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FrenchieFanatic t1_j0wbuvn wrote

I love this, thank you for sharing!

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stormearthfire t1_j0xx2h8 wrote

ok who should I kill today? ... Decisions decisions

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funknut t1_j0y4mkp wrote

I mean, the choice seems obvious to me, and I'm guessing most people as well, as we all are probably thinking about the exact same person.

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nadrjones t1_j0ycp8l wrote

I believe the answer is a butterfly. But which butterfly?

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HydrA- t1_j0y5av4 wrote

The President of the United States of Russia

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Polarpunk99 t1_j10240m wrote

Make sure to kill That guy, but whatever you do don't kill that guy

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albertowtf t1_j0ykl8r wrote

Since that is hard to guess at the baby stage, maybe you can encourage some young painter instead

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robchnz t1_j0wgidy wrote

The difference is that we’re radically changing the future with our actions we just have no reference for that.

However if I went to the past and changed my future, if I ever came back I might never be able to reintegrate into my new life.

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NavezganeChrome t1_j0xsf64 wrote

I mean, if you changed your future intentionally, it stands to reason that you would have felt comfortable that any adjustment would be better than what you have.

And besides that, there’s no particular reason the ‘you’ that went back would exist in the same capacity to comprehend that a change took place at all. Short of the change having so little impact that you wind up in the same position trying to change it, anyway.

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Queen_Kakapo t1_j0yiluc wrote

if I went back in time and coerced myself into med school I kinda doubt the trip back would fill my head with 6 years of school and 15 years of doctor experience.

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NavezganeChrome t1_j0yowq1 wrote

Well, no, but at this point we get into what brand of shenanigans is taking place, which can probably parsed in r/timetravel. As far as r/GetMotivated is concerned, I think, the point is that if worrying is the only thing preventing a person from going back to change the future based on “what if I change too much,” that logic should be applied to the present for the sake of driving that same change intentionally, with a solid idea of a goal instead of a mystery box. . . . . .

Buuut if we want to get into the weeds immediately, I’ll comply; I don’t personally know of any proposed theories on time travel that would allow what you say wouldn’t happen, but it’s probably worth needling at. What I was meaning is that the ‘you’ that went back (u1) would either cease being (with the ‘you’ you convinced to do the hard work, u2, provided a solid impression someone else convinced them to do med school, and following through to the best of your ability) or nothing would change for u1, as what you’ve done is initiate a ‘potential’ future that u2 is now the driver for instead of fully retconning what you yourself did. Or your consciousness blends into a present version of u2, with no impression of what you went through as u1 to drive you to time travel (and so, no reason to need to do it, which doesn’t actually necessarily do a paradox).

Of course, u1 could also do things the long way and manually study for however long you feel appropriate to soak in the knowledge you seek, though at that point you’re less time traveling and more fully time displaced. But, again, something more appropriate for r/timetravel I imagine.

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Tweeza817 t1_j0zbr9m wrote

Watch the show Undone. A lot of this gets explained. Also, it's a cool show in general.

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RobtheNavigator t1_j0yqm1y wrote

Why do you doubt that? If you went back in time, and made the changes in the past that led to you having gone to med school, it would either create a new timeline, the version of you that went back in time wouldn’t exist, you would somehow destroy reality, or if there is some kind of persistent self across changes in time you would then have the knowledge. Even theoretically there’s no theory of time travel where you could go back in time, cause yourself to gain knowledge, go forward in time, and not have that knowledge.

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DonaldJDarko t1_j10usx0 wrote

> I mean, if you changed your future intentionally, it stands to reason that you would have felt comfortable that any adjustment would be better than what you have.

The problem is that you don’t know how things work out, because any small change can lead to large unintended consequences.

Say you always wanted to be a doctor, but a troubled home life made you choose the fastest path out of your house, so you ended up in some dead end desk job adjacent to the medical field, but nothing like how you imagined.

So you decide to go back in time, and through whatever method, convince your younger self to fight for your dream job and do whatever it takes to go to med school, because it has to be better than the life you have now.

