Research at Cern being delayed by (at least) 10 years, an entire civil war in the US being delayed by (at least) 5 years, four Olympics proceeding normally instead of being cancelled, and so on, seem like a huge amount of change in an extremely short time caused by one person traveling 36 years to the past and doing nothing of much importance.
i think he did rather significant things, like telling us about the civil war. telling us about our future should have a big effect on the future. maybe he prevented the whole thing by telling us about that. but even if he hadn't done anything significant, it would significantly manipulate the randomness of the world. at least the plane crashed into WTC 2001 (soon after john titor left), which lead to war, and maybe to WW3 soon.
it's interesting that other insane people have made very similar prophecies, for example billy meier who says WW3 will happen within a few years unless humanity changes. he also talks about the civil war and that U.S will divide into five territories, just like john titor said. despite billy meier's UFOs that look very fake, he seems to have correctly predicted many things like the WTC crash: "The destruction of the WTC, i.e., the World Trade Center, by terrorists will only be the beginning." http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/meier/esp_meier02.htm
this is somewhat off topic though.
it's interesting that other insane people have made very similar prophecies, for example billy meier who says WW3 will happen within a few years unless humanity changes.
He seems to have a rather poor track record on that prediction, having predicted it to happen in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011. Still hasn't happened. I suppose he (and others) will keep pushing the date until it happens (if it happens) and then they will say: "See? I predicted this!" (If the prediction mentions an exact day, they will find some kind of argument why it really started that day.)
Predicting a "World War 3" is a rather easy "prediction" to make. After all, political tension is raising everywhere, fueled by the economic crisis, climate change (which is probably only going to get worse and worse), massive religious extremism and expansionism (which may well escalate to violent proportions in the future), and so on. It's not completely unlikely that all these things together might cause some large-scale conflicts in the future. One doesn't need supernatural powers, time travel or extraterrestrials to understand this.
What is more difficult is guessing when it might happen, and that's where all those nutjobs are failing badly. Well, they can keep pushing the date, and some day they might be "right".
He seems to have a rather poor track record on that prediction, having predicted it to happen in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011. Still hasn't happened. I suppose he (and others) will keep pushing the date until it happens (if it happens)
it's a prophecy, so it's supposed to be possible to change it, which is why he gave the warning, so that it possibly wouldn't happen. he's actually trying to make so that the prediction doesn't come true. of course, these prophecies wouldn't be surprising if he made them today, but they were prophesied decades ago. obviously it's very hard to predict the date of a human caused event (free will), because giving a date makes makes people think about that date and thus the future changes. things that don't have free will like asteroids in space can be predicted more easily
interestingly though, he (or rather the aliens he met) has made a lot of very specific predictions, or facts (that weren't known by that time), or specific events (like the WTC), which you can see on the link i posted.
they also say "Pope John Paul II is the third from last in this position. After him, only one additional pontificate will follow. Then a Pontifex Maximus follows who will be known as Petrus Romanus. Under his religious rule, the end of the Catholic Church will come, a total collapse becoming inevitable. That will be the beginning of the worst catastrophe that will ever have befallen the human beings and the Earth.". this is also quite specific. it's gonna be interesting to see if it comes true.
tl;dr we're all gonna die
it's a prophecy, so it's supposed to be possible to change it, which is why he gave the warning, so that it possibly wouldn't happen. he's actually trying to make so that the prediction doesn't come true. of course, these prophecies wouldn't be surprising if he made them today, but they were prophesied decades ago. obviously it's very hard to predict the date of a human caused event (free will), because giving a date makes makes people think about that date and thus the future changes. things that don't have free will like asteroids in space can be predicted more easily
What a convenient excuse. Anybody can predict anything, and if it doesn't happen, it's not because the prediction was incorrect, but because making the prediction changed the future.
I predict that you will win the lottery this year. If it doesn't happen, it's because I told you so, which changed the future. You will now think and act differently, causing things to change. (And if you do win the lottery this year, then hey, I'm a prophet and I can see the future!)
Bah, I forgot to check who I'm responding to, and got lured once again into throwing logic at a troll. Useless.
Joined: 2/20/2010
Posts: 209
Location: I'm in space
Concerning the ongoing side-issue of time travel, my own personal (totally ignorant) belief is that it's impossible to go backward in time unless you're able to pop a new universe into existence having exactly the same initial conditions as this one, fast-forward it to the point you want to travel "back" to, and resume from there. This is, of course, completely ridiculous, but I like thinking about it. =)
Anyway, on the matter of TAS + real life, I think it totally SEEMS like a great superpower to have, but is it really? In particular, the ability to load a save state sounds very appealing to me, because then I could just go back and save a friend of mine who, a couple weeks ago, was simply standing on someone's lawn when a drunk driver went off the road and killed him. That said, I think what I'd discover very quickly is that I can't just save one person here and there without feeling guilty about not saving everyone else. Every time I'd read an article about a similar incident - no matter how far away - I would probably feel like I have to load a save state and save that person, too (or live with the regret of not doing it), and in the end I'd have accomplished nothing of substance in my own life, using my non-super talents.
Thus, my opinion is that having such superpowers would prove to be more of a curse than a blessing.
Oh, play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
I think there are "better" things than saving one person's life. I know, you would want to save some lives that are close to you, but in the end it would be better to do bigger things that have a wider impact on everyone on the planet.
Nismo: as Upthorn noted, how do you know when things have gone less than perfectly? How far into the future do you allow the simulation to run before you decide "No, that wasn't desirable, I'm going back and changing it"? It's very easy to decide that something was a bad idea just because the short-term consequences were unpleasant, even if the long-term consequences are good.
