What would you do with a time machine that only worked once?

[Sedim Haba]

(Geez, I hope I picked the right freakin forum THIS time)

You have made a time machine. By the laws of it's function, it will work only once, and never again.
You can only go back into your own lifetime, and you will be yourself in that 'earlier you' for one day.
(til you fall asleep)

What will you do?

(My answer will have to wait, sorry)

EDIT, cuz reasons... it only works for you, attuned to your timeline.
10/18 EDIT AGAIN because of time-travel paradox...

You will be a specter, a ghost. You can only observe, not change the past.

 

[John53]

I'd travel back in time and help you pick the correct forum

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I guess just walk around and look at how a town used to look, and think a little bit about how things are different, from then to now. But I'm not even sure that doing this would be all that interesting to me. I'm not even sure if I'd use the machine. Maybe if it was the dead of winter, and I wanted to experience a summer day, to break things up

 

[Spirit of Light]

(Geez, I hope I picked the right freakin forum THIS time)

You have made a time machine. By the laws of it's function, it will work only once, and never again.
You can only go back into your own lifetime, and you will be yourself in that 'earlier you' for one day.
(til you fall asleep)

What will you do?

(My answer will have to wait, sorry)

I would leave the time machine alone

 

[exchemist]

(Geez, I hope I picked the right freakin forum THIS time)

You have made a time machine. By the laws of it's function, it will work only once, and never again.
You can only go back into your own lifetime, and you will be yourself in that 'earlier you' for one day.
(til you fall asleep)

What will you do?

(My answer will have to wait, sorry)

Put Trump in it and set the dial to infinity.

 

[ChristineM]

I'd let someone else have it and stay where i am.

 

[Sedim Haba]

Put Trump in it and set the dial to infinity.

Dang you, made me fix the dang thought experiment.

 

[Sedim Haba]

I would leave the time machine alone

There's nothing you'd want to do differently or even just witness again?
You could do/see/experience anything again... if you don't want to change anything fine.

 

[Spirit of Light]

There's nothing you'd want to do differently or even just witness again?
You could do/see/experience anything again... if you don't want to change anything fine.

Actually no my past is my past. For me now it is only the current moment that is important so my future can be better than my past.

 

[Nakosis]

(Geez, I hope I picked the right freakin forum THIS time)

You have made a time machine. By the laws of it's function, it will work only once, and never again.
You can only go back into your own lifetime, and you will be yourself in that 'earlier you' for one day.
(til you fall asleep)

What will you do?

(My answer will have to wait, sorry)

EDIT, cuz reasons... it only works for you, attuned to your timeline.

I go back to just before I damaged my back.
If I could have avoided that, my life would be totally different.

 

[Sedim Haba]

I go back to just before I damaged my back.
If I could have avoided that, my life would be totally different.

That's an understandable choice. But would you not want to go even further back?
(Not to minimize your choice, I'd certainly be before my mare threw me, breaking my hip)

 

[amorphous_constellation]

So if we go back in time for a day and change something, are you saying that the change sticks? Because if that's the case, then when you arrive in the present, you are tossing the dice a second time. Or maybe I'm thinking of it wrong, I'm not sure

 

[Nakosis]

That's an understandable choice. But would you not want to go even further back?
(Not to minimize your choice, I'd certainly be before my mare threw me, breaking my hip)

No, I thought about it. My kids were all born. My career set.
I was ok with how my life had gone to that point.
No real need to change anything prior.

 

[Nakosis]

So if we go back in time for a day and change something, are you saying that the change sticks? Because if that's the case, then when you arrive in the present, you are tossing the dice a second time.

That's a good point. That's way I'd only go back to a time after my life was already set in a certain direction.
I knew who I was then and what choices I would likely make. I suspect whatever came next, I could deal with.

 

[exchemist]

Dang you, made me fix the dang thought experiment.

Oh I assumed it could be anyone's timeline. If it has to be mine then that's tricky I agree.

 

[Aupmanyav]

What would you do with a time machine that only worked once?: Just for one day? I will give it a pass. Why bother?

 

[PureX]

There is no single day that if it had gone differently, would change my life now, for the better. Or someone else's. So given all those limitations, all I could do is go back and write myself a long letter. That knowing me, I would just ignore it when I found it, anyway.

I was never one to take direction.

 

[Aštra’el]

I’d go back into the late 90s, Christmas Eve of any of those years. I would spend the day with my Grandma.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Working as a grocery bagger was unfortunate. I got a couple of lifelong injuries on that job, so I might go back and change the day that I applied for it.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Quite easy for me, given the conditions, since I would go back to the day an older boy abused me and where a different result might have occurred - and with it perhaps a different future and better life. Perhaps not but I'm willing to risk it.