So you go back to “your” present, only to find out that present you failed out of med school because you buckled under the pressure and became an alcoholic, just like your dad. So now not only are you stuck working some dead end job, you’re an alcoholic to boot.

I know this is just an example, and it’s easy to say “yeah, but that’s just one very unlikely case.” But the point is people don’t know what bad consequences might come with your changes. People only ever focus on the good.

Another example is, you go back in time because you decided to take that job in a nearby country/state that you turned down all those years ago. Present you: You’re happy with your job, you met a partner and had some kids, life’s great. Except for the fact that 3 years after you moved there your parents died in a car accident on their way to see you. If you hadn’t changed history to make it so you moved there, they wouldn’t have needed to make that drive, and they wouldn’t have been at that exact place at that exact time, and they would have been fine.

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NavezganeChrome t1_j10x75x wrote

The TL;DR of the following: Please check the other reply.

I went over that. If you went in with the intent to change the future, you’ve committed to changing it. There’s literally no purpose to what-iffing the after effects, as (a) if it drives you to utilize time travel to prevent that, you’re still doing something vs (b) the same risk is inherent in the initial timeline (something vaguely connected to your choice ruined or ended a life that wasn’t your own).

If it works, depending on the time travel involved, you are unlikely to know either way. If you spawned a timeline where you’ve caused a possibility, the ‘you’ that went back isn’t a part of it, because that ‘you’ didn’t experience it. Alternately, if the ‘you’ that went back gets fully overwritten by the new experience, you have no idea any time travel happened and are living your (changed) life as normal. Third-string, if ‘you’ get merged with your new life, whoopie, you probably have an idea how to keep changing the past as you want.

Whatever the case , the r/GetMotivated point comes down to “if you have time to worry about a hypothetical, you have time to shape the future to your will in the present.” Anything further concerning time travel is better left to r/timetravel .

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LambKyle t1_j0zo9mq wrote

You can't come back. If time travel was possible it would be another universe or something. If you changed the past, you'd either go back to a unaltered future, or going to an alternate future where you either don't exist, or there is a seperate version of you already there.

I mean.. The only reason people feel like they could make drastic changes to the past is because we know exactly how it plays out and what to change. We have jo idea how it plays or or what to change in the present to affect the future

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Noyaiba t1_j0wg8mp wrote

Yeah I mean we are clearly in someone's fucked up time paradox.

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Noyaiba t1_j0wgb4g wrote

Time Paradox: The Slow Journey

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Fl333r t1_j0xun8b wrote

Cause and effect is completely incompatible with free will.

The Scandavians had it right. The Norns spin our thread. FATE IS INEXORABLE.

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Inside-Example-7010 t1_j0yjfvk wrote

If determinism isn't the case and free will exists then your brain is essentially a 5d portal generator, where every decision it makes moves it to a different possible 4d space time.

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Fl333r t1_j100aw4 wrote

Although that sounds fuckin dope, most of the time it doesn't generate any portal except a portal to work and back

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albertowtf t1_j0ykrdo wrote

Some motherfucker traveled back to my time line and fucked it up!

It could be any one of us. It couldn even be me!

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MasterJeebus t1_j0xbzdx wrote

Big things have small beginnings. You just need to start doing small things now.

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anAncientGh0st t1_j0xofpl wrote

This is nice

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Pseudoburbia t1_j0xxk5v wrote

this is also what the guy said in Alien Covenant when infecting the sleeping crew with Xenomorphs.

I like the sentiment I just get the Fassbender creeps when i hear it.

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The_Power_Of_Three t1_j0xkfpv wrote

Well, that's because we have an investment in a particular present, but not a particular future. So what is considered a "massive" change to the present would not be an inconsequential change to the future.

If you went back 2000 years, the tiniest actions could have massive consequences. You could end up delaying someone by 5 minutes, and as such they get home 5 minutes late, and when they have a romantic encounter with their partner, a different sperm ends up fertilizing the egg, so a different child is born, and that person is likely an ancestor of ~20% of all people alive today, so even if nothing else changes, the entire world is now filled with different people. Each of those people will have done slightly different things, meaning they have similar effects on other conception events, and now nobody who exists in your history books exists any more. The world you came from is gone, and all it took was a 5 minute delay.

