Time Travel, No Thanks

[Anonymous]

I've never understood why people get so excited by the thought of time travel. If it were possible, they think it would be so fantastic to go back in time and live as another generation did, but I think that's ignoring the reality of what that would actually be like and unless you're the type of person who has done loads of research on a certain time period, aside from perhaps rolling back 50 years or less, a lot of people would be in serious trouble.

1. You're a modern wo/man/minority

You have people who can't go 1 hour without checking their phones or the internet, and now send them back in time where those things don't exist...literally, how will they survive. When's the last time you sat anywhere waiting for something or someone without doing something on your phone, or had to look at and navigate with an actual paper map let alone make one up from scratch, or when is the last time you cooked something without looking up a recipe online first? In the 21st century, a lot of you have more rights and protections and freedoms than anyone before you ever had, and you're used to that---being able to go and live and do as you please with a few bumps in the road, but that's not so in other centuries, and attempting to be free as you are now back in time, could get you in hot water or lead to your quick death, imprisonment, or punishment by those in power.

2. Filth

Are you truly prepared to walk down the streets everyday through literal piss and sh-t that's been tossed out the window or left to fester or to see people with rotted teeth and abscesses and lice, or have to carry a small satchel of flowers to cover up the smell of the stench, or the lack of general hygiene and bathing and the lack of toilet paper or the way you'd like to think of as a bathroom? Again, if you're dipping back further then the 20th century, that would be a real issue for a modern person to endure let alone the people who actually lived through it.

3. DIY

When I think of DIY, I think of a cute little Pinterest craft project, but go back in time, and DIY was a necessity. Please raise your hands if in the last 3 months, you've had to make all your clothes or hand wash them all each week, or you've cooked every single meal from scratch that you've eaten, or you had to build your own home, or prepare your horses and a wagon for a long 3 month ride that you'll have to guide which in today's time would take like an hour. DIY was life back then because there was no modern technology, and often times no one to do the things, which we really take for granted now.

4. Injustice

You think today's times are bad, roll back in time enough. People having hands cut off, people being branded, being forced to fight to the death, slavery, indentured servitude, people being hanged publicly or executed for what we today consider minor offenses. You displease leadership or those in power, even if you are in the right, and that could mean your death and the starvation of your family. I don't think many people even have any idea what that would be like to see someone being disfigured for life for something so stupid or being hung in front of their entire family or prepared to see children watching this and thinking it's normal.

5. Sickness, Death, Disease, Medical Care

This would legit be one of the main reasons I would not want to travel back in time. Something happens to you outside of say the early 20th century, and you were more likely to die from the treatment, then the actual accident or sickness. People simply didn't know that certain things could kill you. There were no microscopes, x-rays, surgery the way we think of it now, or antiseptics or anesthetics. Surgeons would literally take pride in how fast they could amputate a leg or pull out a tooth because they had to do so because the patients had no anesthesia and were fully awake. There was a real fear of the doctor or the surgeon because people knew that could spell death for a loved one or a disfigurement that would lead to your inability to work, and if you go in thinking you'll just explain such things---keep in mind, you'd be dealing with a lot of heavily religious people who might view your knowledge as witchcraft...and we all know where that ends, or they simply would have no concept or understanding of modern medical tech nor the tools because they did not exist.

6. War

We are talking hand to hand combat, or being run through with swords, or people being blasted apart by canon fodder and left on battle fields to rot. Don't get me wrong, war is terrible then and now, but there was a level of brutality then that was up close and personal.

7* Disruption of Time and Space

(forgot to add this, whoops) But yes, we have this notion that if only we could go back in time, we could change things for the better or we could alter someone's reality and their lives wouldn't turn out so bad, but quite literally, some things happen for a reason. So many people are, for example, doctors today because someone in their lives died too soon. You may think, you'll go back in time, and save that family member for them and spare them pain, but in doing so, you alter that person's life...the tragedy never happens, they never become doctors, they don't go on to save 1,000's of other people which in turn effects all their families.

You go and stop 9/11 and the terrorists, frustrated at failure, may come up with an even bigger or worse plan that kills thousands more than a 9/11. You save everyone from getting on a train that crashes and kills them all, but you also happen to save the next Hitler who would have died on the train. Even something seemingly so simple as making it so you get into the college of your dreams instead of not may mean someone else who would have found the cure for cancer which would have later saved your sister from an early death, couldn't attend college and thus never was able to do that. We don't live in a bubble. What we do has ripple effects all the time that you may not even think or know about which is why it's a terrible idea.

[Quintessence]

You raise some pretty valid points. I don't think most people, when asked whether they'd like to time travel, actually stop to think about the implications of going back or forward in time--especially the "filth" and "disease" problems and the potential for catastrophic causal consequences.
Actually, with regards to disease, traveling forward in time could put you in some serious medical trouble given the evolution of germs. Bacteria and viruses are constantly evolving, just as we're constantly coming up with new ways of killing them. A couple of hundred years into the future, some of these microbes could've adapted to a point where your immune system doesn't stand a chance unless you're of that time and have adapted along with them. You might go into the future, only to be crippled by disease and die of the common flu a few days later.
With respect to causality, if you're ever offered the chance to time travel, you really need to know EXACTLY which quantum theory is valid here. If time is linear, as per the Newtonain theory, then you're at grave risk of creating a grandfather paradox and potentially messing up the entire timeline of humanity, or getting yourself stuck in a causal loop for all eternity, or dealing with some horrific new reality upon returning back to the present day thanks to the butterfly effect.
The only scenario in which I'd accept a time travel invitation is if it was in accordance with multiverse theory, whereby my traveling back/forward in time simply transfers me to an alternate universe in which the chronology of events develops according to my presence at that point of time.

