How to Profit from Time Travel to Future?

[MoreTimetoRide]

The problem that I see with the trust is that she has to prove that she is who she says she is. As soon as they say, "Well, then why aren't you 80 years old?" the jig is up.

I presume you will have other difficulties to overcome regarding identity with that much of a gap in her history.

The beneficiary of the trust generally isn't the person who set the trust up. In fact, the beneficiary can be someone who is not yet born (e.g., grandchildren). She sets up the trust knowing how she is going to deal with the identity issue in the future. For example, if she can arrange for it to look like she is Aunt Kate's first born daughter (who, in actuality, died at a young age), the trust could have Aunt Kate's first born daughter as the beneficiary.

Good luck with whatever you decide to write.
--
Wayne.

 

[Walt34]

I was thinking about this question during lunch. Bear with me on this, it involves some daydreaming and Twilight Zone stuff, and outright fantasy.

Decades ago I worked patrol shifts and often had an area that included a large park with a road through it that ran about 8 or 10 miles. The road ran next to a creek so it was in a low-lying area often subject to thick dense fog, so thick I sometimes had to slow to 10-15 mph. Occasionally in that environment at 3:00 AM one's mind wanders and one of the thoughts that came to mind was what if I emerged on the other side of that fog in a different time, either in the past or future. If 25 years in the future, how would I even establish that I was who I said I was? It would probably come down to fingerprints, which were hopefully still on file even though I'd probably have been declared dead by then.

One of the other things that occurred to me was that I'd probably be pretty well off financially. I'd be of retirement age thus eligible for the pension, and further, my argument would be that I'd have been on overtime all day, every day, for the last 25 years! There it is, in writing, right in the Personnel Regulations. And I'd think of the County attorneys, squirming, trying to argue that doing so constituted "unjust enrichment" or some such, and me countering that I had lost my family and relatives to time while at work.

Well, you said you were writing science fiction....

 

[TromboneAl]

Why not hide some strange things in obscure places? Papers marked in code, objects with masonic symbols, anything that could have a mystical interpretation. Then claim to have psychic powers that are used to locate and interpret them, and become a Rasputin type.

I'm not sure you need time travel to do that. Just hide the wife's keys, then put your underwear on your head, walk around in a trance, and lead her right to them.

I rejected travel to the past because I didn't want to deal with the grandfather paradox. Time travel to the future happens all the time. Every time you move, time passes more slowly for you than a stationary observer (due to special relativity). Not a big effect.

I learned that GPS satellites must compensate for the fact that time moves more slowly on Earth than in space.

Stephen Hawking has a good article on this:

STEPHEN HAWKING: How to build a time machine | Daily Mail Online

 

[Fermion]

There is no grandfather paradox.

When you travel back in time, it splits the universe into a copy. You actually travel to the copy from your original universe. Any changes you make in the copy don't affect the timeline of the original universe from whence you came, therefore no paradox.

All time travelers learned this in first year time travel school.

 

[Walt34]

There is no grandfather paradox.

When you travel back in time, it splits the universe into a copy. You actually travel to the copy from your original universe. Any changes you make in the copy don't affect the timeline of the original universe from whence you came, therefore no paradox.

Don't the two universes later merge into the same timeline or do they remain separate forever? And if you traveled back to "your" present, how would you know which timeline you were in, the original or the copy?

And if you killed your grandfather in one, does he then become like schrödinger's cat?

I'm beginning to confuse myself here.

 

[Fermion]

Don't the two universes later merge into the same timeline or do they remain separate forever? And if you traveled back to "your" present, how would you know which timeline you were in, the original or the copy?

And if you killed your grandfather in one, does he then become like schrödinger's cat?

I'm beginning to confuse myself here.

The original and copy universe remain separated. There is no way to return to the original universe as any attempt to do this would just cause yet another copy to be made of the present universe. You are always in the timeline where you have traveled. One professor at the timeline school used to say "wherever you go, there you are". Some students suspect he picked this up in the late 20th or early 21th century during a trip.

 

[splitwdw]

All time travelers learned this in first year time travel school.

Loved this! I'm still laughing.

 

[LoneAspen]

She engineers a disease in 1970 that starts to slowly kill off people. She kills off anyone that might discover a cure and might remember her in the future. She has the cure and inoculates herself. In 2020 she reappears and "discovers" the cure and sells for big bucks.........whoa, had to edit myself. I started to write a book.

Ooooh - very intriguing idea, splitwdw. I like!

Rather than going on the premise she stole something valuable, or tried to hide money or jewels or whatever, she kills off 80% of the populace (which also has the added benefit of probably destroying enough knowledge, infrastructure, and computer records that her identity would be lost anyway) and then 50 years later starts her own pharma company, "discovers" the cure, and becomes a trillionaire selling the cure.