But, we don't relish the power of minor inconveniencing others, because from our perspective, while a 5 minute delay might have the same level of effect 2000 years from now, no particular future is seen as the "current" one that must be preserved at all costs. And we can't necessarily influence the future in a way we want, or even in a way that hold any meaning to us.

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brickmaster32000 t1_j0zqqd5 wrote

The other important bit to this is the changes are largely out of your control and unpredictable. It is the same logic that leads people to feel hopeless in the present. Sure small things you do now will undoubtedly change things in the future but not in any ways that you would want.

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Exciting-Money3819 t1_j0wo285 wrote

Wow. That’s low-key powerful.

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IDoThingsOnWhims t1_j0y5l7d wrote

It is... It just ignores the fact that if you compare the two people, the time traveler has the superpower of absolute knowledge of the future and the other person is faced with taking action having no certainty of outcome, fears, doubts, etc...

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parthgupta1697 t1_j0wfudx wrote

I actually kind of like this one.

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the_skine t1_j0yr0kw wrote

Kind of feels like a deepity to me.

A deepity being a statement that's apparently profound, and while it's obviously true on a surface level, it's false or nonsensical on a meaningful level.

Like "love is a four letter word."

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Throwaway-tan t1_j0x0p7b wrote

This is dumb. Pinning the tail on the donkey is easy, but do it blindfolded and spin around a few times and see how much more difficult it is.

Also most people think about changing the future by going back in time and doing one of the following:

  1. Killing someone who did something bad
  2. Manipulating games of chance to make themselves rich

Neither of thesr are exactly recommended courses of action to take without the context of hindsight.

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action_lawyer_comics t1_j0x5veo wrote

Congratulations! You have successfully unraveled the metaphor. You may now return to your unexamined life and change nothing!

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starlight_chaser t1_j0x7gwm wrote

Most people are trapped in time loops of some sort, that feel repetitive and unchangeable. And many are like “what’s the point of doing this small thing or that small thing, it’s not going to do anything significant or matter.”

The hindsight part of this doesn’t matter. More the mindset that hey, maybe the tiny things you do WILL cause a change. It’s a possibility. Isn’t that better than living the same reality anyway, being too jaded to even see if something can give?

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NutellaSquirrel t1_j0yceu2 wrote

Seriously, people here seem to think the butterfly effect has something to do with effort, but it's nothing of the sort. It's about chaos which cannot be predicted.

Say I went for a jog one morning and wound up getting mugged. It went poorly, and I was shot and killed. My life ended, and that sent cause and effect ripples which affected other things in the world.

Now say instead I felt lazy that morning, so instead I went for a jog that afternoon. I was never at the same place and time as that mugger. I lived on never conceiving this other potential timeline, and I went on to do things which drastically affected the world in a different way.

Obviously this allegory is a bit hyperbolic, but you should get my point. The only thing I changed was the time of day I went for a jog, it had drastically different outcomes, and I would have had no foresight and therefore no real control over those outcomes. It just comes down to luck, causality, and chaos.

In order to harness the butterfly effect in the way /r/getmotivated would like you to, one would need to be supernaturally prescient, which is absurd.

I think the type of people who frequent this subreddit and find it helpful tend to believe they are much more in control of their lives than they really are, and suggesting otherwise is upsetting to them.

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rleslievideo t1_j0ygdpq wrote

Or is calling things dumb with a positive potential actually dumb?

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NauvooMetro t1_j0wi207 wrote

If I'm understanding you, you're saying I should kill every butterfly I see, right?

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mantasmark OP t1_j0wi6vg wrote

Save every butterfly instead 😉

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wisp759 t1_j0xphih wrote

You monster! Think of all the tornados.

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RelicBeckwelf t1_j0xlfcr wrote

This is from a recent Brandon Sanderson book. Word for word.

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greenwarr t1_j0y0h4e wrote

There are thousands of self help motivation books that say the same thing. E: no offense to Sanderson. He’s great. I’m still bitter about the end of TWoT. Not his fault tho.