[myTake Owner]

That's why the show "Sliders" was so great. They got to travel to all sorts of similar universes, but all altered in certain ways to reflect a sort of what if this actually happened thing. But just as in the show, trying to eventually get back to the original time period as you know it could be confusing to, because the changes could be so subtle to you as to make you think you're in the original time line as you know it, but how would you really know exactly especially if you actually jump forward ahead of the present, but still the same time line because you can't get back.

[Quintessence]

Yeah, that's a concern too. What if you get "stranded" in time and can never go back to the original timeline? What if just switching to a different timeline negates your existence (or worse yet, the possibility of your existence) in the original timeline? What if you land yourself in some freakish dimension where time, as we understand it, isn't even a factor--i. e., as per our universe's laws of physics, we have a "spacetime" continuum, and therefore have the concept of special relativity. But, what if in this other dimension there is no time, only space?
When it comes to time travel, there are so many things that could go so very wrong.

[art84]

Time Travel seems like it could be not worth it if it was possible. Changing the past could alter the future and change history as we know it. Going into the future would be interesting but it would ruin that time period if you had no information on how much the world has changed. Sure there are certain things I would like to change but looking at my life now I wouldn't change a thing.

[Curmudgeon]

I think most people only want to go back in time with respect to *their own* lives, so they could undo mistakes that they made, or they could have chosen differently at that time. I often feel that way. Of course, if I *could not* change it and then I had to re-live the bad event exactly as it happened, then I would think otherwise!

I do have a friend who is a frustrated musician who very much likes to play and and perform the blues-derived rock music of the late 1960's, which he does by weekend. By day he is a programmer and network tech support guy. I can see him wishing he was born 20 years earlier.

On the other hand, I remind him, were we both born 20 years later, chances are that we would have had the misfortune to be fighting and perhaps dying in the Vietnam War of the time. So maybe it is better that we were only in diapers when Jimi Hendrix was achieving stardom, I remind him.

[Anonymous]

I think most people are more or less interested in how time travel works. Are we really travelling back or forward into time where our actions of consequences that could cause our own existence to cease? Do we live in a closed loop where the future me has already travelled back in time and when I get to that age I must travel back in time to keep things lined up. Do we live in a multiverse where travelling in time is more or less travelling to a parallel universe and although everything up to the point we travelled back too is exactly the same, but since our presence in the past causes the timeline to split into two branches. Thus, nothing in the current time that we originally came from will be affected but we are creating a completely different reality that exist parallel to the one we came from.

[Opinion Owner]

actions *have* consequences

[Water_Bottle]

The fun part of this is that it assumes that time travel itself must come with an unarmed and inferior traveler.

Could be a team. Could have experts on that team for that era. Could easily survive most perils with modern equipment. " Chronological damage" is imaginary. "Consequential loss" is also imaginary.

You couldn't cockblock your sister's actually getting cancer so the notion that you inadvertently caused her death would just be simply unknown to you in the timeline. This means there's actually no ripple effect at all due to the chaotic nature of time and it's inherent indestructability.

[myTake Owner]

Considering many a men were killed for even uttering out loud that the world might actually be round, instead of flat for example, it's a safe bet to say, you show up with modern tech---and the uneducated and educated of the time alike, and heavily religious may take offense to that, and so what, you flip out and just start shooting---that's a surefire way to call even more attention to yourself or your group in an era where most people knew each other because they lived in much smaller communities. Even if you study hard or know those that have and take them back with you, you only know what has already occurred, not what introducing all sorts of variables and messing with the known timeline does... including the ripple effect which you and your friends would know and if you can't travel forwards and back on repeated trips, you'd be stuck with however you messed up the timeline.

[Water_Bottle]

Time doesn't "break down" like this.

If event A is prevented this doesn't allow for event B at all. Because of the chaotic nature of the world itself with random variables abounding the notion that time would break is the stuff of science fiction.

Let's say that time travel is possible in 700 years. Then it's it possible that someone 700 years in the future went back in time and have us the world we know today? If so who of us is feeling this effect, the actual "ripple"?

In this case the only one who could possibly tell would be the objective observer outside the timeline but no such individual actually exists since moving and manipulating within the timeline takes time itself.

In essence it's the same as playing pseudogod with things like solving the abiogenesis / stem cell / climbing process. Tis not the magic power of creation but a mere mockery.

You're not creating time you're just passing through it much like you're not creating life just reconstructing it.

