A time traveler approaches you, wanting to play a game. This time traveler has the ability to return to any point in the past with all of his accumulated knowledge, thereby changing the past (confirming whatever variety of branching-timeline time travel theory is implied by that, if any).
He proposes this game:
He will shoot you in the head, killing you instantly.
He will then travel back in time, to a point before shooting you (but after you decided whether or not to play the game).
He will then give you $1000000 and leave.
If you were to decide to play the game, how likely are you to survive?
Update 2025-26-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - The poll is focused on whether you will survive the proposed game as described, without any additional actions taken by the time traveler.
The game will proceed without extra steps, such as killing you after giving you the money.
1,000This time traveler has the ability to return to **any point** in the past
00:00:00 you decide to play the game
00:00:00 time traveller travels to 00:00:03
00:00:01 time traveller pops up, hands the money
00:00:02 time traveller travels to 00:00:05
00:00:03 time traveller pops up and fires
00:00:04 time traveller travels to 00:00:01
00:00:05 time traveller pops up, picks up the money, and starts looking for the next sucker
@Wott if they are only allowed to travel to the past, then they can set up a bunch of boxes and every time it says "travel to the future" they instead travel an hour into the past and hide in one of the boxes until it's the time to act.
@Wott I'm not sure I understand your point. This poll is not about what sort of shenanigans you could get up to if you were the time traveler, but rather whether or not you (the non-time traveler) will survive the proposed game if the game procedes as described (with no extra steps, such as killing you after giving you the money).
@NBAP the point is that this reduces to the probability that the time traveller is competent since there's no incentive for the time traveller to not just travel to the point right after the player receives the money.
I don't get what you mean by "extra steps"? If you mean that he is not allowed to time travel after the player agrees to the game until he shoots, then he can just wait a few seconds, shoot, and do the time travel required by the game.
00:00:00 game starts
00:00:01 time traveller₁ turns away
00:00:02 time traveller₂ pops up, hands over the money, and turns away
00:00:03 time traveller₁ turns back and shoots
00:00:04 time traveller₁ travels to 00:00:02, becoming time traveller₂
00:00:05 time traveller₂ turns back, picks up the money, and begins looking for the next sucker
@Wott Consider the sequence of events from perspective of the time traveler:
0:00 Player agrees to play the game
0:10 Time traveler shoots player in the head
0:20 Time traveler travels back to 0:05
0:05 Time traveler gives the player money and leaves, never thereafter shooting the player again, leaving the player alive and with the money
As you contemplate whether or not to play the game, you can predict that this is how the game will play out from the time traveler's perspective, but the purpose of the poll is to determine how you ought to expect things to play out from your perspective.