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423 lines
25 KiB
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423 lines
25 KiB
Markdown
## r/WhoWouldWin post: You have a revolver with eight bullets and a time machine. Can you rule the world?
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* Author: u/None *
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* URL:
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* Score: 34
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* Created: 2016-12-20T04:37:09
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### Post:
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[Link to content]()
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### Comments:
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> **u/LiteralHeadCannon** [+114] (31 minutes later)
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>
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> "He's giving me a time machine and a revolver as if they have comparable value," thought Harry.
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>
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> "He's giving me a **time machine**, and a **revolver**, as if they have **comparable value**."
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>
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> **"HE'S GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE AND A REVOLVER AS IF THEY HAVE COMPARABLE VALUE."**
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>> **u/Dragonheart91** [+50] (2 hours later)
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>>
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>> That's the first place my mind went to as well. "What do I need the revolver for?"
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>>> **u/melmonella** [+3] *Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you* (2 days later)
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>>>
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>>> For an initial cash investment to use to buy lottery tickets to get money in 21 century before supplying for travel into the past. Duh.
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>> **u/pixelz** [+36] (2 hours later)
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>>
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>> Reformulating the question for /r/rational:
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>>
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>> You are the first sentient in your light cone to gain access to a working time machine. What actions do you take to optimize the percentage of realizable futures in which you and/or your Ascended Self are omnipotent?
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>>> **u/ari_zerner** [+25] (9 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> Does a light cone still make sense after time travel is introduced?
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>>>> **u/pixelz** [+10] (11 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> I'm assuming that the optimizing actions include maintaining exclusive access to time travel technology. So light cone restrictions still apply to potential competitors.
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>>>>
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>>>> Edit: typo.
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>>>> **u/symmetry81** [+9] (16 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> The sort of time machine that we aren't entirely sure is prevented by physical law can only allow you to go back in time to the moment it was created and hence has a light cone it's limited to. Which then, of course, becomes *your* light cone.
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>>>>> **u/sparr** [+1] (2 days later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> *cough*Primer*cough*
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>>>>>> **u/symmetry81** [+1] (3 days later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> I was thinking of John Barnes's Century Next Door series but Primer is another example.
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>>> **u/FuguofAnotherWorld** [+1] *Roll the Dice on Fate* (4 days later)
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>>>
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>>> Win lotteries, buy gold, hire mercenaries, go to Dark Ages, conquer dark ages, get competent administrators, rule world.
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>> **u/eltegid** [+21] (3 hours later)
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>>
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>> Well, the challenge as I understand it includes not taking any other present technology "you must obtain world domination through killing only, not by bringing an iPhone back to the Middle Ages or wowing them with your time machine."
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>>
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>> Of course, you can take KNOWLEDGE, which is certainly more valuable than 8 damned bullets.
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>>> **u/eltegid** [+17] (3 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> Also, the pseudo-teleportation capabilities of a portable time machine...
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>>> **u/goocy** [+13] (8 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> Assuming the time machine goes to the past (which is impossible, according to current knowledge) there's revolvers there as well. Taking one with me may be slightly more convenient, but then the task could also say "you get a time machine and some shoes".
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>>> **u/buckykat** [+5] (11 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> You can also just take whatever weapons or tools you want from anywhere/anywhen. Time machine your ass back before they built that armory, then hurry up and wait, then hurry up and wait backwards, then go on your way with your new armaments.
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>> **u/Protikon** [+13] *very model of a singularitarian* (4 hours later)
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>>
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>> It is explained later in the post as a limitation, you cannot use any other weapon or ammo.
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>>
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>> It is a very weak limitation though, you're right.
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>>> **u/Geminii27** [+17] (10 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> "Name something which cannot be used as a weapon."
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>>>> **u/Tommy2255** [+16] (13 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> Name something that can *only* be used as a weapon, since that's the actual restriction. If you promise to only use your plastic explosives for demolitions work, then by the letter of the law, the temporal TSA has to let you through.
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>>>>> **u/Lugnut1206** [+14] (a day later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> I mean, a pistol can be used for brain surgery...
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>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+10] (14 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Ah, the Paul Atreides loophole.
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>>>>> **u/ajuc** [+2] (20 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> There is no such thing.
