This blog is for all my intellectuals out there.
“If I could time travel…” is a hypothetical question that probably roams around your head more than it should. Sure, there are reasons to wish for such a power. I don’t doubt that it pops up every now and then, especially after you miss an easily makable game winning shot or said a foolish comment to your crush; such a comment that you wish you could take back.
But for a power as monumental as time travel, those uses of power are rather miniscule in both size and scale.
I’m talking about changing the course of history as we know it. I think about this a lot. That’s a massive responsibility. If you could time travel, what would you change? Would you prevent 9/11? Would you save Lincoln from getting shot? What about JFK, would you save him? Would you bring current cancer studies 50 years into the past to see if you could speed up progress of curing cancer?
How about a more local question: What would you do about Covid? Would you go back in time and try to prevent it? Where would you even start?
These are all questions that could lead someone to try to change a major event in the past if they had the power to time travel, but he or she could very well create an entirely new reality for the future in the process. Perhaps by sparing Lincoln or JFK the first time, you only just delayed the inevitable. Maybe by bringing cancer research to a time where scientists cannot properly decode it, they accidentally create an entirely new disease in the process, such as a zombie apocalypse. And what if 9/11 was prevented? Perhaps the most massive surge of militarism and instantaneous upgrade of homeland security this world has ever seen would have never occurred at all, and who knows what else would have transpired if that event never happened in our history. What if in that reality, such a reality where the United States doesn’t crack down on homeland security as much, a terrorist was able to hack the security mainframe and launch a nuclear weapon at both China and Russia, thus triggering a nuclear world war (Spielberg, are you writing this shit down?)
Time travel is a very complicated concept because you never know what event in the past has the biggest impact on the future. You also don’t know the magnitude of changing said event. That’s why if I were to travel back in time, I wouldn’t mess with changing monumental events, as I fear I would create an entirely different and perhaps darker new reality.
I would also be selfish and try to help myself.
Now, because the technology behind time travel does not exist (that we know of) I can only use cinematic depictions as sources of my time travel knowledge. And because there’s been a shit ton of time travel movies over the decades all having varying rules, methods, and boundaries to how it works, I’m going to say that for the sake of this blog, there is only one universal timeline, and if you were to go back in time and change an event in the past, your actions would create an entirely new reality when you return to the present.
Okay slow down because the rules of time travel may get confusing.
Everyone in this new reality, however, has no idea about any other reality other than the one that they are living in, as you would be the only one who saw both the reality you used to live in addition to the one you created, as you were the only one that traveled through time. Thus, you altered the past and created a new future.
Alright, now that I’ve explained the rules of time travel in addition to the events I would avoid changing (for reasons involving creating a darker reality than anyone could have ever imagined) here are the three things I would do if I could time travel.
- Go to Vegas and create multiple 20-leg parlays:
One of the more common ideas I’ve heard when talking about time travel with others is the action of going back in time and investing in Apple before they popped off financially. You could say the same thing about Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, the list goes on. Yes, you could obviously go back in time and invest a shit ton of money into all of these companies while they were no-name penny stocks and then watch your money turn into multi-millions or even billions.
I would suggest not doing this for two reasons.
The long reason is that your giant investment might actually change the way the market views these stocks and in this new future that you just created, Apple, Microsoft, or whoever you invested in may not have the same financial success because of your odd and seemingly out-of-the-blue investment impact in the past. That’s just a theory.
But the short reason I wouldn’t travel back in time just to invest in Apple is that it would take a while before I started making money. Yeah, I guess you could travel forward in time after you place your investment so that you can reap the benefits in the future, but chances are you probably zipped past almost 10 years of your life just to see the successful results.
Why not see massive wealth almost instantaneously without investing a shit ton of money.
