How would a time-travelled economy work?
July 3, 2008 8:54 AM Subscribe
Thought experiment: What would a time travel-enabled economy look like?
Obviously, this is a completely hypothetical question, but it has been on my mind for quite some time.
Let's assume that time travel was possible. Costs, effort and energy required for a time trip would be similar to those of spatial travel. It also has been proven safe, as Novikov's self-consistency principle applies (no paradoxes, no de-railing of history).
In other words: Travelling to 1980 or 2036 is as easy, as expensive, as practical, and as safe as taking a trip from London to Paris, with the possibility of transport of goods.
What would an economy based on such a premise look like?
Obviously, this is a completely hypothetical question, but it has been on my mind for quite some time.
Let's assume that time travel was possible. Costs, effort and energy required for a time trip would be similar to those of spatial travel. It also has been proven safe, as Novikov's self-consistency principle applies (no paradoxes, no de-railing of history).
In other words: Travelling to 1980 or 2036 is as easy, as expensive, as practical, and as safe as taking a trip from London to Paris, with the possibility of transport of goods.
What would an economy based on such a premise look like?
This post was deleted for the following reason: hypothetical chatfilter - maybe take this to bigbigquestion? -- jessamyn
I think this is too open-ended a question. The first thing I can think of is, going back in time and investing in the nascent doings of Gates, Wozniak, and Steve Jobs in order to make my 2008 self a multi-billionaire. So how would the "economy" protect against such abuses?
There's no paradox there, no history de-railing. But it's clearly an abuse.
Woud there be Time Cops to prevent such things?
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:11 AM on July 3, 2008
There's no paradox there, no history de-railing. But it's clearly an abuse.
Woud there be Time Cops to prevent such things?
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:11 AM on July 3, 2008
First one with the machine wins.
Hard to be competitive when the other guy keeps popping back to pull your plugs.
posted by dragonsi55 at 9:11 AM on July 3, 2008
Hard to be competitive when the other guy keeps popping back to pull your plugs.
posted by dragonsi55 at 9:11 AM on July 3, 2008
Not trying to be snarky... but if time travel were possible and people could travel to 1980 or even 1880, then it already exists and has already happened and thus, using Novikov's self-consistency principle (SCP in the rest of the post), the economy would look much as it would look today, right?
My mind starts to wander, though, to the following points:
Much like Bif with his book of sporting event results, wouldn't playing the Stock Market become futile? If you know what stocks will rise and which will fall there's no risk, no guesswork. So with the SCP the stocks that went up will go up as a self-fulfilling prophecy...people know they will go up so they went up. So would the stock market have to close as people pre-know the results, or would it continue as is but with the pre-determined changes occurring because people know they would?
Then you have the question of antiques and rarities. If one can go back in time to get any now-rare item (say...vintage Star Wars figures mint on card) back when they were plentiful and cheap, that would devalue any current ones, right? Plus you could have a 30 year old item as beautiful as it was the day it was made since time changed 30 years but this item is not technically 30 years old. So would the antique market bottom out? Or would it just become a new type of import? Would the SCP allow things that today are worth millions just because they're old suddenly become worthless because they can be had by anyone with a time machine?
posted by arniec at 9:12 AM on July 3, 2008
My mind starts to wander, though, to the following points:
Much like Bif with his book of sporting event results, wouldn't playing the Stock Market become futile? If you know what stocks will rise and which will fall there's no risk, no guesswork. So with the SCP the stocks that went up will go up as a self-fulfilling prophecy...people know they will go up so they went up. So would the stock market have to close as people pre-know the results, or would it continue as is but with the pre-determined changes occurring because people know they would?
Then you have the question of antiques and rarities. If one can go back in time to get any now-rare item (say...vintage Star Wars figures mint on card) back when they were plentiful and cheap, that would devalue any current ones, right? Plus you could have a 30 year old item as beautiful as it was the day it was made since time changed 30 years but this item is not technically 30 years old. So would the antique market bottom out? Or would it just become a new type of import? Would the SCP allow things that today are worth millions just because they're old suddenly become worthless because they can be had by anyone with a time machine?
posted by arniec at 9:12 AM on July 3, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:07 AM on July 3, 2008