Poll of the Day > Would you rather have the power to control people, or travel through time?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Explanation

Control people: Can directly/indirectly control the actions of others which include what they say or do. You don't need to know the person per se (like a stranger sitting next to you on the train) but you need to know they exist so you can't say some random name in a random town (coincidentally getting both right) and have them follow what you want

Time travel: Pretty self explanatory. Can know of future/past events. I'll throw in the fact that you can bring anything you want with you on both departure/return
---

Time travel, interacting with the people would be the funnest part, If I could control them I'm sure down the line I'd just become some kind of boring puppetmaster
---

Controlling people seems like the ultimate power.
---

TheSlinja posted...

Time travel, interacting with the people would be the funnest part, If I could control them I'm sure down the line I'd just become some kind of boring puppetmaster

You can change the world with that power, and nobody would know it's you (unless you told them) would be very far from boring

Peterass posted...

Controlling people seems like the ultimate power.

I think it is definitely. Time travel would just answer questions that I would never get answers to personally
---

Both would be great.

As a teacher, controlling people would make my life a breeze, and I could accumulate wealth by controlling rich people.

Time travel would be cool, but I don't want to fuck up the current timeline

green dragon posted...

Both would be great.

Yea even I had trouble picking one lol
---

You could pretty much use time travel to manipulate people anyway. It feels like manipulating people would be the more scummy power anyway.
---

The concept of time travel is way too destructive. You'd have to be a complete moron to consider it. Even doing seemingly harmless things in the past could produce the butterfly effect and drastically change the future and prevent the time traveler from even being born in the first place. Never mind the fact that people would use it to go to famous events and meet famous people, thus guaranteeing that some massive changes occur.

mastermix3000 posted...

You can change the world with that power, and nobody would know it's you (unless you told them) would be very far from boring

thats the problem with controlling the world, eventually you'll just be talking with yourself or people that have been molded to live in the world of your creation, the best part about people is that they can do things I couldnt think of, and a world where if someone did something I didnt like I could stop them would just devolve into a one man circle jerk I don't think I could resist making.
---

Smarkil posted...

You could pretty much use time travel to manipulate people anyway. It feels like manipulating people would be the more scummy power anyway.

Pretty much this. Knowing future events could make controlling people really easy

Currant_Kaiser posted...

The concept of time travel is way too destructive. You'd have to be a complete moron to consider it. Even doing seemingly harmless things in the past could produce the butterfly effect and drastically change the future and prevent the time traveler from even being born in the first place. Never mind the fact that people would use it to go to famous events and meet famous people, thus guaranteeing that some massive changes occur.

depends on whatever time travel theory we want to go with
real talk the legit first thing I thought to do with time travel is go back to the mid 2000s and play Duel Masters competitively
---

Currant_Kaiser posted...

The concept of time travel is way too destructive. You'd have to be a complete moron to consider it. Even doing seemingly harmless things in the past could produce the butterfly effect and drastically change the future and prevent the time traveler from even being born in the first place. Never mind the fact that people would use it to go to famous events and meet famous people, thus guaranteeing that some massive changes occur.

Honestly, I think the butterfly effect idea is pretty unrealistic. One person has relatively little effect on the grand scheme of anything especially if they aren't trying to drastically change things

OhhhJa posted...

Honestly, I think the butterfly effect idea is pretty unrealistic. One person has relatively little effect on the grand scheme of anything especially if they aren't trying to drastically change things

Hmmmmmmmmmm, I disagree with the bolded. Not saying the butterfly effect is "realistic" but it's definitely an interesting theory
---

Well, this is like the only point in history which is sorta semi okay for black people, so I won't be time travelling. I'll take mind control
---

EvilMegas posted...

Well, this is like the only point in history which is sorta semi okay for black people, so I won't be time travelling. I'll take mind control

FUCK
---

OhhhJa posted...

Currant_Kaiser posted...

The concept of time travel is way too destructive. You'd have to be a complete moron to consider it. Even doing seemingly harmless things in the past could produce the butterfly effect and drastically change the future and prevent the time traveler from even being born in the first place. Never mind the fact that people would use it to go to famous events and meet famous people, thus guaranteeing that some massive changes occur.

Honestly, I think the butterfly effect idea is pretty unrealistic. One person has relatively little effect on the grand scheme of anything especially if they aren't trying to drastically change things

If you go back far enough you're going to inevitably make some changes. Hold an ancient Greek man up from having sex with his wife for just a short while and BAM, different offspring, who would then go on to have his own offspring that would never have existed, and that continues on and on and you wind up putting new people into existence at the expense of those who had come into existence prior to your time travel shenanigans.

TheSlinja posted...

Currant_Kaiser posted...

