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The microeconomics of Click
You know, the new Adam Sandler movie; try this site for the trailer. The guy has a universal remote control device which he can use to Pause, Fast Forward, or Rewind reality, rather than TV. How much would you pay for such an item? And what would you do with it?
Of course you would use it to prevent accidents, such as car crashes. You would likely die of old age. I wouldn't use fast forward much. If you want more money, Pause could help you shuffle through confidential papers and garner inside information for trading (or are the papers glued to the desk and thus unreadable?).
Voyeurism is another possibility, as explored by Nicholson Baker's much-underrated The Fermata. Here is one good excerpt from the book. Here is a summary of the basic plot.
I will predict the movie argues that this device is more dangerous than useful and that Adam Sandler must give it up to find happiness with the ever-so-cute woman of his dreams. Given self-constraint issues, I have yet to find a value-maximizing scenario for the device, can you? Somewhere in here is a lesson about strong temporal complements and perhaps business cycles as well.
Here is my previous post The Macroeconomics of Superman.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 23, 2006 at 04:34 AM in Film | Permalink
Comments
You could probably make yourself a lot better off by changing obviously bad policy in your lifetime, which others could benefit from too. Obviously this is more likely to work if you're current self is older (what's the point of being a kid in the past- you wouldn't have much power) Become a lobbyist and entice the former selves that wrote obtrusive regulations out to lunch when they wrote the bad regs, or join an interventionist legislators elimentary school class and do everything you can to nurture alternative interests. Or use current evidence about what caused candidates who made especially bad politicians to win and go back with a strategy that would appeal more to the past median voter. If you could take things with you, perhaps you could influence decision makers by going back to the past with current news articles (a copy of WSJ articles on the tobacco master settlement to the judge who let the first anti-tobacco lawsuit go forward, for instance).
Posted by: Daniel at Jun 23, 2006 5:16:31 AM
Does the device allow to choose between alternative futures? E.g., may I "resolve to do X provided the consequences turn out to be good as seen via the click device", then fast forward to see the consequences, and if they turn out badly, choose something else instead? There's a worry that using the device to alter the future could run into classic time-travel incoherence. Perhaps the device would have to work more like a real fast forward on a movie: you can watch the ending first, but you can't change it. (Does quantum indeterminacy matter here?)
Assuming all the potential incoherence of viewing and altering possible futures is somehow taken care of, here's what I'd do as an academic. I'd use it to determine which journals will accept my papers so that I could cut down submission time. Why submit a paper to three journals consecutively when I know ahead of time the third will take it and the other two won't? (Of course, a paper accepted now might have been rejected if it had been sent a month earlier and assigned to a different referee.) In addition, I would use the device to ensure that I always send the paper to the best possible journal that will publish it. Lastly, I would also test different versions of papers. Maybe my paper would get published at the better journal if I took out or added a section, etc. A device like this could help an average academic find success. It would cut down on wasted time.
Posted by: J. at Jun 23, 2006 5:16:59 AM
Much depends on the effect of the remote control on the aging process. If a remote control holder's body ages at normal time, notwithstanding the various permutations around him, then using the remote control to achieve academic success quickly will shorten one's life span by thirty years or so, which suggests that that wouldn't be an optimal use, especially if one believes in the Kurzweil singularity.
One possibility for fast-forward. Put one's life savings in a sturdy bank, sit down in a safe place, fast-forward a hundred years, and be a millionaire that can take advantage of the singularity. I was impressed when Futurama ran the first half of this scenario, and even took the trouble to accurately calculate the compound interest.
Posted by: Ted at Jun 23, 2006 7:31:52 AM
Fast forward to see what your girlfriend will look like in 20 years.
Posted by: rmark at Jun 23, 2006 9:10:12 AM
Was there a button on this remote to turn Jim Carrey into Adam Sandler and the title screen from "Bruce Almighty" to "Click"?
Posted by: Josh at Jun 23, 2006 10:04:46 AM
So, the remote allows time travel with a Saved by the Bell "timeout" thrown in for good measure.
You have the power to save people from bad luck and bad choices on whatever scale you choose. You are a God that lacks omniscience and omnipotence.
