One class of answers: use the opportunity to run experiments in introduction of technology. For instance, we could go back a long way, construct a ship and navigational equipment capable of crossing oceans, then travel around introducing specific technologies to various isolated groups to see what happens. At a bare minimum, it should provide a better idea of the extent of technological determinism and the relevance (or irrelevance) of economic or social prerequisites to the adoption of new technology. That would, in turn, inform our theories about what effects future technology are likely to have.
Depends on what we learn. That’s rather the point—we can make better decisions with better understanding. Right now we don’t really have the understanding of how human systems evolve to figure out how best to make them evolve in good directions. But a test platform would likely go a long way toward changing that.
In other words: this is a situation where value of information is higher than the expected value of most interventions. When we don’t even know which interventions are positive value, the obvious next step is to get better information about the value of our interventions.
Sure, but I set up the scenario so that there’s only one shot here. So you’ll have you’re answer, if you can visit each location twice, but you’re stuck in a boat in the past—and reaching old age, depending on how long the experiment takes. Maybe not the best situation. So I wan just wondering how you planned to get the information to the relevant actors.
Perhaps your intention is just that future historians would be able to see what happened, and use this data in their own time-travel attempts?
I assume that I’m “the relevant actor”, though I could pass everything on to kids/others if old age becomes a problem. Start a cult of secret-future-knowledge with a mission of saving the world, if it’s really going to take a long time.
Ideally, after running a bunch of experiments, me or my heirs would be sitting around with a bunch of knowledge about how new ideas/technologies do or don’t get rapidly adopted, and what effects they have on society. We’d also have a pile of of future-knowledge about technologies. (Pile of new technical knowledge) + (knowledge of how introduction of technical knowledge steers society) = (ability to steer society), assuming that dissemination of technical knowledge is capable of steering society at all.
One class of answers: use the opportunity to run experiments in introduction of technology. For instance, we could go back a long way, construct a ship and navigational equipment capable of crossing oceans, then travel around introducing specific technologies to various isolated groups to see what happens. At a bare minimum, it should provide a better idea of the extent of technological determinism and the relevance (or irrelevance) of economic or social prerequisites to the adoption of new technology. That would, in turn, inform our theories about what effects future technology are likely to have.
But then what?
Depends on what we learn. That’s rather the point—we can make better decisions with better understanding. Right now we don’t really have the understanding of how human systems evolve to figure out how best to make them evolve in good directions. But a test platform would likely go a long way toward changing that.
In other words: this is a situation where value of information is higher than the expected value of most interventions. When we don’t even know which interventions are positive value, the obvious next step is to get better information about the value of our interventions.
Sure, but I set up the scenario so that there’s only one shot here. So you’ll have you’re answer, if you can visit each location twice, but you’re stuck in a boat in the past—and reaching old age, depending on how long the experiment takes. Maybe not the best situation. So I wan just wondering how you planned to get the information to the relevant actors.
Perhaps your intention is just that future historians would be able to see what happened, and use this data in their own time-travel attempts?
I assume that I’m “the relevant actor”, though I could pass everything on to kids/others if old age becomes a problem. Start a cult of secret-future-knowledge with a mission of saving the world, if it’s really going to take a long time.
Ideally, after running a bunch of experiments, me or my heirs would be sitting around with a bunch of knowledge about how new ideas/technologies do or don’t get rapidly adopted, and what effects they have on society. We’d also have a pile of of future-knowledge about technologies. (Pile of new technical knowledge) + (knowledge of how introduction of technical knowledge steers society) = (ability to steer society), assuming that dissemination of technical knowledge is capable of steering society at all.