war leads to the nations refusing to use timetravel. Eventually the end of the Cold War and advances in technology means individuals can build crude timemachines. A group of idealists build a timemachine and try to go back in time to kill Hitler. They fail and are captured, interrogated, and tortured to death to find out all they know. The Nazis start work on a timemachine...
Paradox 1) Killing Hitler at any meaningful point in the timeline prevents World War 2. Doing so removes the postwar Military Industrial Complex that never gets created. This prevents the accelerated postwar technological development that leads to the thinktank being created in the first place and the technology to build timetravel technology.
Paradox 2) So many people will be trying to kill or protect Hitler that they will cancel each other out. Eventually the factions will try to destroy timetravel before it is developed to end the conflict on their terms. Also known as the Rick & Morty paradox.
Paradox 3) There are two time-traveling factions: the "Snakes" (symbol is an upright arrow or an oroboros), who want to preserve the historical timeline, and the "Spiders" (symbol is an eight-pointed Chaos Cross or a spiderweb), who want to disrupt the timeline. The latter either wants to impose their moral and political beliefs on the space-time continuum and right perceived wrongs or nihilistically disrupt the timeline for their amusement. Either the Snakes want to protect Hitler and the Spiders want to kill Hitler or the Snakes support and foster the Allies and the Spiders support Hitler's rise to power and the creation of the Axis to trigger a world war. Hitler would never have been important without the events of the Time War.
Paradox 4) Adolph Hitler becomes a paranoid with a strong persecution complex because random people keep trying to kill him throughout his life. He creates a group of loyal followers to protect him that leads to the creation of an autocratic police state with him in the center. The perceived enemies are Jews and people with Left Wing politics because those are the two biggest Venn Diagram circles among his would-be assasins. Israeli and Soviet hit teams reinforce this hatred. His entire worldview and political bent are created from this persecution. In Atlas Games' Over the Edge rpg, this is called the Throckmorton Paradox.
Paradox 5) Timetravelling assassins try to kill Hitler. Interrogation / torture of the assassins provide a rudimentary understanding of the mathematical theory and/or mechanical instrumentation of time travel. A fortune of resources and manpower is attached to timetravel research, but the mathematicians and intellectuals who could have fathomed the notes have all fled to Britain or America. After the war American, British, French and Soviet thinktanks using captured German scientists and recovered document troves build on the German's crude attempts at timetravel. Eventually one of them succeeds and builds the early prototype of a functional time machine. The others use their spies to steal information so they can catch up. This forms a club of nations that have timetravel. The fear of a neverending time war leads to the nations refusing to use timetravel. Eventually the end of the Cold War and advances in technology means individuals can build crude timemachines. A group of idealists build a timemachine and try to go back in time to kill Hitler. They fail and are captured, interrogated, and tortured to death to find out all they know. The Nazis start work on a timemachine...
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SidneyBroadshead
Villager
Then there is the Hitler Paradox.
Reynard
aka Ian Eller
This makes the dubious suggestion that killing Hitler is the sole motivation to develop tome travel.
Fortunately for the continuum, there really isn't much capitalist value in developing time travel. Who is going to profit from fractured timelines?
The Firebird
Commoner
Wouldn't it be very beneficial to investors? Take a look at how things stand a year from now, then make your bets.
Reynard
aka Ian Eller
Thereby completely altering the bet you were making. The whole point of an investment is to buy low and sell high. But if a bunch of people buy the stock price goes up. Not to mention other knock on effects that would be difficult to predict.
It is like knowing the lottery numbers: the more people that know, the less you win. And we can't really posit a reasonable world in which a technology as complex and likely power-hungry as time travel 9even if it is just information) could be hidden or secret.
Spectral Anomaly
Adventurer
Sigh. More junk science reporting of non–peer-reviewed material posted to arxiv.org. I love the idea behind open access, but the peer review process is still crucial.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
The person who goes back in time and develops Google/Amazon/Tesla/Apple/??? before the people who currently did it.
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
I would use it to sabotage patent trolls. "Here it is, a patent that is exactly the same down to the comma but thirty years older than yours, so this is all public domain already!"