Posted by: JaM at Jun 23, 2006 10:08:49 AM
If the remote holds you steady in time while running backwards or forwards, you could have a lot of fun studying history.
If you're allowed to iteratively change history, you can come up with a reasonable algorithm for making history turn out better on almost any scale you choose--figure out how to evaluate how well history has turned out, sample a few hundred possible outcomes by randomly messing with things in history, and then choose the outcome that looks about as good as any you've seen so far. (There's some formula for working out the optimal strategy here, but I'm too lazy to go look it up just now.) You could do this iteratively, so that the world gets better and better by your own estimation.
Posted by: albatross at Jun 23, 2006 10:28:36 AM
Dept. of Great Minds Think Alike -- I'll second you on "The Fermata," which I found hilariously sly and dirty-minded, and which is my favorite of all the Nicholson Bakers that I've read ...
Posted by: Michael Blowhard at Jun 23, 2006 10:51:14 AM
Step 1. Observe prices of some financial assets.
Step 2. Rewind.
Step 3. Invest.
Step 4. Wait or fast forward.
Step 5. Repeat.
That, and stopping time so you can move the kid's hand and
make the ball hit him in the face.
Posted by: mobile at Jun 23, 2006 10:54:39 AM
Another underrated work that explores this idea is Primer. The basic premise of the film is that a pair of engineers working in their garage manage to build a "time machine" of sorts. However, unlike in the film Click and most works dealing with time travel, the time machine, because of its mechanics, only allows time travel back to the point that the machine is initially "switched on" (and a person actually experiences the amount of time that he travels backwards). This amounts to the characters in the film being able to travel back in time only a few hours/days at a time. Even with this limitation, the film manages to explore quite well the things (ranging from the typical getting rich through stocks to the more disturbing playing god by attempting to exercise complete control over the course of events) a person might do given this power. Finding a good review/discussion of the film is a problem due to the unusual complexity of the plot/time line/sequence of events (even for a time travel film), although I think the trailer does a good job of framing the film.
Posted by: mineavatar at Jun 23, 2006 11:10:51 AM
Actually, here are a few decent reviews of the film: Ty Burr, Robert Ebert, and James Rocchi.
Posted by: mineavatar at Jun 23, 2006 11:39:27 AM
Another vote for Primer! Best sf movie Ever (unless you count Strangelove).
Like Vinge's "True Names" it explores a classic sf trope stripped down to it's absolute minimal essentials and reveals even that minimal version to go beyond the limits where storytelling is possible.
Posted by: michael vassar at Jun 23, 2006 1:28:58 PM
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for posting the link to The Fermata-- when I was a young teen, I read a book review for it but was unable to find the book, and as the years went on, I forgot the title but always wanted to read it. Now, 10+ years later, I will finally be able to do so.
Posted by: jlf at Jun 23, 2006 1:44:57 PM
Power corrupts. For example, Jehovah in the Old Testament.
Posted by: Gray Lensman at Jun 23, 2006 3:22:29 PM
I would probably just use this to be the most successful debater/wiseass in history. We all know jerks who constantly try to prove their self imagined superiority in every subject by denegrating normal people who are just minding their own business. One of these jokers starts pontificating, I pause the world until I come up with unbelievable mountains of data to contradict or just some terribly vicious putdown. This would never get old.
Posted by: MikeL at Jun 23, 2006 6:28:58 PM
I out-of-hand object to spending any time thinking about time travel, or seeing any movies that involve it.
Posted by: Paul N at Jun 23, 2006 6:38:20 PM
Rewind is by far the most powerful.
Prevent the fall of the Roman Empire. Make trillions on equity trades. Give researchers in the past information about future developments.
Repeat that last one to get life extension technologies to live long enough to use the device efficiently. Alternatively, fast forward, then rewind with the new research.
My guess is he'll use it to spend time with his kids, because he's a farking pea-brained baffoon.
Posted by: Ivan Kirigin at Jun 23, 2006 11:26:35 PM
"Marty, when you get back to 1985 you have to destroy that infernal machine!"
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Posted by: levan at Sep 11, 2006 2:35:53 AM
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