Is Time Travel Suicide? The Loneliness with being God

Suicide? But time travel is a dream, right?

Become rich and powerful, knowing the future

Stop terrorism events before they occur

Pivot away from your previous mistakes

Ideas like this and this are fun to explore (likely due to our human nature to day dream and regret).

But, what is discussed less is the side effect of such technology: mass suicide and the end of the world.

Timeline Assumptions

Imagine an app on your phone that allows you to transport yourself between different timelines.

Whenever you time travel, a new timeline is made that branches off from an existing timeline. This is required since a timeline including the future version of yourself doesn’t exist until you time travel.

Additionally, when you time travel, you transfer only your memories. Your body and any accessories stay in the other timeline. They key exception to this rule is the time travel device/app. Either it would travel with you or you would know how to replicate it in any timeline you land in. This allows you to jump from that timeline at will.

Finally, time traveling to the future is impossible. Since time has not progressed in your timeline, there would be a gap of your existence and no body for your memories to land in. Even if it would be possible, it would be incredibly risky as you may have died since the time you decided to jump from.

The Day of Reckoning

On the day that the invention becomes public, people all across your timeline will vanish as they jump to other timelines. Very few will stay behind as the appeals mentioned above are too appetizing to avoid.

Soon, your timeline will become lonely and you seemingly have two options.

1. You can stay in your lonely world that is now thrown into chaos due to this technology.
2. You can use the technology and travel to a new timeline where folks still exist.

I find it incredibly unlikely that an individual would opt to abstain from the use of this technology in a world with minimal population and ease of access to time alteration technology. If one made that decision, ultimately that is them deciding to die. This is them choosing suicide. Why? Because right before you die, you must make the option not to time travel to a previous time where you were still alive and young.

You Decide to Time Travel

We have now established that if this technology were to exist, you would likely use it. I venture to say that many would be excited to use this technology. So, let’s say you do it. You hop back in time, become rich and famous, end world suffering, or become your other ideal version of yourself.

Soon after you time travel, you will realize the end of the world is set. As soon as others have access to time travel as you do, your power will lose its uniqueness and people will jump to other timelines as they did in the past. To ensure that you remain in control and stop the world from ending, you must find a way to ensure this technology is unobtainable. Warming people, killing the creator, and erasing documentation related to the device would all be in vain. Time is seemingly endless, so eventually it will be recreated.

The best way to ensure that folks do not obtain access to this technology, is to set up a tracking mechanism. This would alert you anytime someone is progressing in the development of this technology and allow you to interfere and set the innovation back to stage one. If you cannot figure this out, the world will spiral into the same cycle as before and you will only be left with the option of suicide. Time travel is suicide.

Eradication of Death

You are now in control of the only time travel device and have ensured there are no routes for other devices to be made. At this point your have secured your godlike presence in this timeline while avoiding the end of the world. Well, at least for a bit. Time still progresses in the timeline you are on, meaning that at some point you will die from old age if you do not jump to another timeline and set up your device creation tracking system again. Even if you do, you’d be starting from square one with all of your work and experiences erased. This brings you to your next mission… you must find a way to live forever.

You have unlimited attempts at this due to the time machine you have, but this is still a tall order. If you cannot figure this out, you will be stuck in this cycle perpetually and eventually concede to suicide as you give up on your venture. If you did not realize that you need to find a way to live forever or track time machine creations, you will end up jumping back to avoid death and replay the sequence until you figure it our or commit suicide. Time travel is suicide. To continue exploring this thought, let’s assume you find a way to live forever, meaning your timeline can continue AND that you will continue to be the only one in control of a time machine due to your previous work. GREAT! You are now free to obtain all that you have ever desired!

All You’ve Ever Wished For

Obtaining your ideals and objectives is no easy task by any means, even with the assistance of time travel. Say you want to make someone fall in love with you. I imagine that it would take numerous attempts to find the right formula of confidence, persuasion, humor, and connection to develop the bond.

Throughout this process, you are likely to use others to help in your mission. Whether your goal reflects the mission above, or not, you are likely to make multiple time jumps to obtain your desires and avoid death. Through this process, you are likely to begin losing your compassion for others. If you upset someone, just go back and reframe your sentence. If someone hurts you, try again and predict the individuals actions. The more you do this, the less human these characters will be to you. Over time, people will just become pawns in your game that you can manipulate infinite times to the outcome your are looking for. This loss of compassion would lead to a very similar outcome as the original timeline, where you feel lonely due to lack of other humans. A world without company is no world at all. Time travel is suicide.

The Curse of Immortality

You may be able to entertain yourself for many years playing in different timelines, but eventually the boredom will catch up with you. Have you ever played a single player game in a god/creative mode? It can be incredibly fun and entertaining for a while, but it eventually loses luster as you have nobody to share it with. You can maintain your control over this technology and you can eradicate death due to age. But there is only one thing that ends the timeline for you then, and that, is suicide. Time travel is suicide.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

We are experiencing this currently in early 2025 as we continue to develop artificial intelligence and specifically AGI that can threaten our existence. AGI doesn’t necessarily ensure our end, but a time machine would. Despite this, no level of communication could prevent that development. Humans are too curious. They would both create and use this device, whether they know the risks or not. The mere existence of this technology ensures the world would fall apart and that everyone would commit suicide. Should this technology be possible to create. I currently see only two sicarios where the world would not end.

1. Humans do not create it
2. Create it to ensure its destruction

Non-human Development

In the event that another entity, whether that be some form of alien creature or a technological system, things may not be so bleak. As I mention above, I am confident that a human would create and use a time machine device due to our nature. That being said, an AI/AGI system or other sentient being may not have that same limitation.

Created for Destruction

If a time machine is created with the intent of understanding how it works, tracking the worldwide development of the system, and ensuring it never gets completed, we may be okay. As mentioned in the “You Decide to Time Travel” section above, I explained the importance of eradication of these devices. If one were to make the device purely to identify how to track them down and stop development of other devices before completion, we could avoid the grim future outlined in this article.

Is Time Travel Suicide

Hopefully, if you have read through this document, you understand the helpless situation we would be in should we ever develop and utilize a time machine. If you have any arguments, I would love to explore them with you. Until then, allow me to summarize.

1. Should time travel be feasible, the population of our timeline would dwindle and lead to human eradication.
2. If you were to have access to a time machine, you’d essentially become optionally immortal.
   • The only end to optional immortality is suicide.
3. If humans have access to this technology, they would use it, even if they understood the consequences.
   • Death is inevitable, why not choose when it happens?

If you don’t believe people would choose to end the world with this technology let me ask you two questions:

1. If you had the ability to snap your fingers and obtain a time machine, would you?
2. If there was one time machine and you had possession of it, would you destroy it or use it? Realize nobody would trust that you ever had a functional time machine without proof.

Time travel is suicide.

I hope this concept is as interesting to you all as it is me. And hey… if anyone out there has a time machine… can I borrow it?