The concept of time travel is way too destructive. You'd have to be a complete moron to consider it. Even doing seemingly harmless things in the past could produce the butterfly effect and drastically change the future and prevent the time traveler from even being born in the first place. Never mind the fact that people would use it to go to famous events and meet famous people, thus guaranteeing that some massive changes occur.

depends on whatever time travel theory we want to go with
real talk the legit first thing I thought to do with time travel is go back to the mid 2000s and play Duel Masters competitively

Dude, you can't do that! If you do that then Russia might have nuked the U.S. in 2010!
---

Just want to go back nine months. That's all. I'd do anything for that, then I'd never use the power again.
---

Currant_Kaiser posted...

If you go back far enough you're going to inevitably make some changes. Hold an ancient Greek man up from having sex with his wife for just a short while and BAM, different offspring, who would then go on to have his own offspring that would never have existed, and that continues on and on and you wind up putting new people into existence at the expense of those who had come into existence prior to your time travel shenanigans.

Not to sound crazy, but isn't it possible the universe you "alter" where you create all these "different people" already exists?
---

Dirtcruncher posted...

Just want to go back nine months. That's all. I'd do anything for that, then I'd never use the power again.

Obligatory what happened nine months ago post
---

While usually I'd be inclined to say control since it's arguably the stronger power, I might actually want time travel to move *forward* to a time with incredible medical technology that can keep a person alive forever. Granted, without the ability to move through *space* as well as time (TARDIS stuff), the application may have issues.

mastermix3000 posted...

Dirtcruncher posted...

Just want to go back nine months. That's all. I'd do anything for that, then I'd never use the power again.

Obligatory what happened nine months ago post

Probably got somebody preggers.
---

mastermix3000 posted...

Dirtcruncher posted...

Just want to go back nine months. That's all. I'd do anything for that, then I'd never use the power again.

Obligatory what happened nine months ago post

yeah I was fishing lol.

Lost an important friend, etc. January would be sufficient to save her. Think about time travel every day.
---

OhhhJa posted...

Currant_Kaiser posted...

The concept of time travel is way too destructive. You'd have to be a complete moron to consider it. Even doing seemingly harmless things in the past could produce the butterfly effect and drastically change the future and prevent the time traveler from even being born in the first place. Never mind the fact that people would use it to go to famous events and meet famous people, thus guaranteeing that some massive changes occur.

Honestly, I think the butterfly effect idea is pretty unrealistic. One person has relatively little effect on the grand scheme of anything especially if they aren't trying to drastically change things

It's the cumulative effect, though.

Say I go back in time and erase some nobody from history. But in his future, he was going to get into an argument in a bar and piss someone off, who in turn was going to drive home mad and hit someone in his car. In turn, that person was going to die, sending their wife into a depression. And so on, and so on, because every human is interconnected in some way (no matter how slight), and because our present is very much the sum total of all past experiences.

That much is almost indisputable. The REAL question becomes just how strong that chain of causality really is, and how likely it is to end up at something major and significant. To wit, by killing that nobody in the past, the chain of events eventually leads to the man who was eventually going to invent the cure for some major disease never being born, and millions die. At its most extreme, even minor changes can lead to major consequences. On the other side of that spectrum, most interactions will be minor at best, and over time and distance will sort of "smooth out" (like ripples in a pond), until your changes no longer have significant effect (unless you do something incredibly major, like publicly shooting Lincoln in 1857 or giving plans for nuclear technology to Hitler in 1934).

You'd also have to worry about potential conflicts with the Grandfather Paradox - if your tampering interferes with history enough to prevent you from ever being born, meaning you could never have come back to make those changes in the first place, what happens? Does it create an alternate timeline? Do your changes persist, and the future is radically different, but you remain the same because of some sort of temporal inertia - becoming a person without a home time? Or do you basically just break the universe as all causality shreds and history unravels?


---

Dirtcruncher posted...

yeah I was fishing lol.

Lost an important friend, etc. January would be sufficient to save her. Think about time travel every day.

wow, that sucks :(

I thought it was pregnancy related too. Sorry for making you bringing that up
---

I don't believe in depriving peoople of their freedom, so time travel.
---

mastermix3000 posted...

Dirtcruncher posted...

yeah I was fishing lol.

Lost an important friend, etc. January would be sufficient to save her. Think about time travel every day.

wow, that sucks :(

I thought it was pregnancy related too. Sorry for making you bringing that up

Hey I appreciate the condolence :) thank you
---

Yes I would like to become Kilgrave
---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's the cumulative effect, though.

Say I go back in time and erase some nobody from history. But in his future, he was going to get into an argument in a bar and piss someone off, who in turn was going to drive home mad and hit someone in his car. In turn, that person was going to die, sending their wife into a depression. And so on, and so on, because every human is interconnected in some way (no matter how slight), and because our present is very much the sum total of all past experiences.

That much is almost indisputable. The REAL question becomes just how strong that chain of causality really is, and how likely it is to end up at something major and significant. To wit, by killing that nobody in the past, the chain of events eventually leads to the man who was eventually going to invent the cure for some major disease never being born, and millions die. At its most extreme, even minor changes can lead to major consequences. On the other side of that spectrum, most interactions will be minor at best, and over time and distance will sort of "smooth out" (like ripples in a pond), until your changes no longer have significant effect (unless you do something incredibly major, like publicly shooting Lincoln in 1857 or giving plans for nuclear technology to Hitler in 1934).