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kai1998 t1_j0z4zo5 wrote

Which book is that, if you don't mind?

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RelicBeckwelf t1_j0z6rwn wrote

The lost metal

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kai1998 t1_j0z9g71 wrote

Thank you, fyi I believe he was probably indirectly and perhaps unconsciously inspired by a post I made a few years ago on showerthoughts which has been since reposted a thousand times lol.

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Snaggel t1_j0xjklm wrote

Future is unpredictable. Its the question of could be. No security in it so we let our anxiousness to take a grip over us.

Past was. It is presently known already. For the people living in the moment, what is known in the present is the way to go, both in terms of what is and what was instead of what could be and what will be.

There is no sense of security in future. Only hope and faith. But we must plant the seeds for hope and faith in order to preserve them and to make them occur even in the future, else they will expire without reproducing and that is a guaranteed outcome that could be spoken in a sense as though it has already happened.

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nryporter25 t1_j0wsg1t wrote

I have anxiety so I'm always thinking a small thing will radically change my future

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BrotherRoga t1_j0xoibu wrote

The difference is the past is set, the future isn't. You can't know the consequences of your small actions in the present going into the future, but you can know the consequences in the past going into the present.

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mudokin t1_j0xm4f9 wrote

It is easy to make a decision when you know the outcome. Most things that people want to change in the past are single moments that don't require any follow through. Would you really have changed if your older you came up to you in the past and said, man brush your teeth and eat healthy? Unlikely. But if your later self gave you winning lottery numbers or tells you to buy bit coin. The at something you would do, but you can't make these changes today because you don't know the outcome.

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darwin2500 t1_j0y69w0 wrote

Holy crap this is... not a good analogy.

Of course everything you do changes the future, that's causality. The point is you have no idea how anything you do will change the future, whether it will be good, bad, or irrelevant.

You don't want to randomly change your present by going back into the past because no matter whether you make it better or worse, any changes are likely to screw over you personally by making it likely you were never born so when you get back you no longer have family, friends, a job, etc. That's why we worry about it.

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Essexal t1_j0wr057 wrote

Just .1% a day.

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12kdaysinthefire t1_j0xcc4m wrote

That’s why there’s a saying that hindsight is 20/20.

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NorCalHermitage t1_j0xsfnk wrote

Any thinking person knows we are constantly changing the future with small acts, but since it's impossible to know what those changes are, there's no point in worrying about it.

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daddywarbucks1993 t1_j0xt0m4 wrote

The thing here is that we’d know exactly how to alter the past with the correct decision. Nobody can say for certainty what will positively change the future

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ScholarlyExiscrim t1_j0xzui4 wrote

Yeah. The modifications are supposed to be unpredictable throughout. You could create the next Mecha Hitler if you dedicate your life to helping others.

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JohnnyRelentless t1_j0y66fg wrote

These are two completely different things.

The concern of the time traveler is that he can't predict what the changes will be.

In the present, when we talk about changing the future, we're talking about having specific outcomes from our actions. That's a lot harder.

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MisterTrashPanda t1_j0xjwk8 wrote

I think this had more to do with the idea of the Butterfly Effect. Like if you went back in time and accidentally appeared in the middle of a road and the guy that swerved to miss you and dies was a future presidential candidate and the only guy that could beat candidate XXXX who then ends up winning and starting WW3, etc. I mean that's high and to the right as far as explanations go, but it makes my point.

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tbone912 t1_j0xkkbh wrote

This is just like compound interest. Drink 1 beer a day or run 1 mile a day?

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Hobo_Helper_hot t1_j0xoegq wrote

Remember kids, doing the smallest thing can have drastic and dire consequences, if anything bad happens it's probably because you washed the windows last month or something.

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xxGBZxx t1_j0xub15 wrote

Butterfly effects. It is like saying hi to someone in the past created World War 3. Don't compare it to start eating healthy, exercising.

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Hotpfix t1_j0xuy57 wrote

I can’t mourn the absence of a kid that never was, but I can certainly mourn a child that’s been erased from my life by my alterations to the past. That’s the difference between changing your present by traveling to the past and changing the future in the present.