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>>>> **u/Frommerman** [+6] (13 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> The concept of a feather duster.
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>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+14] (14 hours later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Given that we're talking time machines, travel back to the mid-19th century and threaten a barely-tolerated domestic servant of a large household with introducing the concept to a local manufacturer, thus setting off a chain of events resulting in making the other servants able to clean faster and the threatenee redundant.
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>>>>>> **u/Frommerman** [+5] (15 hours later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> Feather dusters have been around a lot longer than that, and you could threaten servants from before that far more effectively with practically anything else.
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>>>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+2] (16 hours later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> > Feather dusters have been around a lot longer than that
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> 1870?
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>>>>>>>> **u/None** [+3] (16 hours later)
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> [deleted]
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>>>>>>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+5] (17 hours later)
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> Since well before someone had the idea in 1870 of sticking them on a length of broomstick and using them as a duster, no doubt.
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>>>>>>>> **u/Frommerman** [+3] (17 hours later)
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> Huh. I thought they had to be older than that.
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> Anyway, the idea that mass production of feather dusters would result in mass layoffs of servants doesn't seem too coherent anyway, and the real way to threaten those people is with the mass production of automated kitchen implements and vaccum cleaners coupled with a change in culture which made doing chores fashionable for the well-to-do again.
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>>> **u/TBestIG** [+1] *Every second of quibbling is another dead baby* (13 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> It doesn't say you can't use them, just that you can't use them as weapons.
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>> **u/Geminii27** [+3] (10 hours later)
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>>
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>> Step 1: shoot him.
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>> **u/TBestIG** [+1] *Every second of quibbling is another dead baby* (13 hours later)
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>>
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>> I already knew it was incredibly unbalanced, I just wanted to see how creative everyone could be.
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> **u/Veedrac** [+33] (2 hours later)
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>
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> Seems almost too easy. Rule lawyering answer would be to teleport past the heat death of the universe, at which point you win by default. Other fun strategies include duplicating yourself, though this depends on the specific implementation of time travel, and automating your time travel device to go back in time by ɛ seconds every ɛ seconds, such that time is effectively frozen for everyone else, though again this depends on the limitations of the tool.
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>> **u/None** [+19] (10 hours later)
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>>
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>> *teleports past heat death of universe*
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>>
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>> *still fucking dies because made of atoms and needs food, water, and air*
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>>
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>> Yeah, this isn't a win condition. It's just delaying the inevitable. Even if you shuttle a colony of humans out there, it's not really any better.
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>>> **u/Veedrac** [+39] (10 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> The rules never said my reign had to last for long.
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>>>> **u/None** [+2] (a day later)
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>>>>
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>>>> [deleted]
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>>>>> **u/Veedrac** [+2] (a day later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Fixed, ty
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>>> **u/Krashnachen** [+16] *Dragon Army* (10 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> Doesn't matter, still won.
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> **u/Sparkwitch** [+21] (13 hours later)
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>
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> Assuming this isn't parallel-worlds time travel where you venture to alternate timelines, and assuming that the machine isn't magically unique: *You are not the only person with a time machine*.
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>
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> As soon as a time machine exists in a single-timeline universe then there is *already* a secret society of time travelers with rules and traditions that have somehow sustained the history we know and love and protected it from looking any different than it does the moment you gain access to the theoretical opportunity to change it. Even if you've only just invented it.
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>
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> Everybody who comes after you can still act before you... and have. You are already in opposition to them, and working against their entire society and millions of years of experience.
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>
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> Being the theoretical first to come into possession only matters for relatively petty historical reasons. Otherwise it's an enormous disadvantage.
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>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+15] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (14 hours later)
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>>
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>> > Assuming this isn't parallel-worlds time travel where you venture to alternate timelines, and assuming that the machine isn't magically unique: _You are not the only person with a time machine._
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>>
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>> If you're not the only person with a time machine, and it's possible to change the past, then the time machine will never be invented... because para-eventually someone will undo the invention of the time machine every time it's invented. This applies to any organization dedicated to maintaining the course of history, no matter how good they are.
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>>
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>> Basically, only a timeline in which the time machine is never invented is a steady state condition. The timeline will keep changing until such a state is reached, and then stop changing. From the point of view of people anchored in the timeline, that's how it always was.