You'd also have to worry about potential conflicts with the Grandfather Paradox - if your tampering interferes with history enough to prevent you from ever being born, meaning you could never have come back to make those changes in the first place, what happens? Does it create an alternate timeline? Do your changes persist, and the future is radically different, but you remain the same because of some sort of temporal inertia - becoming a person without a home time? Or do you basically just break the universe as all causality shreds and history unravels?

Using the same logic that's the foundation for the butterfly effect, you may as well be arguing that any mundane thing you do in the present could prevent the cure for cancer from being discovered. More than likely, though, I could get in a 100 barfights this year and fuck a thousand married women and have virtually no effect on any major event in the future

i'll rather go with mind controle.
could you just imagine controling people, organizations or even members of the goverment, changing the world with no reprocussions.

idba-samurai posted...

could you just imagine controling people, organizations or even members of the goverment, changing the world with no reprocussions.

Yes


---

Whenever a topic like this comes up, I always vote for whichever one could yield the most profit.

I'm having a hard time choosing, both options are feasible. Control someone else to write you a medium-size check, lather rinse and repeat for loads of people.

Or go back and time and do the typical "guessing on the market investments or sports betting" route.
---

Controlling people as long as they were totally unaware of the control. Any time I needed money a random well off person would just give me some.

Muffinz0rz posted...

Whenever a topic like this comes up, I always vote for whichever one could yield the most profit.

I'm having a hard time choosing, both options are feasible.

huehuehue I'm glad you had to sit and think about this one

Seriously tho, it was a tough choice for me as well, that's why I made the poll >=}
---

Time travel gives you more possibilities in what you can do its the one that can yield the most profit without a doubt.

First lets assume that we cant travel to a far enough future where someone invented a method to mind control someone since that would make this debate useless. Time travel can still give you access to future technologies that would make your life easier in ways that mind control could never do. Just think about any type of goals that mind control lets you accomplish and see if time travel couldnt also do it. Now think about goals that time travel lets you accomplish and notice that there are many that mind control couldnt do.

Do I automatically learn how to speak old languages when I travel in time?
---

Foppe posted...

Do I automatically learn how to speak old languages when I travel in time?

:/
---

I mean, even English have changed a lot over the last couple of hundred years.
And it wasnt that long ago that French was the world language, which makes it kinda hard to get away with stuff if you go lets say 200 years back in time.
---

Foppe posted...

And it wasnt that long ago that French was the world language, which makes it kinda hard to get away with stuff if you go lets say 200 years back in time.

Then I guess you might wanna look into mind control lol

But yes, one of the risks on time travel is you are venturing into the unknown (sorta) ;you will not magically gain the power to understand old/new languages
---

Time Travel.

Even if you're interested in domination, you can use time travel to do this anyway by acquiring super advanced future technology and bringing it back to the past.
---

Hmmm...
I guess I could always go forward in time and bring an universal translator if they ever invent one...
---

Foppe posted...

Hmmm...
I guess I could always go forward in time and bring an universal translator if they ever invent one...

We're getting there for modern languages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8ZfR4iEwig

Unknown languages are a pretty different ballpark though I guess.

Time travel.

At the very least I could go forwards and backwards in time to win lotto tickets and bets and the like. I could go back in time and ask Jesus exactly what his stance on stuff like homosexuality is or buy buttloads of stock in Apple or be the person who invented sliced bread. If I'm really willing to **** up the timeline I could go back in time with a ton of guns and war vehicles (slip into a gun store before traveling or something) and carve out my own kingdom. If I further supplement my kingdom with future tech I'd basically have space ships in the bronze age!
---

Control people.

Time travel would likely end in disaster.
---

you don't have to change the past. travel to the future and back and then make bets/invest in stocks.
---

Control people, but I'd only use it for good
---

Muscles posted...

Control people, but I'd only use it for good

unless it's for something like stopping a crime, thats a pretty dangerous mindset.
---

Krazy_Kirby posted...

Muscles posted...

Control people, but I'd only use it for good

unless it's for something like stopping a crime, thats a pretty dangerous mindset.

Forcing people to do things against their will "for the greater good" is you yourself dictating what "the greater good" is defined as in the first place.

Islamic terrorists think what they do is "for the greater good".

In real life, very few people actively see themselves as evil, everybody justifies their own actions as being okay for one reason or another.
---

Time travel would be neat, but I'd just take the controlling people power.
---

Krazy_Kirby posted...

Muscles posted...

Control people, but I'd only use it for good

unless it's for something like stopping a crime, thats a pretty dangerous mindset.

Pretty much yeah, just stopping crimes, I wouldn't use it to hurt others or steal from them, etc.
---

^
time travel could be used to stop crime also.
---