Complex Numbers

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Ah, yes, the old "save game" scenario.

PROMPT September 22nd

If you could live the next 24 hours and then erase it and start over just once, what would you do?

Drugs.

Okay, no, probably not.

I'm going to make some assumptions here -- this is obviously an entirely speculative scenario, and there aren't enough details. Basically, I'm figuring it's like saving a video game, proceeding with the game, and then reloading the save. Or, perhaps, the Groundhog Day situation.

I would have memory of what happened. (Otherwise, what's the point?)
No one else would have any memory of what happened.
No consequences upon reload.
No objects come back upon reload (that is, no profit from, for example, robbing a bank).

Sometimes when I'm playing Skyrim, I do this sort of thing on purpose (usually the save point is just in case my character bites it). I'll save a game, then go into a town and pick fights with the guards, just to see if my character is strong enough to take on an entire town's worth of guards. Or to see how much I can get away with stealing from a shop, or finally taking out my frustrations on a particularly annoying but important NPC.

Of course, that's just a game, with no real-world consequences anyway (except that I've once again successfully procrastinated chores). Reset or not, I have no desire to commit mass murder (or even, you know, non-mass murder), or steal a bunch of stuff that I'm not going to get to keep anyway, or even beat anyone up. Has nothing to do with the penalties if caught, just don't wanna.

That leaves experiences. Ever have a place you wanted to explore, but there are all kinds of "do not enter" signs up? Like, for instance, Area 51. Now, that one in particular wouldn't do me much good because I'd get shot before I even got ten paces inside the fence, but you know... that sort of thing. A bell tower or something. They never let anyone up in those things, and I always like to see the view from up high. Wouldn't risk getting caught under normal circumstances, but with the reset thing? I might give it a shot.

There is, however, one thing I'd definitely do. Today's Tuesday. If I know I'm going to relive Tuesday, I'd pay really, really close attention to what the various stock markets are doing on Tuesday. Then, after the "reload," I'd place enormous bets, using margin, on the stocks I know are going to go way up, and short the ones I know are going to crash. Yep, I'd totally do that... but the problem is, the stock market follows chaos theory. That is, even minuscule differences in starting conditions can have outsized effects on events. So if I shorted a stock on Tuesday 2 that I didn't on Tuesday 1, that very well might be enough to change the course of trading that day.

But, you know. Probably not. My input would truly be minuscule, so it'd be worth taking the chance.

So you see? I don't even need to rob a bank to get rich. I just need to see the future.