Poll: Time Travel

[chadachada123]

Sideways? You ask. Yes, alternate realities are now open to you. You can travel to your current date in the infinity of multiverses. Want to know what would have happened if Germany had won World War 2? You can find out. What if that asteroid impact never happened 65 million years ago and the dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out? Go take a look.

So which would you choose?

Travel backwards and verify what has happened

Travel forwards and find out what will happen

Travel sideways and find out what would have happened if...

So...would it be possible to travel sideways to a universe where the Big Bang happened 20 years later but played out the exact same, essentially giving me the ability to see the past? Or 20 years earlier to essentially see into the future?

Also, how does location play into this? Are we tied to Earth? If not, then it doesn't really matter which option I choose, because I'll certainly be finding some other planet full of intelligent life to learn as much as I can.

Edit: This doesn't even bring into account traveling to other universes and interacting with your other-selves...Maybe travel to a universe where you picked to be able to travel to the future/past?

 

[Daniel Ferguson]

Forward, so I know what humanity's in for. And also what they do with the future after I'm gone. I've really enjoyed some Stargate episodes where they do that stuff.

 

[Omega500]

I would travel back in time and become mates with da vinci and kinda encourage him to do more with the science. Or maybe Nikola tesla or maybe some other awesome guy that invented stuff.

 

[kypsilon]

Oh, definitely sideways. If we are given to understand that there is an almost infinite number of what if scenarios that could crop up in any given timeline, you can multiply your temporal experiences by a factor of...infinite! Maybe that other sideways timeline is far more technologically advanced than yours because Atlantis never sank...or perhaps some giant comet struck the Earth and reset your civilization index to 'fucked'. You have literally all of those possibilities at your fingertips.

You just have to have the time to explore them all.

captcha: travel size

Mmmm...sammiches...do they count as dead? *munches*

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

The crucial thing for me is how broad-ranging these alternate universes are. For example, is there a high-tech one due to overall intelligence and better education, and a primitive one due to scientists creating dinosaurs? Because if so, you might as well go sideways and get the same results as either of the other two directions.

Assuming they're more limited, I'd go forwards. Since you can't change the past you'd be stuck as a peasant in any human context with no resources and not be able to influence anything. Really the only uses for it I think is scientific work, solving mysteries, assessing claims or observing extinct forms of life. The future on the other hand has godlike technology and augmentation (I assume). Since nothing not living can travel, I wouldn't be able to be augmented and come back, I'd be missing half myself and bleed to death. So I'd travel and stay there. There's even the possibility of immortality and walls capable of free 3D printing. And FTL travel, and teleportation. My worry would mainly be again that I wouldn't have any resources, and that I may be imprisoned for lack of an identity chip or something. But then again, they probably have time travel that's better than what I have access to, so really forwards is picking everything else as well.

 

[crimson sickle2]

Question, wouldn't visiting alternate timelines allow for visiting the past or future after a little mapping, given how alternate timelines may advance at different speeds?

Regardless, I'm still going with the sideways option, because if I'm able to visit any alternate dimension then that means there is a dimension filled with a pile of whatever I need at the time and the greatest fantasies imaginable. Who doesn't want the ability to use magic and grab a free backwards/forwards time machine and jetpack combo, while being immortal and eating the best food in all of existence?

 

[Brotha Desmond]

If, without a shadow of a doubt that you could not alter any established event, then I would chose to travel backwards. SO many things are lost to history and would be fascinating to learn the truth. While I would also like to learn how everything will turn out those events haven't happened yet, so no need to dwell on them.
However, since there is no such guarantee then I will refuse to have any part of time travel. While I do find the whole premise interesting people always overlook the repercussions of any act. Giving humans the ability to control the fourth dimension is stupid.

 

[Tanakh]

Timetravel? Ain't nobody got time for that, too much shit to do right now and I don't have enough life to spare rolling back.

 

[FalloutJack]

The Future!

I have a plan...

