Time Capsule

I have a thought I want to bring to the discussion table. If it were possible to open a time capsule from the future, twenty years or more, would you want to know what is in it?

One thing we could learn is what will cars look like twenty to thirty years from now.

Related question: If you could send a time capsule fifty to a hundred years in the past, what would you put in it?

Jeanette Isabelle

I really enjoy how you make me think beyond my day-to-day considerations and get myself 'outside the box'.

So - if I could send back something but had no idea who would get it, I don't think I would dare send anything that was technology related as it just would not work. Electronics would not have 'value' I don't think as the background infrastructure to make them work isn't there (yet). There was/is a short story about an inventor who was able to jump back a thousand years in time... no more, no less and he took with him several modern artifacts and tools to impress the natives and establish himself as a wise leader. Nothing he took worked was the end result and he died viewed by the locals as a crazy person.

As it would be 1918 and the War to end all Wars (WWI) would be finishing up I am unable to come up with anything that would be interesting to send that would not shift today (information and the good old Science Fiction time paradox) into something we would not recognize today.

However, if I could target it at 50 years and send it to me, well then - it would be a simple note to buy apple stock when it comes out! Really I should also send some pictures of now and also some notes on how life will work out and don't let the crappy times that are coming get to you as it's all ok later in life.

I always liked the Dennis the Menace cartoon where little Dennis is on his trike talking to friend Joey saying "Boy, what I wouldn't give to be five again and know what I know now." It's sort of like that...

You bring up a good question. Who should get it? I would want it to end in the hands of temporal physicists or anyone who understands what would be a danger if released to the public and what would be a benefit.

Archaeologists, anthropologists and historians can go over items, not be released to the general public, with a fine-tooth comb to get a more detailed picture of the future.

As for what I would include? I have a copy of a journal a friend wrote. I only see one problem if it were published in the past. For time to come full circle, it would be best that he does not read his published journal. If he did, he might not write it.

What else? I would include printed E-mail, drawings by the cartoonist Bill Holbrook and comic books by Terrence and Isabel Marks.

Before the E-mail is published, permission from the author is needed. That in of its self is spooky. Imagine it is the year 1981. You have the CIA in your apartment. They explain why they are there: "We are here to ask questions about E-mail you wrote to Jeanette Isabelle from 2003 to 2009."

"Who is Jeanette Isabelle?"

"She is a girl who will be born on January 26, 1986. You will start an Internet relationship with her in 2003."

If I have room, I would include my DVD collection and a DVD player. Again, I would not have them released to the general public. I want Gene Roddenberry to see them so that his depiction of the future would be closer to being realistic. I also wish the creators of Back to the Future II would see them so that their representation of 2015 would hit the bull's eye.

I double checked. Back to the Future II was released in 1989. What if, before the movie starts, they show trailers of films that will be shown in the distant future?

"Coming June 25, 1993, to a theater near you."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Sduh2-5C-Ao

"Coming March 28, 2003, to a theater near you."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ByXuk9QqQkk

"Coming March 30, 2007, to a theater near you."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/XwxQmQhEX3k

"Coming November 27, 2013, to a theater near you."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TbQm5doF_Uc

"Coming June 19, 2015, to a theater near you."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/seMwpP0yeu4

Back to the Future II could even feature an Inside Out movie poster, with Disney's permission of course.

Oh, come on. It would be funny.

The most significant advantage is this will shut the mouths of those who say the world will end, at least a little while. "How can the world end in 2012 if Inside Out will be released in 2015?"

Jeanette Isabelle

I posted this same topic in another forum. Fernando makes an interesting point.


http://www.hondosackett.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1539966421/9#9

It's funny- everyone is convinced that the slightest action would disrupt the entire time line of the world yet almost o one thinks the have any power to change the world today.