Time Travel discussion

I met a guy once who bragged to me that he was very close to inventing a successful method of time travel. In fact, you can find a patent of one of his time travel inventions online (one that makes absolutely no sense to me). I'd link to it, but I don't care for him to ever think of my existence again. He swears that a drug that he took to combat an illness that he had gave him a short-term increase in mathematical ability during which he worked on the mathematics of time travel. His invention has something to do with gravity distortion and time displacement.

He told me that he was independently wealthy as a result of a software company he'd helped to found. If I mentioned the name of it, you'd probably recognize it. He he said that he'd pre-paid for himself to be cryogenically frozen in the event that he was near death's door in case a cure could be found for his illness (the one that led to the drug-induced mathematical genius). He used to have the type of wild parties that wealthy geeks have. I used to hear crazy stories about those parties. That was 10 years ago.

He's since moved to the west coast, and I hadn't heard about him in years ... until my husband showed me a headline from this guy's local newspaper that made my eyes nearly pop out of my head. Apparently, he's been arrested for drugging and raping girls at his parties ... using a spring-loaded syringe to administer the home-brewed rape drugs. Was I surprised? Not really given the stories I'd heard from back when.

But it got me to thinking how possible it would be for the first person to make a working time machine to not be the type of person you'd want to have that type of technology. Would you want some guy gallivanting through time with a rape drug and escaping punishment through time travel? That would cross over into the category of horror story. But even having such a person being cryogenically frozen and waking up to an era when his theoretical patent could be integrated with future technology to make a working time machine ... yeah.

I've always hoped that he was just a psychopathic liar and braggart and that he really wasn't close to being the first person to time travel. After all, his boasts about the company he said that he co-founded turned out to be false. And his time travel patent reads like nonsense to me. But what's the probability that the first person that time travels could really be a mad (as in psychopathic) scientist?

Amy, I think you have the makings of a good book in this story. It really is a chilling idea, but not implausible.

The idea is definitely up for grabs, but I'll let somebody else write that one ... and not credit having ever known me.

Maybe the whole time travel thing was just a way for him to pick up women. Kind of like Howard on the Big Bang Theory who promised the women he met that they could drive the Mars rover if they went out with him.

Amy wrote: 'I met a guy once who bragged...'

Ah, yes, this again.

Amy, if someone's bragging then it's clear that they have another agenda, for the true power to Time Travel negates any need for such bravado, what would be the point?

The point, as John correctly points out, would be elsewhere.

Good stories often have bad people, to press the gamut of the human condition & thus create tension, but not all people with such power are so negative.

The more creditable story would be one of good intentions that somehow go bad, but even then, if it were true, candor would still prevail.

Your guy was a jerk & you are lucky to be well shy of him.

Just my opinion.

Amy -- Here's a thought. Maybe he *wasn't* really insane 10 years ago. Maybe he was actually telling the truth -- and the *time travel* is what pushed him over into the realm of psychosis?? It messes with my head just writing it sometimes... :)

I'm not sure if the events of the book Replay can technically be considered time travel. And, it's been ages since I read the book. But, I'm pretty sure I recall that one of the characters in that book went insane from repeatedly reliving his life and became a serial killer.

Oh, that was most definitely one of his many pickup lines...I've only just recently seen the patent as people we knew in common have been guffawing over his demise and rummaging through his online presences.

Rysa (why does this autocorrect your name to Rosa? Do you get that a lot?), maybe you're on to something there. He always did look older yet younger than he was supposed to be...

Amy wrote: "Oh, that was most definitely one of his many pickup lines...I've only just recently seen the patent as people we knew in common have been guffawing over his demise and rummaging through his online ..."
Amy, your story scares the crap out of me! I think more so because I am an ER nurse and see quite a few delusion freaks that are hard-core criminals. :(
Sheesh. He sounded quite far gone.

Rysa wrote: "Amy -- Here's a thought. Maybe he *wasn't* really insane 10 years ago. Maybe he was actually telling the truth -- and the *time travel* is what pushed him over into the realm of psychosis?? It me..."

Rysa, as disturbing as the reality of it is, that sounds like the making of a good story. The TT protagonist ends up insane in the end. Hmmmm...

E.B., yes. I've known too many intelligent people whose mental illnesses led to criminal acts and/or prison. It's the truly intelligent ones who are the scariest. They're the ones who end up hacking your computer and pulling off elaborate con artist schemes. My ex-husband fits this category and the previous sentence very well (pretty sure he's in prison ... again). These types are often the best liars and can easily dupe, con, and manipulate trusting people (especially the young, curious, naive, and elderly). Giving that sort of person the keys to time travel is honestly terrifying. This is one of the many reasons that, the more that I read about time travel, the more that I hope that anyone that ever discovers it is able to keep it under lock and key and away from commoners and criminals alike. Even a non-criminal, non-psycotic person would be tempted to "cheat" while time traveling. How much more would someone whose intelligence is more on the sinister side of the spectrum "cheat" and meddle during their travels.

Amy wrote: '...intelligent people whose mental illnesses led to criminal acts…' & '...able to keep it under lock and key...'

Amy, very astute, as sadly both of these situations, true examples of the human condition, are exactly the nightmare scenario.

As well, they always well be, given free will & enough enticement.

That's one of the reasons that my Epic Fables employ them, among other examples in this vein, of course.

I’m talking wisdom here, not knowledge, per se & it’s not like electricity is discovered yesterday so now, boom, here are computers today.

No, such higher constructs as what’s right or wrong & do these meanings ever change given circumstance, etc., is not just book learning.

They’re internal as well as eternal choices, so every succeeding generation must grapple with them for every generation faces conflict anew & always will.

Such is life.

So write what you know.

Works for me.

Vickie wrote: "I'm not sure if the events of the book Replay can technically be considered time travel. And, it's been ages since I read the book. But, I'm pretty sure I recall that one of the characters in that book went insane from repeatedly reliving his life and became a serial killer."

And the time traveler at least beging regarded as insane - though actually not insane - was very effectively explored in 12 Monkeys.

Anyone who claims to be a Time Traveler, given the nature of such a stance, has always been received in one of two ways:

They're judged to be insane or a liar.

Yet there is another possibility.

Truth is, after all, stranger than fiction.

As I said, write what you know.

Amy wrote: "the more that I read about time travel, the more that I hope that anyone that ever discovers it is able to keep it under lock and key and away from commoners "

You'd almost need to setup an agency that monitors it, so they could correct issues that arose from people time-traveling.

This guy sounds like a wannabe John Titor.

Don't worry, while there are a few bumps in the road, the whole time travel thing turns out just fine in the end. Please don't ask me how I know, as I'm prohibited from divulging such information.

Space wrote: "Amy wrote: "the more that I read about time travel, the more that I hope that anyone that ever discovers it is able to keep it under lock and key and away from commoners "

You'd almost need to setup an agency that monitors it, so they could correct issues that arose from people time-traveling."

There's a book about that:
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. :)