[Water_Bottle]

Cloning not climbing*

[Anonymous]

Why not go thousands of years into the future or tens of thousands of years into the future and take your chances with it instead? Backwards time travel really is kind of pointless unless you plan on cheating the lottery system and making some big money, think "Back To The Future Part II", or something like that, but I'd say do so at your own risk. Or unless you were trying to desperately save somebody's life such as a close one to have another chance, but they might still end up dying and suffering from a fate much worse than what they originally was supposed to go through. The fact the time paradoxes would exist makes backwards time travel physically impossible, and even if somehow somebody managed to do so they'd only enter into an, or perhaps the results are the creation of an alternate timeline or an alternate universe or reality should they alter and change any events and only that timeline is affected, but not the timeline or reality they had originally gone back in time from.

[Rainie_]

Let's not forget language either if you go back more than 300 years etc. You might Probably have a hard time understanding people and they might not understand you, words change their meanings all the time and language develops.

Another thing with sickness is that you will not have been vaccinated for the diseases that are around.

And if you're a woman you need to learn what rules you need to follow and know your place.

[Anonymous]

It doesn’t always work that way, if you could change something it would just create another path of time or an alternate one but no one would ever know any difference except the time traveler. I wouldn’t go back to far but maybe warn myself of certain things that have messed up my life for the worse or maybe just go back a week with knowing the lotto numbers

[myTake Owner]

But that's the thing... you would and you also wouldn't know how much change and damage you've done if you've changed something as in the college example. It's a dangerous game to mess with time. Rather than learn from a mistake you've made and try to improve, one just goes back and tries to alter all of time because they can't deal. This could screw up everyone else, but the person who does it, doesn't or wouldn't care. That's pure selfishness. So what if a thousand more people die because of the thing you changed, as long as you get xyz. That's a problem.

[Opinion Owner]

Yeah I guess it’s selfish but only the time traveler would ever know and what if it really did make things better for everyone? You never really know till later. That’s why it probably is impossible to travel back and only forward in Theory anyway

[Opinion Owner]

You’re also saying we have no control over our destiny and that everything is already set in motion with a set plan that we have no control over

[myTake Owner]

We don't have control in so much as you nor I knows what will actually happen in the next hour. We don't know if some guy will get drunk and crash into a building killing 2 people. No one knows when the next big disease will take hold. We don't even know things that are seemingly set in stone, like you go to school and you will be successful... that's not guaranteed. All we know is that we can live and do certain things to help us along in life and certain things will work exceptionally well, and others we'll fail at, or we could get sick tomorrow, or you could be the parent of a kid that gets addicted to drugs no matter how much you love them. Such is life, however, traveling back in time, you are messing with events that are sure bets, things that have already happened and set other events in motion, and screwing with that could lead to ones own demise or the demise of others.

[Opinion Owner]

Probably why traveling back in time is not possible, you really can’t change what has already been done no matter what but traveling to the future is possible but you can’t come back so I guess that’s pointless too and you couldn’t change anything, you would just be younger than you would have normally been and missed everything that happened

[crswalkerr]

Erm, time travel is, in theory, possible. We just need a lot of power and a lot of mathematics. But, it would be fun. Also, a paradox would not be possible therefore, yeah, what OP said, it'd have to break into segments creating a separate path.

[Opinion Owner]

@crswalkerr so many different scenarios of what could happen but it’s all educated guesses and theories as to how or what would happen if it were possible

[Eagle1kenobi]

@crswalkerr what about the idea set forth in the BTTF movies... about if you say.. were to go back or forward and find yourself?

[serious]

Your last part of disruption of time and space makes sense. It's a good point.

[TacosRAwesome]

I do not wish to travel too far. Just far enough to hit myself with a car (not deadly just enough to put me in hospital) so I don't make one of the biggest mistakes of my life and waste 3 years at university.

[Rissa95]

Sorry to hear that. Why do you think these years are wasted if I may ask?

[LegateLanius]

Ooh, let's not forget if someone goes back and changes either their own life or the past, they might have inadvertently caused themselves to cease to exist

[myTake Owner]

I forgot to include this as one of the most important factors. Sure, one can go back in time and save everyone from the Titanic because that seems like a noble thing to do, but in saving them, let's say, you also save the next Hitler who simply died before he could become that---could a person live with that? Double edged sword as is your example, and changing your own life because you think that it will make things better for you or others.

[Anonymous]

I don't think most people want to go back forever, but only dream of temporarily going back to witness an important event in history.. or in my case, see extinct animals 'live in action'.

[Hwlsop]

Who would actually pass up the chance to visit a time period we only know from books and documentaries.

[zagor]

I think most people would just be interested in time travel if they could come back...

[myTake Owner]

There are just so many things that could go wrong within a day, let alone a week or month not up to but including messing up history and timelines. This is why even in fiction, most time travel movies end with some sort of tragedy because you wouldn't be going back and staying in a bubble, you'd have to interact and even a hello or a handshake could disturb the time space continuum.

[JakethesnAke900]

We know that not everything was perfect back then, but it would still be interesting to experience past life events, whether from your time or a time before that.

[Anonymous]

Preventing some war might be the reason why someone would time travel.

[Omar5881]

LOVEEE this take , some people actually think past times where better lol

[Sabretooth]

i would just go back 9 years