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DazzlerOnline t1_j0xv3wd wrote

Thank u for sharing ❤️‍🔥

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deeeezzzzznuts t1_j0xz3gg wrote

It’s ok everyone I added entropy by making up a random sentence like cherry eating horse enters void gets enlightened turns to stardust and listens to nirvana held my breath and thought of the number 69

I wonder which timeline of the multiverse we’re on now

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Thorusss t1_j0y0mws wrote

Because the action appearing to be good is only obvious in hindsight.

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PaleAsDeath t1_j0y1d59 wrote

To be fair people don't think they cant achieve a specific, desired outcome by doing something small, and the butterfly effect doesn't contradict this. In time travel stories, the tiniest things could have led to huge outcomes, but those outcomes are unpredictable and sometimes very random.

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SirRipOliver t1_j0y2f4u wrote

I read this, and took an extra 3 minutes on the shitter, for no reason whatsoever. Also when I got up, stepped on a moth accidentally somehow…

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finger_milk t1_j0y3d9e wrote

Because life is brief and we should be living in the present. If you're looking to install changes to the future by planting the seed now, you're essentially gambling on the hope that your time now will be valued tenfold later.

The only reliable constant is what you do for yourself now. Maybe your future will benefit from your choices but that's not something for you to be concerned about. If you do things right right now then that's how you win.

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DeepFriedWine t1_j0y3gpo wrote

I just killed a butterfly and prevented Space Hitler.

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BRAINGLOVE t1_j0y3sw8 wrote

Appreciate this post 🙏

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Nacho_Beardre t1_j0y7e5d wrote

Knowing what you’d do then is probably easier than figuring out what to do now.

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pro_approximator t1_j0y7zl8 wrote

I find that is may be attributed to the case that when people go to the past they're very aware of the future they came from, but the same people in the present may not believe there is a future that they can alter.

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MetaStressed t1_j0y8ckx wrote

In either case, you don’t know how things would change.

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ImFedUpWithItAll t1_j0y8yis wrote

What a dumb statement.

Everyone IS trying to change the future by doing all sort of things, big and small. That's all we are actively doing when we go about our daily lives. Making decisions hoping we can influence our future, a lot of them conscious ones.

As for the time travel, obviously knowing how the present transpired you can think what you could have done differently, and try to change that.

For the future, noone is thinking "oh yeah, I'm doing things that will destroy me" and keeps doing them.

That pseudo philosophical statement is so bad.. So, so bad..

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JadaLovelace t1_j0ydu41 wrote

Imagine someone standing next to a baby crib and suddenly snapping the baby's neck.

You'd have to be sick to do that.

But we all wished someone in 1889's austria had done that.

Point being, the small change has to be done with proper knowledge. We don't know the future, so the analogy doesn't really hold.

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CaptCoulson t1_j143cy4 wrote

one of my favorite parts of the Deadpool 2 "extra cut" is the credits stinger where you see him in the Austrian maternity ward, wrestling with himself if he can actually kill a baby, even though he does know it lol "man, this is NOT as easy as I'd thought it'd be!!"

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wise_quoter t1_j0yfpzp wrote

This is because people are much more concerned about the past than about the present. And fear the future

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faysesouak t1_j0yiho2 wrote

I think that your changing the past stand plausible since you know what happened to you and which road you should take or mistakes to avoid, even if you do something now who says you won't think of going back and changing the very thing you did in the 'present'

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tenthjuror t1_j0yk00v wrote

Wear. Your. Retainer.

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piero_deckard t1_j0yk5ax wrote

The thing is that if I could travel to the past, the thing(s) I would do to change my future wouldn't be small at all, though.

I would give myself winning lottery ticket numbers, what to trade on the stock market, when to buy and when to cash out. Who to avoid in life, who to make sure I cherish more, etc.

I would do things that are small compared to the rest of history/the World, but I would give myself all the advantages I could think of.

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iikk_a t1_j0yl8hi wrote

My current relationship would have never happened if I had been even a few seconds late on 3 separate occasions

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spacedrace t1_j0ymnq7 wrote

My ocd gets the best of me thinking about this.

