Doc O'Leary <droleary.usenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In article <1203133165.303653@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Michael Ash <mike@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> Any thoughts on the above?
>
> I don't think it has anything to do with a lottery. It really sounds
> like that's just a plucked example from the position that time travel
> *must* change the past.
I don't know if you're describing my motivations or just trying to
generalize it, but I said exactly where I got the question from in my
introduction to the post.
> From a plot device standpoint, the question is
> whether it changes history like a pebble in a stream, or more like a
dam.
I disagree. There is nothing that says that a time traveler's effects must
be of similar magnitude on a micro and macro scale.
Is history a pencil balanced on its tip? Then the time traveler will have
a huge effect on it no matter what he does. His arrival changes the
lottery drawing which results in a different winner which causes a
different worker to tell off his boss and quit his job which results in
missing a critical fault in a device which gets installed on a submarine
which sinks accidentally when that device fails which triggers a nuclear
war which ends civilization as we know it.
Is history a cannonball? Then the time traveler will have an effect
pro****tional to his actions. His arrival changes the lottery drawing which
results in a different winner who tells off his boss and lives a life of
luxury for a few years until massive mismanagement and embezzlement by his
financial planner results in him living out his years on the streets of
some major city. The nuclear war happens or doesn't happen pretty much the
same as it did as before.
Personally I believe that history is probably a "cannonball balanced
occasionally on its tip", in that it usually will carry on roughly the
same no matter what, but that there are occasional im****tant junctures
where a small force can produce a major outcome. But any interpretation of
history is compatible with any interpretation of the effects on the
lottery drawing.
>> It seems to me that a time traveler is going to have a better time in
>> s****ts betting or the stock market. Both of these are chaotic to some
>> extent but at least in the short term are based on more macroscopic
>> effects. Small changes in the players' brains won't change the fact
that
>> team A's defense is helpless against team B's offense, or that company
X
>> is going to announce earnings 50% higher than predicted the next day.
>
> The more interesting paradox that you miss is that the effect of small
> changes of a lottery has a big ripple effect (turns $1 into $100 million
> for one person) while a small change in a stock price has a small ripple
> effect (turns $1 into maybe $2). But that only matters to someone
> playing the game. When it comes to "proving" a timeline, if you assume
> the physical laws of both scenarios are identical, it doesn't much
> matter which way you go because the lottery winner will *still* change,
> and that will further ripple to change the future in ways you cannot
> predict.
A lottery won't turn $1 into $100 million unless it's an *exceptionally*
large jackpot. As has been mentioned in the other thread, the listed
jackpot assumes yearly payments over the course of many years, and don't
include taxes. If you opt for the lump sum and pay Uncle Sam the way he
likes, you end up with something like a third of the number they
advertise, so you would need a $300 million jackpot. But anyway, that's
just details, you have the right ballpark.
It's interesting to consider that it takes time to actually collect on a
lottery win. If you're able to double your money on the stock market each
trading day, you can turn $1 into $100 million in a little over a month.
Although it will get harder and harder to do this as the amounts get
larger, because trades of that magnitude will affect the market by a
significant amount.
--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software
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