I mean, think what your average five-year-old would do with this kind of power. Come back to him after he's a teenager, having grown up being able to retract any "mistakes". Is he going to be a better human being?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
Can anyone offer some insight on passing through solid objects? Given the nature of the site and this thread, I ended up thinking about how it can work in games (since a game updates a player's coordinates discretely rather than continuously, a high enough velocity lets you pass through walls and stuff, a la BLJs in Mario 64, etc.), which led me to wonder if something similar could be attempted in real life.
I really know next to nothing about physics, but quickly reading about Planck time and the speed of light makes it obvious that there is no real life analog of this phenomenon (i.e. Planck time units are like frames, but since the speed of light itself helps define Planck time and meeting or exceeding the speed of light is not possible / probable / whatever, the whole idea doesn't work).
On a different vein of thought, if my knowledge isn't too horribly flawed, I recall learning that there is (can be?) quite a bit of space between the atoms of an object. So could two objects, sufficiently (if improbably) aligned, pass through each other provided no atoms in either object touched each other? Or is this just ridiculous?
ElectroSpecter: I don't have the quantum mechanics knowledge required to thoroughly answer your question, but in college, we had a running joke that anyone who could quantum tunnel into the vending machine storeroom would get a free soda. The recommended technique was to strip naked, put on some rollerskates, and then skate as fast as possible right at the wall.
What I'm trying to say is, the phrase you want to look at is "quantum tunneling".
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I suggest writing a bot. Not only is the required luck enormous, the bot will also eliminate the requirement to remain conscious after hitting the wall to press rewind.
A few days ago when I was thinking about TASing I realized that a TASer is essentially a time-traveller, or someone who has control of time. Almost all the tools we use has to do with controlling time:
1. Slow motion and frame advance (slowing down time)
2. Loading and saving states (travelling to the past and back to the future)
3. Pause (stop time)
4. Save slots (different timelines)
5. Fast forward (speeding up time)
6. Memory address (variables in the past or present)
So, to get TAS tools to reality, we would have to be able to control time. At least we have one TAS tool in real life already: video cameras which can capture videos from reality. However, if reality works like games (fiction), then everything happens in memory/time (as far as I know), so to record reality, it wouldn't be enough to be able record the memories that our eyes record, but also permanent memories which have been saved in our minds eye.
In 1933, Tesla theorized about a device that could photograph thoughts. "In 1893, while engaged in certain investigations, I became convinced that a definite image formed in thought, must by reflex action, produce a corresponding image on the retina, which might be read by a suitable apparatus. This brought me to my system of television which I announced at that time..."
Just like when I'm on the computer, when I dream, I've sometimes taken snapshots or videos of beautiful things I see, only to realize that I have no way to transfer the files to this world, except through painting them, which is a very slow process. If we could record dreams (thoughts), we could make TASes of something that at least very much resembles real life.
ElectroSpecter wrote:
Can anyone offer some insight on passing through solid objects?
Jesus and some other savior guy in Greece walked through solid doors a few times, so maybe they were TASers. Maybe that's how he knew the future and lived a perfect life. He knew the future and people's thoughts because he had saved a state, done stuff and gone back later.
Jesus already knew everything, so he wouldn't have to use a savestate. People already have theorized that he used quantum tunneling to walk through walls, though.
Also, if you could have TASing tools, how long would your life be? Think about how long it takes to make a TAS then how long it is in the end.
I think there are very few (if any) "programming errors" in real life. It is designed very well, and anything you could do would probably be things you are supposed to do.
Edit: Also, if people who manipulate time are TASers, then Dr. Who is definitly one.
On a different vein of thought, if my knowledge isn't too horribly flawed, I recall learning that there is (can be?) quite a bit of space between the atoms of an object. So could two objects, sufficiently (if improbably) aligned, pass through each other provided no atoms in either object touched each other? Or is this just ridiculous?
From memory, I recall the space in between protons, neutrons and electrons to be (relatively speaking) enormous. Which makes it actually rather improbable for any two particles to touch at all. I think it's the electro-magnetic fields of the particles repelling each other that prevents you from walking through stuff.
What's about "Use deaths to save time"? Could theoretically work on something like a formula1 race.
Yeah, I guess if you use a shortcut that kills you, but your car crosses the finish line first and in one piece. I wouldn't want to try that though. (Why would you use death to save time if you're the one who dies?)
I think what I would do is TAS the process of TASing, and astonish everyone by submitting a bunch of optimized, complete GameCube game TASes the very next day.
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 1690
Location: RU · ID · AM
funnyhair wrote:
I would save state right before talking to a girl. If i say something stupid, I would load state and say something else.
*fix if she considers what you said to be stupid
Btw, the reality is not discrete, there is no frames and no limit for speed other than physics %)
How about to write scripts for various routines? :)
Or score attack… Collect as much money as possible, lol
Or even to make “100% kills” life
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
I do, so now you know at least one person.
One thing I'd do with IRL TAS tools would be to prevent the need for these bills by helping the government catch the pirates before the issue became so large in the first place.
Also, the whole USA isn't to blame for that. No one I know wanted those stupid bills to pass.
Democracy: When a small elite group of people pass laws that the majority of citizens oppose, while still pretending to represent these people. And the citizens keep voting for this small elite group year after year.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
WST wrote:
Or even to make “100% kills” life
Haha, would that have to include yourself? How about all living things? Plants? Bacteria? Viruses? Stuff on other planets? There might be some speed / entertainment tradeoffs.
