6 ms·

Yes, I would probably go back to 2009 and mine bitcoins (or fill captchas for 5 BTC a piece..) with a CPU..

andyjohnson0 13y ago
Good point. All the early bitcoin miners are clearly suspect. And Satoshi Nakamoto's sudden appearance and then disappearance now makes total sense.
- arethuza 13y ago
  Combining time travel and computation has interesting results: http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1991/TempComp.html http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.artic...
  - danielweber 13y ago
    Totally serious question: If I go back to 1990, can I distribute a current version of emacs? The toolchain to build the current source tree won't exist for a while.
    - andyjohnson0 13y ago
      Why not? Any computer program is just a very large number. Even thought the emacs build process that calculates the large number corresponding to the current version of emacs hadn't been performed in 1990, the number itself "existed" back then as the outcome of any number of other possible computations. On the other hand, you might have problems with dll dependencies.
      - raverbashing 13y ago
        Or maybe Emacs can't run in a home machine of 1990 Remember? Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping
        andyjohnson0 13y ago
        I assume @danielweber was asking whether it was possible in principle - as in, can information exist before it is created. My remark about dlls was an attempt at humour, not a comment on practicalities.
      - drzaiusapelord 13y ago
        Oh, youre running a binary that uses CPU extensions or dependent on a kernel that doesn't exist yet? Enjoy your segfaults.
    - lmm 13y ago
      GCC stage1 is deliberately written in K&R C so that you can do this kind of bootstrapping. You need a few unix tools (e.g. make - but again, a version from 1990 should work, find yourself a solaris machine or something); I don't remember exactly what emacs depends on, but it should be fine. Getting a modern environment on old unix boxes (or under windows SUA, whose unix stuff is old enough that it comes with X11R5) is fun and usually requires a bit of fiddling but nothing too serious.
hex12648430 13y ago
If time travel was possible there would be a lot of ways to make money more efficiently than with bitcoins.
- linker3000 13y ago
  You are all assuming that money is still in use in the future.
cleaver 13y ago
I'd say the very fact that most Bitcoins weren't created in the first few hours is a good indicator that there are no time travellers. Or if travellers do exist, access to time travel has been restricted, or perhaps Bitcoins and possibly even currency is not of interest in the future. In fact, time travel could render investments obsolete.
- infruset 13y ago
  There, you just found proof that Bitcoin is going to collapse in the future!

Good point. All the early bitcoin miners are clearly suspect. And Satoshi Nakamoto's sudden appearance and then disappearance now makes total sense.

arethuza 13y ago
Combining time travel and computation has interesting results: http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1991/TempComp.html http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.artic...
- danielweber 13y ago
  Totally serious question: If I go back to 1990, can I distribute a current version of emacs? The toolchain to build the current source tree won't exist for a while.
  - andyjohnson0 13y ago
    Why not? Any computer program is just a very large number. Even thought the emacs build process that calculates the large number corresponding to the current version of emacs hadn't been performed in 1990, the number itself "existed" back then as the outcome of any number of other possible computations. On the other hand, you might have problems with dll dependencies.
    - raverbashing 13y ago
      Or maybe Emacs can't run in a home machine of 1990 Remember? Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping
      - andyjohnson0 13y ago
        I assume @danielweber was asking whether it was possible in principle - as in, can information exist before it is created. My remark about dlls was an attempt at humour, not a comment on practicalities.
    - drzaiusapelord 13y ago
      Oh, youre running a binary that uses CPU extensions or dependent on a kernel that doesn't exist yet? Enjoy your segfaults.
  - lmm 13y ago
    GCC stage1 is deliberately written in K&R C so that you can do this kind of bootstrapping. You need a few unix tools (e.g. make - but again, a version from 1990 should work, find yourself a solaris machine or something); I don't remember exactly what emacs depends on, but it should be fine. Getting a modern environment on old unix boxes (or under windows SUA, whose unix stuff is old enough that it comes with X11R5) is fun and usually requires a bit of fiddling but nothing too serious.

hex12648430 13y ago

If time travel was possible there would be a lot of ways to make money more efficiently than with bitcoins.

linker3000 13y ago
You are all assuming that money is still in use in the future.

cleaver 13y ago

I'd say the very fact that most Bitcoins weren't created in the first few hours is a good indicator that there are no time travellers. Or if travellers do exist, access to time travel has been restricted, or perhaps Bitcoins and possibly even currency is not of interest in the future. In fact, time travel could render investments obsolete.

infruset 13y ago
There, you just found proof that Bitcoin is going to collapse in the future!