Tangentially related:
- All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
- Through the Flash in Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
If we all retain our memory, as is usual for a time loop, then we all have agency in the next loop, as is usual for a time loop, and the only things that “repeat” are natural things like acts of nature.
So eventually we would know where the things happen and they would become sources of energy. Billionaires would buy them and other means of life, everyone would become dependent on something that the oligarchy would gain control of, and everything would be the same as it is now, essentially.
Possibly they threaten the masses with quick death unless they serve is some capacity? I’m being terribly pessimistic, but I do think all it takes are a couple of assholes to ruin things.
Side note, anyone who hasn’t seen Palm Springs should check it out
Wouldn’t that remove the aspect of no one else believing you?
I’m not following
One of the issues with time restarting for one person is that no one else knows it is. And they’re alone in their condition. If everyone’s were to reboot, then everyone would notice
Yep, everyone’s aware
If everyone resets, and their memory is retained, then perhaps less would change than you’d expect. For example, if you wanted to organise an event for the following day (ie today, but again), then it’s still possible to plan. In which case, many things about life actually stay the same. Only the physicality of things actually change. For people not already suffering, it’s actually a great mechanism for freedom, since the shackles of money, food, health etc are no longer a concern.
Many things change when material needs are vanished. I’d like to think people would eventually find ways to start the day by bringing food to starving, euthanasia for suffering, and similar since this is the only real gratification when self gratification finally runs out
I think the opposite. The starving and suffering would be abandoned, because any attempt to ease it is futile. Their suffering begins again tomorrow, right where they were today.
I think people would help initially, but eventual acceptance that it’s pointless and nothing you can do for them makes any difference, would inevitably lead to anyone that can’t be helped being forsaken. There would be a few saints no doubt, but they’d be in the minority. How many times could you euthanise someone before there’s no longer any emotion it?
It’s bleak, but it’s human.
What can you do that makes a difference? Only things for people
Unless you loop on the last day of the worst pain of cancer.
The key difference in planning would be lack of physical object storage. No notes would be retained.
Yeah, as I say, for those not already suffering.
Those that were suffering, would be abandoned. Once people realise it’s hopeless, their care would cease. Maybe not initially, but inevitably. Like the guy from The Beach that gets wounded by the shark. The rest will go on and the sick will be forgotten.
For the planning aspect, lack of notes shouldn’t matter. Populations would coordinate locally, and as long as you can remember what you’re supposed to be doing the “next” day, you’re golden.
That would be hell for the dying person to die every day and hell for the caretaker of that person to either kill them every morning or leave them to suffer.
I like that, people’s relationships would continue to develop and probably large frivolous events would happen everyday (aided by ample looting of champagne and cake) until maybe people have literally nothing else left to say to each other
So basically marriage? ;)
Yeah, relationships would begin and end as normal I’d expect. The only limitation to meeting new people is how far you can reasonably travel within the window.
We would not be about to store data. Any changes to digital (or analogue) data would be reverted. So even if we all collectively try to ignore the fact that time is repeating and live as normally as possible, we can’t have a society that keeps track of things in anything other than human memory. Advanced accounting, modern engineering, and scientific research would be impossible.
Somebody mentioned that the scenario doesn’t make sense because of time zones. Consider this scenario: Things are only reset locally at midnight. If you pass something across a time zone boundary, it doesn’t get reset until midnight in the new time zone. You could theoretically carry forward information or important objects indefinitely if you swap them before midnight in your time zone and then swap them back before midnight in the holding time zone. Things for which this cannot be done for cannot be preserved from being reset.
Wow, brilliant scenario - and fantastic hack! You could technically create an infinite amount of any items that way.
I’d envisioned that the world reset globally at say 2am GMT or something. I can now appreciate how that would suck for someone in Hawaii who misses half the day asleep
I can imagine some people going full battle mode, leading to constant death and attempts to protect oneself
What’s guaranteed is that after the first hundred loops you’ll probably never feel safe ever again
But… Why would anyone do that?
Sure, people might try it out more because of the “apparent” lack of consequences… But the reason we humans don’t do violent shit isn’t because of things, it’s because of other humans, and they remain exactly the same.
If one person turns out to be a murderous maniac, the people around them would probably band together and take them out at the start of the loop, effectively being a very real consequence you’d wish to avoid.
Day 1: World experiences “The glitch” simultaneously and gets set back 24 hours. Dead come back to life, religions take it as proof of god
Day 2: Media: “ground hogs day?” memes: “Its def groundhogs day grandpa has come back from the dead twice.”
Day 3: Religious freak out, no one is saying they went to heaven when they died, reincarnation cycle has been haulted, souls bound in earthly bodies
Day 4: Various religions attempt violent crusades, general violence, and mass suicide
Day 5: Nukes
Day 6: No fighting because dying by nukes hurt the whole time
Day 7: Hey want to eat the chocolate bar today? I had it yesterday
Day 8: Live television and internet broadcasts become only new form of entertainment. Massive downloads for rogue like games and short games you can beat in a day. Money starts to lose meaning
Day 9: General Hedonism, people pursue self gratification / or self betterment as nothing else lasts
Heh, I sort of believed that people would not be on their smartphones much - but you’re right there will be plenty of live broadcasts, and no way to record or share them, so you just have to watch everything everyday
All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Book was great. Never bothered to see the movie with tom cruise.
The film is pretty good. I’d treat as a separate thing altogether, the film is very loosely based on the book.
