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John Titor

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Re: John Titor

#111

Post by The_suffocated »

dilippkumar wrote: post #9
echohack5 wrote: post #3

Steins;Gate, a Japanese light novel and anime, includes John Titor in the story in an awesome way. It also includes some bit of hacker culture that I think is more real than the typical American movie "hacker". I recommend it! Edit: As pointed out in the comments, this was originally a visual novel! There are many ways to enjoy this story.

Strong agree. Stiens;Gate is the only time traveller story that I know that establishes rules for time travel early on and actually sticks to these rules till the end.

Of all time travel stories I know, the one with the most consistent and logical view on time travel isn't Steins;Gate, but Murai Nikki (Future Diary).

IMHO, Steins;Gate hasn't clarified what time travel really represents. When one travels from one world line to another, does the previous world line still exist? Is time travel a travel between parallel universes, a complete rewrite of history in the _same_ world, or something else?

In the first Steins;Gate anime, it seems that time travel means a rewrite of history (i.e. the conventional type of time travel in science fictions), but in Steins;Gate 0, time travel seems more like jumping between parallel universes.

Re: John Titor

#112

Post by mirimir »

tetris11 wrote: post #93
zitterbewegung wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primer is a movie that while it has a time machine it really explores the personal and social implications and complications of time travel. Using time travel as a plot device versus using time travel to explore part of our humanity is a mark of great science fiction.

I just wish the plot was more linear, and not needlessly patched together memento style so that you dont have to watch it more than once.

I've probably watched it over ten times, and sections of it far more. And I still don't quite understand the storyline.

In particular, what's up with that hangar full of troops and equipment at the "end"?

Re: John Titor

#113

Post by mirimir »

as1mov wrote: post #52
time0ut wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might enjoy the movie Primer [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_HHnXeMWT0

Just a heads up, the video is blocked everywhere except USA/Canada. Here's a link to the trailer if anyone is interested[0]. It's a fantastic movie by the way, a definite watch if you're interested in hard sci-fi. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vD-yj9o664&

There's also this explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sf9fChyRoc

Re: John Titor

#114

Post by mirimir »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #62
tzs wrote: post #21

What time travel might look like from the other side [1]. I remember a great short story I read about the first time traveler. They decided the first visit would be the Shakespeare. Shakespeare has no problems accepting that he's being visited by a time traveler, and asks what gifts the traveler brings. The traveler is a bit confused, so Shakespeare explains that the early ones all bring gifts. The traveler has broug…

Reminds me of a story where it turned out that the entire Passover crowd where Pontius Pilate asks who should be pardoned are time travellers that have been told to do what everyone else does.

There's a Russian spoof of "Terminator" which has Arnold going back to kill Judas. With the iconic lever-action shotgun (not consistent, I know). But Christ keeps bringing him back to life, to satisfy his father's will.

Re: John Titor

#115

Post by jessedhillon »

mirimir wrote: post #112
tetris11 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish the plot was more linear, and not needlessly patched together memento style so that you dont have to watch it more than once.

I've probably watched it over ten times, and sections of it far more. And I still don't quite understand the storyline. In particular, what's up with that hangar full of troops and equipment at the "end"?

That is a construction crew, and they are building a larger/newer version of the machine.

Re: John Titor

#116

Post by eindiran »

tetris11 wrote: post #91
eindiran wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly, I met someone in Ojai, California in 2010 who also claimed to be a time traveler named "Butterfly". He was a weird looking dude who also claimed he had a computer chip in his hand. I only spoke with him for a moment but it was a very surreal conversation.

What did he say, and did he look young?

He needed a ride from Libbey Bowl (a big park in the center of town) to some other location in Ojai (which is a small enough town that giving a stranger a ride isn't completely weird). My buddy and I drove him to the place he wanted to be dropped off while he talked for a bit about being a time traveler. He was wearing a ton of different bracelets, and when we commented on that he gave us each a bracelet (in the same style as those yellow Livestrong bracelets people wore in the 2000s). Both bracelets were identical black bracelets with red symbols, that looked kind of like they were off of Led Zepplin IV.

I'm not sure how old he was. I've never been very good at estimating people's ages, but I'd guess maybe in his 30s or 40s?

Re: John Titor

#117

Post by mirimir »

jessedhillon wrote: post #115
mirimir wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've probably watched it over ten times, and sections of it far more. And I still don't quite understand the storyline. In particular, what's up with that hangar full of troops and equipment at the "end"?

That is a construction crew, and they are building a larger/newer version of the machine.

OK. So they're planning an invasion of the past?

Re: John Titor

#118

Post by solstice »

tetris11 wrote: post #94
gamegoblin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the German netflix show 'Dark' does time travel in a much more satisfying way than the vast majority. Watch it in German with subtitles, the dub is weird.

Dark suffers from the same ambiguity as Lost though, where you given the writers the benefit of the doubt that there's an overarching rational sequence of events, but it's also equally likely that the writers are just making it up as they go along.

Strongly agree, especially when watching season 2

Re: John Titor

#119

Post by scarejunba »

aidenn0 wrote: post #98
tjalfi wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my classmates in an IT course was named Aragorn. I thought about asking him whether his parents chose the name but decided I didn’t want to know.

My sister has a friend named Arwen and her dad says she would have been named "Frodo" if she had been a boy. Dodged a bullet there.

Amusing how books have to achieve a certain vintage before names from them become acceptable. I wonder if, in the year 3000, it will be acceptable to name a child Arwen and not have it thought of as weird. Or perhaps there needs to arise a cult around LoTR before that becomes acceptable. If Scientology enters the mainstream, perhaps children will be called Xenu completely normally. Maybe the name Jesus will be treated like the name Nimrod.

Then again, there is powerful normalcy-bias here. A name is acceptable if it is very similar to established names and if there is variance it's rarely among the established power class. So perhaps we'll need a massive disruption. The Scientologists will have to kill a large number of people and subjugate us to have names no longer just be James and Jennifer.

Or maybe we'll need a modern well-loved person to call their child Eliohann.

Re: John Titor

#120

Post by kshacker »

tzs wrote: post #89
mindcrime wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe "The Merchant of Stratford"? https://www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/shakespeare400/2016/03/...

That's definitely it. It looks like someone has republished it as a stand-alone story on Kindle [1]. That says 19 pages, which seems longer than the story I remember. I wonder if it was expanded from the original short story in Asimov's? It's also in this anthology of science fiction humor stories [2]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Stratford-Frank-Ramirez-eboo... [2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0395305195…

Dude someone went back in time and left a review on Amazon from 2014 : mentioning hacker news. Good job guys. You were fast

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