I just received this rather non-humorous letter from the folks over at the
Time Travel Mutual Fund:
Hello Alex,
I see you have our site, The Time Travel Fund, listed in your museum
of hoaxes.(www.TimeTravelFund.com)
I am writing you to ask that you remove us from your site. We are not
a hoax; we are serious in what we are attempting to do. Your site
lists us as being a hoax as if it were a fact, not as simply being
your personal opinion.
While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, presenting it as a
fact and not an opinion is slander.
This raises a dilemma for me. I do, in fact, list the Time Travel Fund in my gallery of hoax websites, having assumed that the site was a kind of cute, tongue-in-cheek idea whose main purpose was to sell $10 certificates that people could hang on their wall as a joke, rather than really being in the business of fund management. But if they're perfectly serious about their time travel fund, then that makes it a kooky site, rather than a hoax site. Should I keep the site on the list? I'm not sure.
I'm inclined to keep it on there just to annoy them because I don't like their legalistic threat about me slandering them. But I think the best thing to do would be to keep their site in the list, but add a disclaimer noting that while I thought the Fund was a joke, the fund managers themselves seem to take their task very seriously.
Comments
But I do agree, just leave it up. It's a hoot.
I need to go back to High School, and correct all the mistakes I made that turned me into such an incredible loser that I feel the need to contribute to the time travel fund.
bye bye now
It'll only cost them a tenner, so it'll be cheaper than a lawyer, too.
I agree that whether they believe in it or not, until they can prove the legitimacy of thier "fund" it should stay on the site as a hoax or scam.
I think I know how they're investing the money though. I bet they're buying up acreage on the moon. 😝
I think you should list them as a hoax. If they were so foolish as to seek a legal remedy, it would be worth the trouble to see them try to explain their position to a judge.
"(just for the record, I did not post that comment above. I found the site listed in my referrer logs, clicked, and saw that someone posted as me. Not that it really matters, it's a very innocuous comment and doesn't really make me look bad / good in any way, but still... kinda scary that someone would post something under my name)
But I do agree, just leave it up. It's a hoot.
Posted by the real joe peacock on Fri Aug 20, 2004 at 06:52 AM"
my name happens to be Joe Peacock.
I linked to your website because i found it funny and thought you would like the publicity.
Sorry for any damage done.
And last time I checked, time travel was an opinion, not a fact also.
That within itself says a lot about them.
In any case, it's a cool certificate, worth the $10 by itself. If they are for real, great! If not, then I'm only out ten bucks, and I still have the certificate hanging on my wall.
In addition, there is a theory in Quantum mechanics called "Causality". Maybe they should read it. But, although their company is a hoax, it is not a fraud since they are not promising anything deliverable. It is like selling property on Venus.
The problem is that they are selling it as an investment. Selling investments is illegal without the proper licenses. If it were simply sold in the same manner as the "International Star Registry" it would be acceptable. They can't be real and really invest the money as they say without the proper licensing though.
There is one born every minute.
So is the site a hoax? Like Alex, I have no proof either way? It's impossible to say with factual certainty. Yet I see that many of you are quite happy to do so.
Actually, what struck me as really tragic about all this was the poor logic some of you used to support your statements.
>If their promise is kept, won't those of us
>who purchase the certificate immidiately
>disappear into the future?
At least read the site before you critique it. That question is covered well.
>There is an assumption that someone must be
>around running their company in 500 or 5,000
>years. There won't be.
Huh? How could you know there won't be anyone around? (Hey, are you from the future?!)
Trusts and companies are separate legal entities that are perpetual.
>If they insist that they are serious, ask them
>why, if time travel seems a certainty in the
>future, we have not had any visitors from there.
They never say time travel is a certainty. In fact, I thought they were pretty clear that it is definitely uncertain. Again, at least read the site before you critique it.
Why haven't we had any vistors from the future? Why are you so definite we haven't?
>what about inflation? wouldn't that hurt your
>time travel fund?
Good question. Yes it would. Now go read the home page of the site for their answer.
Love to you all,
Jules
I read the site. Did you? The Fund was allegedly set up with the premise "how would YOU like to visit, even live hundreds of years in the future?". If the suggestion is I get to visit the future after I am dead, the premise fails. It is quite clear that you have read the site but your alleged logic has failed you. Go on, put up the $10 and visit the future after you die. For me, I will obey the Prime Directive and not interfere with inferior intelligences.
Love you too.
Marty
You're making this way too easy for me, but I'll assume you're not just trolling and take on the challenge.
>I read the site. Did you?
Yes, that's also what I said I did in my original message. (Hopefully that is all cleared up now.)
>If the suggestion is I get to visit the future
>after I am dead, the premise fails.
How does the premise fail? You just made this statement but you didn't support it with any facts or evidence. How did you arrive at this conclusion? It's certainly not self-evident.
If we're expected to believe that the premise fails just because you say so, then that's not very convincing.
>It is quite clear that you have read the
>site...
Hold on, if it's clear that I read the site, why did you question above whether I had read it or not?
>...but your alleged logic has failed you.
Again, are we expected to believe my logic is flawed just because you say so?