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>>
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>> So this question kind of implies either that you're the only person with a time machine, or the time machine can't go back before its own creation.
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>>> **u/Sparkwitch** [+4] (15 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> The other end of that is that if you've invented a time machine, then you'll have always invented a time machine. The organization doesn't have to be good, they need only aspire to: They've got all of eternity to make things work right... and they have unimpeachable evidence that, in the end, they succeeded.
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>>>
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>>> If an apparent change ever gets corrected, it's not actually a change. It's just the way things always were. The timeline never changes at all.
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>>>
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>>> To steal from [Heinlein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Zombies):
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>>>
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>>> *A Paradox May be Paradoctored.*
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>>>
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>>> *Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.*
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>>>
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>>> *If at Last You Do Succeed, Never Try Again.*
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>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+3] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (20 hours later)
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>>>>
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>>>> > other end of that is that if you've invented a time machine, then you'll have always invented a time machine.
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>>>>
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>>>> That's not a stable state. The butterfly effect means that it is literally mathematically impossible, even with infinite time, to create a stable timeline that contains any loops. All You Zombies is great science fiction but it's not actually science.
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>>>>
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>>>> You need something like [Leiber's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Time) law of conservation of history to damp out the entropy in the loops.
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>>> **u/Roxolan** [+2] *Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager* (2 days later)
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>>>
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>>> >
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>>> > Basically, only a timeline in which the time machine is never invented is a steady state condition. The timeline will keep changing until such a state is reached, and then stop changing.
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>>>
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>>> This needs justifying. It seems to me that there could be stable states with time travel. Chaos theory / "for want of a nail" means it's ludicrously difficult to change the past without changing the circumstances that led to you changing the past, but not literally impossible. (Or things might infinitely converge towards a stable state, which amounts to the same thing.)
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>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+2] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (2 days later)
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>>>>
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>>>> The timeline is incredibly fragile once you insert actual physics into the analysis. If you make any change in the past significantly before your birth, down to even scaring an animal near you when you appear, you will pretty much guarantee you're never going to be born.
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>>>>
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>>>> The reason is hydrodynamics of seminal fluid.
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>>>>
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>>>> This is a massive amplifier of change. You scare an animal, it behaves slightly differently, a few animals nearby change THEIR behaviour very slightly as a result, and the next time one of them mates that happens slightly differently, even if it's just a fraction of a second later, and completely different sperm reach the egg.
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>>>>
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>>>> SO in that area, a different set of animals is born in the next generation. Over their lives they behave differently, and the changes grow.
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>>>>
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>>>> If this is before humanity evolved, if that even happens it'll happen completely differently. The new history will be completely different from the get go. If it's only a few centuries ago, maybe it'll take twenty or thirty years before a hunter catches or doesn't catch an animal, and ends up making out with her husband a fraction of a second later the next night, and now all their children are different.
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>>>>
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>>>> And humans are an amplifier of entropy. Within a generation the very slight changes have spread all over the planet, completely different people are born, and the timeline is completely different. All from a snap of a twig as your time machine touched down.
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>>>>
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>>>> MAYBE if it was before Lief Erikson, the new world gets a few generations repreive, but even then... migrating animals and fish also spread changes across the globe.
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>>>>
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>>>> The idea of going back and making a deliberate, limited change is nonsense. It can't be done.
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>>>>
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>>>> Converging on a stable state, sure, but the most likely stable state to converge on is one in which the time machine is never invented. There's no *mechanism* directing the creation of almost closed loops that converge over multiple iterations. It would have to happen all at once, by sheer chance, and there still would have to be no time travel ever outside that one unlikely loop. SO even if there's a loop, it's one in which the time machine gets used once and prevents itself from ever being used again... and that is just so much less likely than it simply undoing itself I can't believe in any other result.
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>>>>> **u/Roxolan** [+1] *Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager* (2 days later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> > If you make any change in the past significantly before your birth, down to even scaring an animal near you when you appear, you will pretty much guarantee you're never going to be born.
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>>>>>
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>>>>> True. But you can have a stable state over multiple loops. I.e. Kevin goes back in time and causes his mother to instead have a daughter named Laura, then Laura goes back in time and causes her mother to instead have a son named Kevin. (Add a billion steps to make this remotely plausible.)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> Agree with the rest of your post.