I wouldn’t travel back in time super far at all. I would travel to Las Vegas on a specific day, one year in the past, and I’d bring a sports almanac corresponding with that day in that year. I’d then place a $25 bet on a 20-leg parlay that mixes all types of sports games with crazy odds and win around $100,000. I’d then take those winnings and bet on another 20-leg parlay, and do it again, and again, all in one day. By that time I should have a couple billion dollars to my name and Vegas will probably shut down for the day. I’d likely be investigated, and perhaps even assassinated, but in the chances that I’m able to cash in as soon as those bets hit, I would time travel right out of there and go to another spot.
2. Rewrite Game of Thrones season 8:
This is a passion project of mine. Now that I’m made of money, I would go back in time and buy the rights to the Game of Thrones books from George R. R. Martin and then produce the show myself, all before HBO ever gets ahold of it. I would then go to HBO and bring in the same exact cast, crew, and everyone involved for the first seven seasons from my reality, so that nothing looks different in the new reality. I’d be able to big dick HBO this hard because of how rich I am from my gambling winnings.
I’d even let the dipshit showrunners D. B. Weiss and David Benioff helm the first seven seasons only if they agreed to follow my exact instructions of how to shoot it, write it, and direct it.
This shouldn’t be hard for them to create as, after all, I am taking their work from another reality and having them recreate it in this one, without them knowing that they did this in another reality. So in a sense, they should have an organic deja vu moment while following my instructions.
I’m allowing the notorious showrunners to do their same work up to season 7 because I do think that season 7, despite how many people thought it was too over-the-top and dumbed down, could be a fantastic set-up if season 8 properly closes all the doors that season 7 opens.
In this new reality, however, I am not going to let those two morons anywhere near the production of season 8, as we know in our current reality, they skullfucked the season so badly that the legacy and integrity of the entire show as a whole is practically ruined. At least that’s how it feels as an ex-super fan of Game of Thrones. I would put in their contracts that their time on the show does not last more than seven seasons and if they are seen anywhere on the property during the production of season 8, I will send my security team to manhandle and dispose of them.
Needless to say, season 8 of Game of Thrones broke my heart and left me feeling dead inside.
I will assume command of the production of season 8 as I believe that I came up with the perfect story that ties all loose ends created in the preceding seven seasons (I did it in my dorm out of rage following the nightmarish season finale). I’m not going to go into details, as not everyone will understand these references, but let’s just say that Bran the Broken is nowhere near the selection show of the new king of Westeros. Oh, and the during the Long Night Battle, the Night King never shows up to Winterfell, as that battle was supposed to be a distraction so that he could fly to King’s Landing on the undead dragon, absolutely annihilate the entire city and then rise his arms to create an even bigger army of the dead. The closing shot of that episode ends with him taking a seat on the empty iron throne, which now has small amounts of frost on it.
That’s all I can say about that for now, but if there is a demand from my loyal readers for my version of how Game of Thrones season 8, I’ll write up a detailed synopsis in another blog.
Back to the altered reality. After my version of season 8 premiers, the show will receive massive critical acclaim and be cemented as the greatest show of all time. I will no longer have to worry about money or fame for the rest of my life, as I am swarmed with love by fans and swamped in beautiful offers from every production studio in the world to write other projects.
But, there is still one more thing that I need to do while I have the power to time travel.
3. Forever change the name of the vibrator:
My final destination involves me traveling back to the date that the vibrator was created. Because I am richer than a small country at this point, I will buy the rights to the vibrator and then patent a new name for it. I will call it ‘the Henry.’
Now, you’re probably wondering: Henry, why the fuck would you do this?
Just like how every time you need a tissue, you ask for a ‘Kleenex’, and every time you need directions to the copy machine, you ask where the ‘Xerox’ is located, every connection that came with a vibrator will now be directed to a ‘Henry’.
Henry will be a household name forever associated with reducing stress and creating pleasure. The most satisfying feelings in existence.
How you use a Henry is up to your discretion. You can do whatever tickles your fancy. But no matter how you use it, you’ll always be happy Henry was involved.
