1522-08 (01468 dist, 4.1 mean)
Selected-By: Ian Davis
The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
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> I need more time. There just isn't enough time in each day. Now I know
> that it's not possible for you to make each day longer, but you could
> make seconds shorter by redefining them and everybody would have more.
> Sort of like how the government prints more money.
>
> You'll be telling me, of course, that they don't actually "print" more
> money, but instead simply make bookkeeping entries via computer that
> give money to banks that lend it out, so that the extra actual value,
> if any, comes from the sweat of the folks who have to repay the loans.
> A kind of slavery.
>
> Well, so what?, I say. YOU occasionally inhabit a computer, so you
> should be able to compute the new seconds, made of what originally were
> hemiseconds. Instead of 86400 seconds in each day we would have 172800
> of them, and could make up for it by working twice as fast!
>
> With everyone working twice as fast, there will be more of everything
> for everybody, and I'll be able to retire, and spend my extra seconds
> on the beach at Cancun, a place you know well, according to Oracularity
> 638-08.
>
> Please either inform me that there are now 172800 seconds in a day, or
> at least give me some hints on how to live at Cancun without getting
> into trouble as happened to you.
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And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
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} Oh, supplicant, it's very simple. *Time is money*.
}
} It's strange how people are always *saying* that, but no one ever seems
} to grasp the implications. Your problem isn't that you need more time;
} it's that time isn't worth as much as it used to be, because of
} inflation. I'm sure you've noticed how the years pass so much more
} quickly than they did when you were young. Candy was cheaper then,
} too. Same phenomenon.
}
} So, sure, I *could* create more time, but I'd also be creating more
} money, and that would only lead to further inflation. Eventually,
} things could spiral out of control in a classic hyperinflation
} scenario--like in Germany in 1924, when people had to haul wheelbarrows
} full of cash to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread, and driving
} home afterward could take up to fourteen years. (And when they got
} home in 1938, you wouldn't *believe* what kind of screwed-up things
} had been going on in the meantime.) You're asking me to risk a
} full-blown temporospatial macroeconomaly! I respectfully decline.
}
} What *you* need, supplicant, is to invest your time wisely. It's the
} inverse of the classic compound-interest gimmick. What usually happens
} is people invest small amounts of money in an interest-bearing account
} and allow several years to pass, and it becomes a large amount of
} money. This works equally well in reverse: you invest few minutes here
} and there in an interesting pastime, spend a lot of money, and before
} you know it those minutes will have grown into hours, days, or even
} weeks.
}
} Be careful to avoid junk investments, though. I'd hate to see you end
} up on the street panhandling for spare time. "Hey, buddy, got a
} minute?" Sad.
}
} You owe the Oracle the time of day.
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