I'm more than happy to be corrected, but unless you quote a specific mistake in my logic and provide some good evidence of where it is wrong, then those words are just an unfounded opinion.
You, of course, have every right to an opinion about me, just as I have every right to ask you to substantiate that opinion.
>Go on, put up the $10 and visit the future
>after you die.
Firstly, as I said in my original message, I have no idea of whether the site is a hoax or not. Until more information is made available to me, I'm neutral on the whole matter. So why are you goading me in to doing so?
Secondly, whether I (or anyone) would invest in the fund or not has no relevance to my original claim that some of the previous commenters used questionable arguments to support their conclusions.
If someone had used the same type of poor rationalisations to claim that the site was _not_ a hoax, I'd be just as discouraged from believing them.
>Love you too.
Why thanks - I could just hug you right now. 😉
Jules
A question however is WHY are 98% of these morons US citizens?
....well, thats a hard one, but i've managed to come up with a conclusion...98% of these morons are US citizens because 98% of US citizens are morons...oh burn
-Anyways, now to the important stuff; i'd like to point out to at least 4 of you who say that they wont be able to retrieve you from the past after your dead, well dumba**ses, i'm sure they could retrieve you before you die(being in the future and all), which they clearly state on the website.
I'll be back to talk later, bluntly, A.Milton
What they are doing is funny, interesting and thought provoking. It raises interesting moral and philosophical questions. It is also not necessarily impossible (I loved the comment by Posted by Mike on Thu Aug 19, 2004 at 10:18 PM - he has recently heard that time travel is impossible back to before time travel is invented! Well, that's that then, Mike has heard!)
People who think this is rot should read a few books on quantum mechanics and even Einstein's theories, none of which rule time travel to be impossible. (Try: 'The Elegant Universe' & 'The Fabric of the Cosmos' by Brian Greene - a little more qualified on the subject than 'Mike'). (Or for those of you who have heard of Carl Sagan, see this interview with him: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/sagan.html).
I'm not saying time travel IS possible, just that it might be and there is nothing (NOTHING) in current theories to rule it impossible.
And the Time Travel Fund is open about where the money goes. Give them a break and let a little imagination and wonder into your souls!
Can't tell you how I know, but if you look hard enough for the Time Travel conventions that have had 1000s of people show up when the advertisments for them aren't done til the future... Heard about one on the CBC a month and a bit ago... The news article was the first mention of it outside of someones secure safe.
Amazing what can be accomplished.
So for 5$ you can pay some very creative people. Whats wrong with that?
You all spend more on crap Hollywood DVDs that do nothing for you life beyond entertain you for 1.75 hours. Or More on cigarettes in 2 days if you smoke.
Its about as much as eating a McD's meal, and you get the cool "sci-fi" fan certificate.
Who paid for the Star Wars ep.s 1-3 even though they were all garbage... Good special effects, but bad acting and bad stories... But are the 3 movies worth what you've spent on them? That they were made out to be good is a bigger hoax than a creative site thats enjoyable to read.
I haven't signed up, I dont work for them, I just found the site enjoyable and find the people who feel they have to criticise everything they don't understand are morons.
Read up on the potentials for M-Theory, I'd start with the Elegant Universe Nova DVD and Book. Look into the hyper dimensional physics research too... Scientists are divided on this topic but enough think its more than possible...
My interest in the Time Travel Fund comes from my writing sci-fi stories, its a neat thing. I apprieciate the work they put into it.
I'm also going to sign up. Just for the fun of it and that it pisses off closed minded sorts like a bunch of the commenters on this site seem to be.
Cheers
I used to believe that time travel is impossible. There really is no way to send things through time. For example, where is the logic behind me going back in time, telling myself not to go back in time to tell myself not to go back... If this happened, then how would I go back in the first place. Therefore the entire universe would be trapped in an infinate loop, and would remain so even without me finding myself in the past, because even moving 1 partical in the past would change the flow of energy in the future.
So therefore, there in no way that time = 4D and is set before it happens, because then we would be able to change it, but how can you change a preset sequence? So time is not set, it is not even an object, and nothing that happens is recorded. Time is just something that humans feel but it is not really there. The only way that time travel could ever happen is if a computer simulation of the earth could calculate what the earth would be like if a certain thing happened, and then amazingly powerful machines would convert the earth into enrgy, and then convert it back into matter in the requested image. But I don't see how doing this could possibly bring back an entire person. The only way to do that would be to clone them (which is already illegal). Would you pay to be cloned? I say keep them on your site with no explanation. Lets see them trying explain to a judge the perose of this service and how it works. Well, I would have said that if only I could go back 1 year ago and post this message then -> Maybe I'll pay mt $10 with an order for them to make me find this page 1 year ago and post this message to see what happens..
>where is the logic behind me going back in
>time, telling myself not to go back in time to
>tell myself not to go back... If this happened,
>then how would I go back in the first place.
This assumes there's only a single time line.
Unless you can disprove multiple time lines and all the alternatives that have the same affect, this is just another one of the many unresolved paradoxes raised by the potential of time travel.
You make several other assumptions like this.