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kdoodlethug t1_j0yteoz wrote

But I think a big part of this is the lack of control vs losing a known and desired outcome. If you go back in time you don't know what your actions might change for "present" day you, so it is risky. If you act now, you have no idea what the future holds anyway, so you can never be sure what effect you truly had.

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VD_G t1_j0zuyoa wrote

This is the mindset!!!🌱 I needed this today🥹

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TheSaucyLlama t1_j0x12wm wrote

I feel like we should wait till new years I mean the holidays are coming up

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skekze t1_j0xc613 wrote

I'm trying, it just hasn't taken yet. It's no simple task redirecting reality.

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aikahiboy t1_j0xpusj wrote

Well most people try not to change much because if paradoxes are real then reality ain’t going to do so well

1

imnotsoho t1_j0xr1sg wrote

That is why butterflies are staying at home more these days. They don't want to start a hurricane.

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ballsandbayonets t1_j0xu9xe wrote

I avoid stepping on butterflies every day. You're welcome, future.

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yasqween92 t1_j0xvb69 wrote

"I wish I wish I hadn't killed that fish"

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Okinshekor t1_j0xzw9x wrote

Be the butterfly effect you wish to see in the world

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SolarDor t1_j0y3mkr wrote

It’s because we have to know what happens in the future in order to thwart it, now.

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Magikarpeles t1_j0yccnc wrote

They’re worried about eliminating their own existence…

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PM-ME-DEM-NUDES-GIRL t1_j0yhwn8 wrote

if you are here today and you will travel to the past in the future, and your destination in the past is before today, then the travel has already happened

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jrm2003 t1_j0yja7e wrote

That's literally all we do all the time. Its a disorder if you do it too much.

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dmigowski t1_j0ynppe wrote

If anyone knew how often I had to do minor adjustments in the past, so we are all still alive and not nuked, and not all eaten by that ugly microbe that was intended to revolutionize farming, it would blow your minds.

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kangareddit t1_j0yr6yh wrote

Ever since I first saw this quote, years ago, I think about it often.

Its made me notice small, seemingly mundane, occurrences more often and been able to perceive that they’re much more significant when I’ve considered their future impact.

1

Leifbron t1_j0yriw0 wrote

That's cause we realize these small things are big, so we don't do them.

1

ConfidenceKBM t1_j0yrjc5 wrote

Why do these screenshots always have to include some loser's shallow response to the post? Was there just no way for me to comprehend this motivation otherwise?

1

callmesleeze t1_j0yylku wrote

I always wondered what situation involves you needing to change something on a moral or ethical basis like power/responsibility. Like has anyone ever done research on what earth would look like without hitler.

1

Trips-Over-Tail t1_j0zmbmu wrote

Why kill Hitler in the past when you could kill future Hitler today?

1

RecoveringRagaholic t1_j0zzxgo wrote

But the guy from the future knows EXACTLY what small thing to do to change things

1

mck12001 t1_j102isg wrote

Knowledge is power. With no true knowledge of the future our power to predict changes are quite limited

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stargate-command t1_j102qqv wrote

Bit of a difference in that we can’t change the future, rather we help build the future.

If you’re building a tower of bricks, you don’t worry about changing a brick as you go if it’s broken. Not a big deal. But after the tower is built, removing a broken one might mean toppling the whole tower. And if people live in that tower now that it’s built, you better be concerned. But nobody yet lives in the tower we are currently building. Even if we do something to topple it, it only impacts the structure and not the people living in the structure (because no one lives there until we build it)

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Lord_Emperor t1_j10ba2m wrote

Someone just read The Lost Metal.

1

Volodux t1_j10l6tp wrote

How can I change my actions, if I don't know results of my current actions?

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TammyBraz t1_j1105tw wrote

Ooooo, never thought about it like this

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Zinkadoo t1_j112k8w wrote

Act for your future self

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hairysnowmonkey t1_j0wwa7m wrote

Ah yes all those times that people travel back in time to the past and all those times we consider our time travel. All those times. Because humans time travel.

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