Plus there’s a manga illustrated by Takeshi Obata (of Death Note fame) that’s half decent. The illustrations of the book were done by Yoshitoshi Abe (of Welcome to the NHK fame)
I haven’t read the source material but the movie is one of the best sci-fi films of the new millennium, and certainly one of the most enjoyable. Films like Arrival, Dune, Blade Runner 2049 are visually striking and thoughtful but Edge of Tomorrow is also great fun.
Great post OP, really made me think. I love time loop stories, but “literally everyone is in the time loop” isn’t one I’ve encountered yet. Will definitely check out your links.
Property would lose all meaning, since everything just resets anyways. Experiences are the only thing that would have value. Some property lets you have experiences, but like… just steal it. What does the owner care? No matter what you do to it, it’ll be there again tomorrow in perfect condition, and both they and you have unlimited time to use it.
Are you supporting pirating media?
That sounds like you are supporting pirating media…You should never ever pirate movies and tv shows by going to vumoo.com or 123movies
Not sure how this would work with different time zones. Unlike the movie, things would be resetting mid-day for a majority of the world, rather than mid-sleep. Even in the time zone where it lines up with a majority of people’s sleep, those with non-traditional sleep cycles will have mid-“day” resets
I mean people would just adjust to the new time patterns. In every time loop story, people try staying awake past the reset and usually it just resets regardless of whether they’re asleep or not. The exception i can think of being palm springs, where they only reset once they fall asleep or die. But if the reset happens at a constant time for everyone, everyone would just adapt. Day and night already barely matter now that we have electric lighting and instantaneous communication. ‘Days’ would just start at the reset, and either last until the next reset, or 8 hours before it happens, or whatever the equilibrium ends up being. Maybe sleep would stop being necessary for most people altogether, if their bodies’ clocks reset along with everything else. That could be kind of interesting.
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People become ultra violent, majority starts killing each other, anyone slightly bad starts doing bad things, most of them get killed by the other people they do bad things to. Total rampage.
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Cycle repeats and repeats 100 times. Pacifists / smart people GTFO of town and hide in forest.
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On 100th day, cycle stops unexpectedly. Only it stops at night, after the daily rampage is over. Nobody regenerates.
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Cycle starts unexpectedly again, every once in a while.
Groundhog Day becomes society’s Russian Roulette.
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If everyone is experiencing it, then everyone is going to change their behavior every day and the only thing that will be the same is the weather. There will be no patterns, but you’ll have people walking down the street, dodging pidgeon poop like Nic Cage with a mullet.
I think people would eventually settle into a pattern. It must be like retirement is like: at first you don’t know what to do with the time, and then eventually you settle into a rhythm.
I can imagine a lot of people committing creative suicide in the first few hundred loops before they get bored and settle on something else
There will be no patterns, but you’ll have people walking down the street, dodging pidgeon poop like Nic Cage with a mullet.
Lmao. That does raise an interest point – let’s say that animals are not aware of the loop and have to repeat their behaviours
You know, I hadn’t considered that. You’re immortal and so is everyone else. Do you even bother trying to enforce laws? Anyone put in jail is going to wake up back in their own bed. Anyone in jail is going to do whatever they can to escape. I suppose the guards aren’t going to show up for work. In fact, nobody is going to go do their jobs. Why would you choose to slog it out when you could do anything? Power companies will go dark, and public transit will disappear. Telecoms would stop working and anything that isn’t automated will just go away.
I suppose the early morning hours would be a mad dash for resources and weapons. Anyone unfortunate enough to sleep in that day would wake up to a world gripped in chaos every single day. Late nights would be either a wild party or extremely lonely.
But with the reset, things wouldn’t fall into disrepair. People who want to restore power and communications go just go and turn those back on. Money would be meaningless, so it would just be civic pride and boredom that brings the world back from chaos.
Sex wouldn’t mean much. Anyone giving birth that day would probably get weird. Anyone suffering from terminal illnesses would probably secure some great drugs and numb the pain as much as possible.
We would create a lot of performance art. Music, plays, creative storytelling, everyone would have time to create and consume.
Physical art would be almost nonexistent. You couldn’t work on a painting or statue, and anything you create would be gone by the next day.
I’m not sure if companies would go dark or if public transit will stop. There are a lot of workers who are grateful to be out of the house away from their families, and/or take peace in mindless tasks.
I definitely do see chaos and weapons reigning supreme in the first few hundred loops, but afterwards, why bother? Why takeover the world if you’re back to zero the next day.
I can imagine it would suck indeed for heavily pregnant people or people with debillitating illnesses.
By everyone do you mean everyone in the town,the world. Does money reset is everyone locked into the financial status they were going into the loop? I feel if it’s everyone in the world. People would adapt and life would go one like normal.
The world resets. Money and stocks go back to what they were at the beginning. Any finances transferred over during the day would just reset back to their respective accounts the day after
Yeah so at that point people would just keep track of money in there heads or worse every one that was poor will always be poor
would money really matter in such a world? Anything you buy or sell with it will just be gone / reset the next day.
Or money quickly loses all value. What do I care if you give me a million dollars? It’ll be gone tomorrow, and until then everyone else will view it as being just as worthless as I do.
Possessions you have control over at the beginning of the day would matter (so yes, being rich is still an advantage), but I imagine any intangible funds would be worthless.
I just fuckin finished All You Need Is Kill, that was a neat story!
In a Groundhog day loop, I can tell you that suicide would become so much more casual…
Yep. Just “nope, not today, see you fuckers tomorrow!”