This is my world takeover plan, you see, #348. I go into the significantly-advanced-future to make use of technology that will result in a creation I once saw in an Asimov-universe book series (Robot City) called the metacell. It's a cell-sized machine similar to the notion of the nanite, but it replicates cellular activity in a very advanced way. In the books, this was the basis for the creation of an entire positronic machine city and the robots to service it. They can be made to work with the human bloodstream too, if used correctly.

Injecting this into myself, I return home and spread the kids into the world, where it slowly begins an efficient conversion of materials into advanced structures that will both take the world by storm and make it millenia more advanced than anything that will exist in this time. The power to create technological society without actually compromising the world itself removes poverty or even the need for money, as the machines now work with people...all under my command.

Bwa ha haaa...

 

[GeneralChaos]

Okay, the clear choice here is Future for what is either one reason or a series of reasons, depending on how you're counting.
Premises:
Time Travel Is Possible-Obviously true, as I am traveling in time
I Can Choose Where and When I Go-slightly shakier, since strictly speaking the OP only said you can choose the direction, but the ability to steer seems critical to this sort of hypothetical so I'm going to carry on with the assumption that this is true
Time Travel Is Controllable-See Above, since I can control when I'm going to, it's obvious that is it possible for people to control this phenomenon
At Some Point, Time Travel Will Be Thoroughly Understood And Harnesses-It's a law of nature and we're the human race. It's really only a matter of time, of which I have plenty


Therefore, I will travel forward in time until a perfect time machine is available, then use THAT to travel anywhere in time and space I want to go, without those silly one way/no dead matter rules

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Forward. I want to see what the Earth will look like in 400,000 years.

 

[Roxor]

I think there's probably more room for interesting findings in exploring alternate universes, so I'll go with the option of sideways.

 

[DanielBrown]

Sideways. Find a rich, successfull female version of me and live happily(and lazily) ever after.
Would be awesome.

Otherwise forward would be the most intresting, but uncertain. You might as well walk out into a polluted, or lava covered planet and end your days right away.

 

[Terminate421]

Well from your restrictions you could only travel to the past as a disembodied observer, as your mere presence completely changes history.
Future it is, wouldn't mind future medicine so I can live for ridiculously long and take advantage of whatever technology has come about. Of course, there's the possibility we'll all be dead in 200 years, so maybe a parallel reality would be better. Maybe one where civilization didn't keep collapsing, we never destroyed our environment and became masters of the galaxy. That'd be kinda sweet!

So the pokemon universe?

Because that would be fuckin' awesome.

 

[Subscriptism]

I'd go sideways just to know what the fifth dimension is like.

 

[blackrave]

Future
Because you said that past can't be changed, but technically my present isn't past.
So ability to know about things before they happen and react to them would be pretty sweet.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Well, I'd go backwards, but then I'd get burned as a witch or something probably.

So I guess forward, so I can watch the next episode of Doctor Who.

Then again, going backwards, I might be able to watch all the early episodes I couldn't find online...

 

[Remus]

Sideways absolutely. I'd like to see a world where Al Gore won the Presidency and where I might not have certain dysfunctions that caused my life to take drastic turns I still cope with years afterward. One side effect is I would be left handed so seeing myself using a computer would look just weird.

 

[zumbledum]

Forwards for me . leap forward a week memorize some lottery results and pop back , then do some hard partying and casual time exploring wouldnt ever go too far ahead in one go and always from the comfort of my own ark err underground bunker. dont want to pop in during the zombie apocalypse without prep!

sideways seems a bit double redundant to me , i mean if its an infinite multiverse then you know what happened to you, everything! plus i think the entire theory is a pile of shash on account of their being nothing that is random anyway so the number of realities in the infinite multiverse is one , this one.

 

[Arakasi]

If you can't 'change anything' when you go backwards, then you can't go back, because your presence alone could change things, butterfly effect and all.
If you make an exception in that case, where do you draw the line? Can I work somewhere? Can I buy food? Can I bet on things I know the outcome of?

I'd go back to the 90's, but only so I could change things, betting on things I know the outcome of and such.