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The Groundhog Day Device

“"Oops! . . . I did it again."
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Ever reflect back on your life and wish you had done something differently, or wish you had taken a different path? What is the common phrase, “Hindsight is always 20/20?” With the Groundhog Day Device, you can select any period of time in your life and relive it. Just like in the movie "Groundhog Day", this device affords you the opportunity to make that life-altering decision that you wish you had made before, . . . again!

Is it a time machine? Yeah I guess it is. However, you cannot use it to go back to where you were before you zapped back to an important moment in your life. In other words, once you go back in time, you cannot go “Back to the Future”. The Groundhog Day device can only be used to go backwards, not forwards.

Since the future that you came from did not exist in the time you went back to, you cannot go back. You would have to wait until you naturally caught up with the day that you decided to use the device, and then decide not to use it if it did not go according to plan. Understand?

Reliving the past comes with a price. If you go back ten years, you will have to relive the entire ten years. This means that once you relive those ten years and make it back to the day that you decided to zap back in time, it will be like you had aged twenty years. In a way, you lose ten new years that you could have lived in the future to the past. Hopefully, those relived ten years are full of prosperity because you would have made a decision that alters your life significantly. The possibilities and ramifications of this device are as endless as time itself. So, choose your “when” wisely, my child.

And yes, as with any new invention, this could be twisted and used for Evil.

fatamericanpig, Jul 31 2000

Groundhog Day http://us.imdb.com/Title?0107048
the movie, as mentioned in the IMDB [rrr, Jul 31 2000]


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       Bravo :´) It's stuff like this that makes the halfbakery worth it all. Thank you Fatamericanpig, for making my day just a little bit better.   

       :P
placebo, Aug 10 2000
  

       [fatamericanpig]: So it's a race to reach nirvana.   

       We're all lucky enough to have been born at a time in which nanotechnology is achievable in our lifetimes. That pretty much means our lifetimes won't end.   

       I read somewhere that we're extending the average life expectancy more than one year for every year that passes -- so we're effectively immortal today.   

       That being the case, we'll someday be able to invent the Groundhog Day Device. So each of us will be able to hit "reset" on the game, and play it again with better knowledge of strategy.   

       It won't be like "12:01" though (or Groundhog Day, for that matter) -- if you die, game over. So don't go back too far -- those hormones were pretty nasty. ;-)   

       The winner, I suppose, gets to be God. Define winner? The one who figures out how to break out of the loop. See, the stars will all burn out one day, so choosing not to be in the loop is choosing death.   

       Stay in the loop, and experiment the hell out of your environment until you find the bug (or feature -- some see the Creator as benevolent) that lets you escape to another level.   

       Thing 1
Thing 1, Aug 13 2000
  

       As a movie this idea is already good. Or a television-series.
rrr, Aug 13 2000
  

       [Thing 1]: What's happened, of course, is that medicine and sanitation have let a greater proportion of the population approach the maximum age attainable. The average age has risen because the curve has shifted to the right, not because the posts have moved; your chances of reaching old age are merely much better now than they used to be. There were plenty of vigorous ninety-year-olds in the ancient world, where 'life expectancy' was thirty-ish. I hear that distant-future gene therapy and what-not might make real extensions possible, though, and this might be what you're counting on.   

       Oh, and time travel -- huzzah.
Monkfish, Dec 19 2000, last modified Dec 20 2000
  

       Great idea (hmm...let's see, the lotto's up to 22 million. I'd wait until this coming Thursday, get the numbers for Wednesday and go back a day...and then be rich!)
iuvare, Dec 19 2000
  

       One would somehow have to protect from the "Milliways principle."   

       Maybe this is why religions involving karma have us coming back as a sea-slug or cow or something. To protect the integrity of the system...   

       Secondly, if this is possible, why haven't we already seen it? Or have we?   

       I seem to remember experiencing some deja vu tomorrow...
RayfordSteele, Feb 07 2002
  


 

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