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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Both scenarios - Initial Steps

    I’m assuming we all get a first message to ourselves, otherwise it’s probably going to take a lot of loops just to realize that something weird is going on with my Neuro-Computer Implant HUD (NCIHUD) when the message is something completely different from what I last left in there. Hopefully, at some point, the last message I leave before my next time-loop self will finally clue myself into what’s actually going on.

    But let’s stick with the initial message idea for simplicity.

    Step 1 - Convince myself that I really am stuck in a time loop. Ex: Tell myself to look out the window and with precise timing explain which cars/neighbours will drive by and which direction. Every time loop I’ll want to test out various methods to see how quickly and efficiently I can convince myself (while always keeping a failsafe method at the end).

    I like the idea of @Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com in keeping track of the number of time-loops that have ocurred since, going forward, this will be the only way to tell how much time has progressed.

    Step 2: Use some really good compression algorithms for text (at a basic level you can get about 215k 2-3k characters in 1kB without trying anything fancy by using typical zip compression).

    Edit: Fixed compression size value.


    Scenario 1 - I’m the only one stuck in a time-loop

    This one’s a bit more boring. Initially I’d just get loan and then do whatever. Obviously there’s no use in working anymore at this point.

    I could try out being a superhero for a bit, rescuing people just in the nick of time would be fun.

    I could try to research better compression algorithms for better longer logs. Although there’ll be a limit to how much I could read at some point, so I’ll need to come up with a way to organize the data for whatever my next loop wants/needs to do. Obviously the most time sensitive information would be upfront.

    @owatnext@lemmy.world was the first to mention a trick with using the library of Babel that could help a lot. OP Went into more detail on this with their comment here: https://lemmy.world/comment/15400050

    Eventually I’d probably settle with researching the time-loop to find a way out, or else give up by completely wiping the log so that my future loop self would wake up with an empty log. Eventually, many more loops in the future I would eventually update the log with enough information to clue my next loop self in that a time-loop was occurring… And then time-loop history eventually repeats itself.


    Scenario 2: Everyone in the world has a NCIHUD message pop up at exactly 6am (UTC).

    Initial time-loops would be complete chaos. Practically everyone would just be calling out of work, or leaving as soon as they figure out what’s going on. It wouldn’t take long for society to collapse. There’s no point in playing the stock market or taking out a loan or trying to travel (without hijacking a jet or flying your own).

    Eventually certain groups or factions would form with varying degrees of goals/objectives. Like-minded groups would organize and start working together.

    Power, in this scenario, would not be based on wealth. Instead it would be based on knowledge, how quickly they can put their plan in motion, the ability to influence/force others to update their own notes (in a way that’s beneficial to those groups), and the ability to amass a larger amount of long term information.

    For instance, one group might end up being some fanatic group hell bent on convincing/tricking everyone (but themselves) that wiping their log is the only way to escape the time-loop.

    Another group may be trying to do something similar, or else winning people over, but only at a targetted level of certain individuals to try to get necessary infrastructure running for a little longer than the previous loop.

    Other groups would be focused on amassing as much power (in a time loop sense) as possible.

    It would be useful for groups/factions to convince newscasters to put out a certain message as quickly as possible after the next reset.

    Spies/moles would pop up in various groups attempting to sabatoge/twist the other’s goals. Agents would need to quickly decompress their own log, and run it through a text-to-speech (TTS) program that they could listen to. This audio log would then tell them exactly what they need to do to stay one step ahead of opposing factions.

    The different factions would try to come up with better compression algorithms that could be quickly and efficiently created to start compressing/decompressing information even more. Most likely this would involve the use of having someone run specific prompts through a pre-existing local LLM (fine tuned for coding) where the seed (normally a randomized value) could always be forced to a specific value so that others in the group are always getting the exact same code result every time. This code could then be used to decompress the final portion of the message where the long term information would be held.

    Not everyone in the faction would need to do this, but you would definitely want redundancy in case the agents of an opposing faction got to a few of these people before the next time-loop begins. Targeting/flipping the right people in a particular faction, could easily cripple their whole group.

    Eventually, we may end up with a group that gains enough power long enough to put in some decent research into the time-loop. Maybe they find a way to break it, or maybe they find a way to get around it with time travel (not likely).

    The most likely positive outcome in this case is that they eventually research a way to increase our brain activity to insane lengths so that, even though a day would pass in the real world, our mind would have lived a lifetime in virtual reality.