Would you travel to the future?

The future is uncertain, but not much more than the past. If I were granted use of a dangerous time machine, would I use it to take a quick look at the future?

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Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.

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[andyb]

Title question: "Would you travel to the future?"

Off-the-cuff answer: "Well I don't have much choice, now have I?"

[iggatron]

In the original Matrix script humans were used by the machines for computation processing power. The studio decided the average viewer wouldn't understand that premise so they went with batteries instead.

[ardanblade]

Lloyd for Dr. Who!
Make the Doctor beige!

[LuxisAlukard]

3:20 Lloyd: "1 in 20 chance? Yeah..."
DM: "You rolled 1 - critical failure!"

[lokai]

Yes! I have an incurable degenerative nerve disease that is slowly killing me. Yes, I would take the risk... but I know what's ahead of me and it is not pretty.

[Sinebeast]

I'm already travelling to the future, one day at a time, and it's 100% fatal.
And to answer the question. No, I don't play those kind of odds.

[keaganwheeler-mccann]

I'm glad you still make this series. I've been watching this since I was a teenager.

[NRDM]

I feel like there is a scifi short story here: You go for 1 year duration into the future with a 50% chance of death on going. Only to find once you get to the future and you looked yourself up, you find you were on the 50% side that didn't make. You now have 1 year left in the future before your impending demise on the return to the past.

[pauls.]

One of the many often overlooked problems with time travel, is the problem of language and disease. Travel back or forward in time for a hundred years and you will start having difficulty understand people and making your self understood because language changes so much. 200 years and it will be hard to communicate. It would take a few months just to talk properly. 500 years and it is basically like learning a new language.
And then disease: Travel 100 years in the past and your super germs may kill everybody. You will cause a pandemic. Travel back to 2018 and start Corona a year early!
And if you travel 100 years into the future, you are now the one in trouble as the new enhanced germs will just defeat your immune system. A travel to the future might start with a long period of sickness (if you survive) while your immune system gets used to the new environment.

[richardnixon]

One US powerball lottery is all you would need to memorize. Living trust down the line for both sides of the family. The Lindys and The Beiges.

[ewokk]

50 percent of death is not so bad for someone on death row.
For penniless pauper on the street... still risky, but getting that multimillion lottery numbers from next week is looking tempting.
For anyone with job, roof over head and hot meal... NO WAY DUDE.

[toshikotanaka]

I'd love to spend time with Mr. Lloyd just for the conversations. I enjoy conversations where I'm required to consider viewpoints/scenarios alien to me.
The people in my friends/family circle severely lack the ability to hold meaningful conversations which is why I look for groups online.
There isn't much you can do with people who's response is usually "Don't know, never thought about it". Just the other day I met friends for drinks and I said to the group "What are your views on Capital Punishment?" What I received was "Don't know, never thought about it". I honestly believe that conversation is a dying art.

[andrewmartin]

I seen to recall hearing that The Matrix was originally written against a different premise, the humans were donating brain capacity for some kind of distributed computing, but the writers decided that "batteries" would go over a bit easier with the audience.

[strongandco]

The problem is, if you're the only one or thing traveling into the future it will be a bit dark and empty. It would be better traveling back to the past wearing your suit of armour...imagine all the fun you could have when you return trolling the historians saying things like _"I've come from the past and that never happened, he said what?, William of Malmesbury, that old prankster, you don't belive a word of what he says do you? He spent all day in the tavern high on mushrooms, drinking mead and writing absolute nonsense"_ 😆

[jeffreybarton]

I'm more interested in going back in time. A short list of the hundreds of things I'd want to see would be...
The Crucification of Christ.
The Tunguska event (from a safe area!).
The building of the Pyramids.
Roswell at the crash event.
Find out how many shooters at the JFK assassination.
The list could go on and on....

[aukword]

My dear Sir! We are ALL travelling into the future ALL the time!

[bmyers]

I vaguely remember a short story read in Uni, about a time traveler going into the future to see how his newborn granddaughter was doing.
He visited his family farm 30 years later, in rural Norway (?).
It was in shambles.
Then the wolves attacked.
I can’t remember if he survived, or not.

[dimitriospolymeros]

The question should be "1 per cent risk for every ten years you go forward" or something. The further you go, the bigger the risk.

[edspace.]

Personally I'm not sure I'd have added a risk of death stipulation as it makes it too easy to answer "no" just out of concern over mortality so it doesn't say as much about the question of wanting to see how things turn out as you might wish, in philosophy there is a simpler version of this "Would you want to visit your own grave? and if so what would you do once you were there?"

[janerkenbrack]

We are all travelling into the future. That's the way time works.