Backwards or forwards?

[Lestat]

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I think you guys are all nuts. I'd travel back maybe 15 years tops and be one of the wealthiest guys on the planet by today. I wouldn't want to be "the" wealthiest.

I'd also try to save millions of lives if possible (although people would probably think I'm loony).

I think many of you are underestimating just how valuable it would be to go back even 2 years.

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Nuts? Only if money was the lead driver. I was thinking more in terms of interesting and useful. Agree if money was the driver a short time would safe and easy.

greedy b.. , luckyme

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Money AND security.... I would think it very risky to just pop into existence 3000 years from now. I wouldn't be at all confident there'd even be a planet left.

Going too far back doesn't appeal to me either for reasons already stated. So I guess if you're a big risk taker, the future would be better. I just don't have alot of confidence in the future.

[KeysrSoze]

3000 forward. I suspect 75 years from now is not going to be pleasant at the start of the post-oil-based economy. 75 years ago, nah I needs my inter-pipes. 1000 BC sucked, goes without saying.

[vhawk01]

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I think you guys are all nuts. I'd travel back maybe 15 years tops and be one of the wealthiest guys on the planet by today. I wouldn't want to be "the" wealthiest.

I'd also try to save millions of lives if possible (although people would probably think I'm loony).

I think many of you are underestimating just how valuable it would be to go back even 2 years.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nuts? Only if money was the lead driver. I was thinking more in terms of interesting and useful. Agree if money was the driver a short time would safe and easy.

greedy b.. , luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

Money AND security.... I would think it very risky to just pop into existence 3000 years from now. I wouldn't be at all confident there'd even be a planet left.

Going too far back doesn't appeal to me either for reasons already stated. So I guess if you're a big risk taker, the future would be better. I just don't have alot of confidence in the future.

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Yeah, 3000 years in the future is definitely the high-variance play. Going a couple years into the past, you could pretty much predict exactly how the rest of your life was going to play out. You'd be rich and famous and dangerous, and there would be pretty big risks associated with that, but nothing compared to going 3000 years into the future. But think of the benefits! I think I could get more joy and fulfillment out of a week in 5007 than a lifetime in 1932.

I suppose I also assign a fairly high probability to there being human life on Earth in 3,000 years, and a slightly lower but still fairly high probability to it being more advanced that at present.

[CORed]

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I would think it very risky to just pop into existence 3000 years from now. I wouldn't be at all confident there'd even be a planet left.

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There will most likely be a planet. Whether it will be capable of sustaining human life is the question.

[Phil153]

Really tough choice. I'm torn between going forward 100 or so years (fairly safe, somewhat familiar) and the full 3000. I think curiosity would take me forward 3000 years. It's be frightening but I'd find knowing the future irresistible.

I'd go to a remote part of the US, just in case it wasn't safe, taking ample supplies. From there I could scope out civilization or its ruins (assuming the world isn't covered in microscopic cameras or grey ooze or radioactivity or life sensing technology by then).

[andyfox]

Backwards thirty years. Make a fortune.

[Thug Bubbles]

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Backwards thirty years. Make a fortune.

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if that's the case, you can simply go back a few years and pump all your money into Google/Amazon/et al.

[Yobz]

You guys need to learn to read. Between 75 and 3000 years. If 30 years was an option, getting stinking rich in the recent past seems good, but going back to 1932 and being dead by the time the internet is in full swing won't even allow me to post in this thread: lame.

I would go the full 3000 into the future. Probably be a minor celeb or the only human. Worth the risk.

[housenuts]

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Backwards thirty years. Make a fortune.

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if that's the case, you can simply go back a few years and pump all your money into Google/Amazon/et al.

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i think there'd be many other oppurtunities to make a fortune as well. and i'd want to go somewhere more exciting than the 70's.

Nintendo Wii has a free piece of software you can download called Everybody Votes, and every 2 days a question is posed, and you have to answer it, and also predict what you think the majority of people will answer.

The other day it was?

If you had a time machine where would you go?
To the Future
To the Past

Future won 57.9% to 42.1%
You can break down the stats even more by region and such.

Venezuela had the largest proportion of people who chose future, whereas Panama, followed by Greece, had the largest for past, but it still looks about 52-48 on that one.


59.3% of males chose future
54.5% of females chose future

72.0% of people correctly predicted that the masses would choose future.

Just an interesting aside. I wish it told you how many people voted.

[tame_deuces]

Well, if the only people you ask is Nintendo Wii owners, the sample is probably pretty biased for people relatively up to date on the technology, so I'll venture a guess and say you'd most likely have a strong future bias.