If time travel were possible, would it be illegal?

1. 66

   Ashleignposted 11 years ago

   If time travel were possible, would it be illegal?
   
   Would countries, sanction or possibly ban the use of time travel?
   
   Would they just tax it?
   
   The implications of being able to change something in the past could be economically destructive.

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2. 39

   Borsiaposted 11 years ago

   Of course time travel, if it were possible, would run into the butterfly affect in which anything that changes the past, even minutely, would alter the future and very likely the advent of time travel. The person doing the time travel might not exist with a different past as well.
   Perhaps travel into the future would be possible, but then returning to the present would create a different future so whatever they saw or did most likely would never happen rendering the future nothing more than fiction.
   So what was gained / lost?

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3. 75

   ParadigmEnactedposted 11 years ago

   Time Travel is possible. It's been proven. The fundamental components and mechanics of the physical universe allow for it, we just haven't yet developed the skill set to do it.
   
   Of course major ethical questions would be appropriate for something so monumental. Especially when humans couldn't even smoothly adapt to things like the Industrial Revolution and the Internet. Imagine time travel. Advancement is always stymied by the primitive human mindset. That's why, morally speaking, I'm almost always opposed to technological advancement. People go nuts.
   
   You can't over-simplify the political process which would accompany such a breakthrough, if there even was a political process. More likely something like that would totally undermine current political systems.

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   1. 66

      Ashleignposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      So would it be made illegal?

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   2. 75

      ParadigmEnactedposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      My guess is that society wouldn't be able to contain it's influence on the people or maintain the framework to even entertain legislation over it. Societies being ill-adjusted to cultural and technological developments is why they all disappear.

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   3. 39

      Borsiaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Time travel might easily make them disappear or at least be radically different. If someone were to go into the past.
      While time travel is a great theory until someone actually does it theory is all it is.

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4. 0

   Larry Wallposted 11 years ago

   No one answer a question for which there are not enough facts to reach a conclusion.
   
   With time travel you accept the idea that the past is happening as we speak as well as the future. I am not sure that is an accurate statement.
   
   To venture a guess, if time travel was possible, it would probably be illegal, because you would be able to change the outcome of events ranging from shooting and land purchases, and from patent awards to untimely death of some brilliant people.
   
   Travel to the future would be illegal, because if the future is change it would ripple back through time, in order to keep everything in place.
   
   So the short answer is probably yes, it would be illegal.

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   1. 61

      dianetrotterposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Larry, I can imagine a vicious cycle.  Someone goes back to the past to try to change things.  Then someone else doesn't like that and goes back to change things.  If it is possible, it should be illegal.

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   2. 39

      Borsiaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If someone changed something in the past none of us, and most likely time travel wouldn't exist. It only takes the tiniest change to alter the future. Standing in a line to buy bread would change who was born and who wasn't, the butterfly affect.

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   3. 66

      Ashleignposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If you change something in the past, it is what happened. The reason you don't remember changing it, is because you haven't changed it yet.

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   4. 39

      Borsiaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Ash; if you change anything in the past there would be a completely different future, one that probably wouldn't include you or I. I also might not include the one who went back to change it so if they returned it would be to a different future.

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5. 63

   mintinfoposted 11 years ago

   Time travel is not possible but if it were governments would confiscate the technology right off the bat. They do not want social chaos in the least way.

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6. 59

   Jarvis Millerposted 7 years ago

   Yes, it would be illegal. Because to many people wanna be rich and powerful knowing what they know now. Trying to save love ones from certain things they died from.

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