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>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+1] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>> A stable state over multiple loops is even less unlikely than a stable state over a single loop. The probability of two essential coincidences occurring can be obtained by multiplying them together. Since probabilities are always in 0..1 this can never increase the probability of the loop.
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>>>>>>> **u/Roxolan** [+1] *Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> > A stable state over multiple loops is even less unlikely than a stable state over a single loop.
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> I don't disagree. But while a *specific* multiple-loops stable state is highly unlikely, accounting for the possibility of multiple-loops stable states in general noticeably increases the probability of falling into a stable state.
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> As a toy example, let's say that the only thing time travel can change is the name of the protagonist.
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> First they're named Bob. If, after time travel, they're still Bob, we have a stable state.
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> But say instead that they become Laura. Now, after Laura time-travels, there are *two* names that result in a stable state, Bob and Laura.
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> And so on and so forth. Assuming that names must have finite lengths, this actually *guarantees* a stable state eventually, even if we can't predict its number of loops.
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>> (In a non-toy example, as you said, there will be many more states in which time travel doesn't get discovered.)
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>>>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+1] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> > let's say that the only thing time travel can change is the name of the protagonist
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> Well, if you start with a completely contrafactual assumption, yeh, you can get predictions like this.
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>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>> But you can't generalize from the finite to the infinite like that. Every loop has an infinite number of possible outcomes. Literally. And the most probable outcome is that no narratively close analog of the protagonist is ever born.
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>>>>>>>>> **u/Roxolan** [+1] *Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> > Every loop has an infinite number of possible outcomes.
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> I'm not sure that's actually true. Someone with better knowledge of physics can speak up here, but isn't there a finite number of ways matter in our light cone can be distributed?
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> > And the most probable outcome is that no narratively close analog of the protagonist is ever born.
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> They don't have to be narratively close to the protagonist, just identical to any one of the bajillions of previous loops.
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>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>> (This ignoring the likely scenarios where time travel just stops happening, as I've already conceded.)
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>>>>>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+1] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>> > I'm not sure that's actually true. Someone with better knowledge of physics can speak up here, but isn't there a finite number of ways matter in our light cone can be distributed?
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>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>> As I understand it, there's an infinite number of possible values of the resulting state for every collision of two particles. Let alone the billion billion particles in our light cone.
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>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>> > They don't have to be narratively close to the protagonist, just identical to any one of the bajillions of previous loops.
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>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>> Identical? That's supposed to be more likely than "narratively close"?
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>>>>>>>>>>> **u/Roxolan** [+1] *Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>> > Identical? That's supposed to be more likely than "narratively close"?
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>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>> It is not. But the sentence has two halves. I'm rephrasing *both* halves to clarify my position.
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>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>> (Trying to adhere to honest standards of conversation here; I'm not just saying whatever makes my argument appear stronger, though that may be what people are expected / "supposed" to do in other communities.)
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>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+1] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>> OK, then I'm confused.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>> Do you mean that it's not the next loop that's identical, but one bajillions of loops later? I'm not sure how that's any more likely than the next loop being identical.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>> I mean, you're literally rolling an infinite number of dice every time you use the machine. Getting the same roll any finite number of rolls later isn't any more likely than getting the same roll on the next roll.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/Roxolan** [+1] *Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>> You don't necessarily need to get the same roll as the previous roll. You just need to get the same roll as *any one* of the previous rolls you've made so far. The more rolls you make, the greater your chances (assuming nothing can stop you from rolling), unless the possible rolls are infinite and uniformly-distributed.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's more likely to happen after a bajillion loops than after just one (and the resulting multi-loop stable state will be anywhere from one to one bajillion loops long.)
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+1] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (3 days later)
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > unless the possible rolls are infinite and uniformly-distributed
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Well, they are infinite. I don't know if it's even known what order of infinity.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I don't think the distribution matters unless they're distributed into a finite number of slots. Since the "rolls" are actually happening at different times after each reset, that seems unlikely.
