Question of the Week: Future

Given the ability to project yourself into the future but not return, would you do so? If not, would you change your mind if you could take someone along? How far would you go?

I can actually get behind this theory of time travel. If time travel were possible, my thought is that it would only be possible to move forward in time, not backward. And I absolutely would want to make that journey, whether I could take someone or not. Sure, it would be nice to know someone once I got to the future. Either way, I think it would be fun. In fact, I'm in a pretty good position to go by myself anyway. I don't have a wife or kids that are depending on me to be in the present, which means I won't miss seeing my own children growing up. I'll miss the friends and family I have now, but I would be sure to say my goodbyes before I made my quantum leap.

Can I go ahead and assume that if I can make the jump ahead in time once that I can do it multiple times? 'Cause here's what I'd like to do: Before I leave, I'd put all my savings into an account that would gain a great deal of interest over a long period of time. This is the part where I'm planning ahead. First I want to go ahead a few months and see if Community gets a chance to finish the season, or even gets picked up for a fourth season. Then I'd jump ahead a few more years, stopping to see how all of my friends are doing and find out what I've missed in the last few years. Then I'd go ahead and jump 100 years into the future. By then I should have some pretty good interest built up. I'd say I'll have enough to retire by 2111, but with inflation being what it is, I may not be able to. I'd travel a little, read up on the rest of the history of the 21st century, but eventually I'd probably want to keep going. My curiosity would get the better of me. I'm not saying I'd want to go all the way to AD 802,701 like the guy in The Time Machine, but I think it might be cool to see what the 31st century looks like. Is the Price is Right still on? Do people even still watch TV? Are the Yankees still playing? Does baseball even still exist? These are the questions that will haunt me now until I figure out a way to make this trip into the future.

*Question of the Week comes from The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, Ph.D.