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>> **u/None** [+3] (14 hours later)
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>>
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>> This is one of my favorite aspects of Haddix as an author (author of the *Shadow Children* series). Even if she's not rational at all, or even particularly historically accurate, the protagonists in her time-travel series aren't the only time-travelers. In fact, there exist two competing factions of time travelers, that only recently diverged (but have, in effect, been competing throughout the whole of history).
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>>
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>> I especially like the way it goes about paradoxes - the natural form of the universe *without* time travel is predestined, and any changes from the norm will generally revert, unless they are too large. It's really weird and not too consistent, but it was a nice brain-bender for me as a young adult.
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> **u/buckykat** [+17] (11 hours later)
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>
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> Cheat the shit out of the stock market until I control the resources of a medium sized country, then buy the politicians of a large country and have them go to war.
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>
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> TL;DR: forget the revolver, become the military-industrial complex.
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>> **u/vakusdrake** [+6] (21 hours later)
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>>
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>> Right then just consolidate your world domination and use the resources to make sure you can create a FGAI with your prefered utility function as quickly as safely possible. Which then spreads backwards in time until shortly after the big bang.
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>> **u/mg115ca** [+2] (2 days later)
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>>
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>> Perhaps mount the revolver in a glass case in your office, complete with the 8 bullets. The plaque reads "Flawless Victory"
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> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+15] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (9 hours later)
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>
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> Why would I want to rule the world, once I have a time machine?
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>> **u/TBestIG** [+16] *Every second of quibbling is another dead baby* (13 hours later)
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>>
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>> You're a magical construct that is identical in all measurable ways to your current self, but with a utility function of taking over the world under the "restrictions" given in the original post
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>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+10] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (14 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> Oh. Poor beggar definitely needs a spot of therapy.
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>>> **u/None** [+4] (a day later)
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>>>
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>>> Can't I just save the world? It's a lot easier to save the world by enhancing history through the use of eight bullets.
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>>>
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>>> See flair.
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>>>> **u/Flashbunny** [+1] (a day later)
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>>>>
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>>>> What's the Fash?
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>>>>> **u/None** [+2] (a day later)
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>>>>>
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>>>>> [Bash! Bash the fash! Oi oi oi!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPpV2basTgI)
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>> **u/pixelz** [+2] (11 hours later)
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>>
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>> With great power comes great responsibility.
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>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+12] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (14 hours later)
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>>>
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>>> Oh, then ruling the world is right out.
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> **u/goocy** [+10] (8 hours later)
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>
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> Yes.
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> **u/Gavinfoxx** [+2] (6 days later)
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>
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> I think it means, 'using only killing, up to eight times, via use of a revolver and eight bullets, and a time machine, kill your way to ruling the world with those two objects only.'
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> **u/gtsteel** [+0] (18 hours later)
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>
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> Haven't thought about total domination, but I definitely have some ideas for easy improvements.
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>
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> * Kill St. Paul before he invents Christianity, preventing the ensuing genocides it brought about. This is probably the one I'd do if I actually had a time machine.
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> * Kill Duncan Campbell Scott, who planned out most of the holocaust, preventing any of his copycats including Hitler.
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> * Kill Ferdinand and Isabella in the mid 1400s before they start any of their multiple genocides.
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> * Introduce Benamin Franklin (who would regiignize it as math ans not just superstition) to the fundamentals of Game Theory and Population dynamics so he can introduce those ideas to the English and French speaking parts of the world a few centuries early. To avoid a bootstrap paradox, don't teach him directly take but introduce him to someone in the Midewiwin Society, which has already discovered those branches of math.
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>> **u/MonstrousBird** [+6] (a day later)
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>>
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>> You realise of course that you couldn't do all of those - if killing St Paul had the effect you hoped the rest of history would be VERY different...
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>>> **u/gtsteel** [+1] (3 days later)
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>>>
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>>> Of course: each one of these was a separate idea. Most of the others seem to be mainly dealing with the mess Paul left and so would be unnecessary if plan 1 worked. It's really too bad the time machine in the prompt doesn't go back before 1000BC, otherwise I'd try to prevent Leviticus from becoming a thing.
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>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+1] *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (a day later)
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>>
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>> > Kill St. Paul before he invents Christianity, preventing the ensuing genocides it brought about. This is probably the one I'd do if I actually had a time machine.
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>>
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>> Frederick Pohl, _"Waiting for the Olympians"_
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---
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