Relevant Mini Fantasy Theater
this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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It's no different than going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning.
If teleportation machines were mainstream, I don't think they'd be optional for participating in society.
Depends on whether they would work by actually moving me through space (using a wormhole or something) or by disintegrating me at point A and creating a copy at point B. In the latter case, I probably wouldn't use them.
Yeah, I'd risk it walking through a Stargate, but the Enterprise transporter can fuck all the way off.
Like a solid 4th of trek episodes involve some sort of transporter malfunction. I'm not getting in one either.
Only Stargate canonically disintegrates and then reintehrates you.
trek did too and by the most strict canonical definitions there ever have been in star trek too.
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Of course. Fastest travel = best travel.
And the whole "you might die" sounds like big oil propaganda to me. I bet car accident deaths are way more likely.
hmmm, I have to disagree there. Some of my best memories ever were made on trains and boats, during long hauls (at least a day, most often several days).
Might die?
Depending on the method of teleportation, you have to die as part of the process. Star Trek style deconstruction/reconstruction teleportation is death and relife at the destination.
Longer, animated explanation - https://youtu.be/nQHBAdShgYI
But it's not really the same kind of calculation as the car accident though. It'd be impossible to know if anyone using it ever had died from doing so, so impossible to compare the statistics and the concern is about whether the act of being teleported constitutes dying so depending on the answer to that the odds are either 100% or 0 (unless they have some kind of safety issue with more traditional, visible death or injury that bumps that up to something above 0% but below 100).
For me, yes. I like the duplicator transporter thought problem, but I've always come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. If what comes out doesn't know the difference, and the version left behind just stops existing, what's the difference? Maybe if the old version suffered from it I wouldn't, but if they just cease to exist then what's the functional difference between the two? If you believe there's a soul then maybe there's an issue, but I don't.
Instantaneous Ship of Theseus
That's an excellent Ska band name.
I would encourage everyone else to use it. So roads will be less crowded and I can enjoy nature in its true beauty. Assuming of course Big Corpos haven't completely ruined it.
I imagine even if there is a strong philosophical argument that itβs a βyou die and itβs a copy/clone that comes outβ in this scenario that people would still use it just from social and economic pressures. It would become normalized to work on the other side of the planet and just teleport there, your friends might be scattered across the globe, and not using the tech would put you at a massive disadvantage to everyone.
Itβs a fun one to think about though - our consciousness is interrupted at different levels all the time (Sleep, injury, anesthesia etc), would a teeny tiny interruption from being rebuilt, make you any less you? Perhaps the scary thought is βyouβ arenβt something continuous, and that teleporting (dying/being rebuilt) isnβt really that different than just normal living.
All that said - Iβd probably grow up with the technology and use it while trying my best to never ever think about the details!
I think similarly...
Hypothetically: I spent my childhood and early teens using teleportation machines and I never had an issue. As a teenager, I learn about people who are strongly opposed to teleportation. People around me talk negatively about these people, and are perhaps annoyed at the laws that are made to accommodate those who choose not to teleport. They are seen as a nuisance because they complicate workplace dynamics because they don't want to do something simple and convenient that most in society do. The belief they hold makes most people uncomfortable because of the philosophical implication.
So, as a teenager, I realize that to become a 'non-teleporter' I need to accept that I have already chosen to destroy myself multiple times, and that my family and friends who leave are not the same that come back. It would be so difficult to make this philosophical mind-shift and stop teleporting so that copy #4,242 gets to live.
ITT: People who haven't seen The Prestige
I would. Never understood why people are scared of having their consciousness cut and pasted. I have files from 25+ years ago that have been moved between numerous hdd's, that's still the same file. (Always assuming everything works as intended, of course)
It's never been the same file. It's been a copy of it. Which is irrelevant in every scenario, and to everyone involved, except from the perspective of the original file, and even then, only if it were conscious.
If we give the original file consciousness for your hypothesis, that consciousness gets duplicated to the copied files, but consciousness doesn't get removed from the original. And there are now a bunch of distinct consciousness streams, all of which smoothly continue on from the original, but none of which are the original. And if you delete the original, you delete that stream of consciousness, which makes no difference to anyone, except the original consciousness, for which, it's a cessation of existence.
From the outside, the copy is the same as the original. But from the originals perspective, not so much...
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Get out of bed (written from bed)
I mean at that point we probably have the tech to remotely pilot a James Cameron Avatar meat puppet, so I'd rather just do that.
And probably stay in the puppet all the time tbh because I would like to be tall and athletic. Hold the blue and alien parts tho pls.
I used to work with radiation and oh my GOD would having a disposable remote brain-controlled body be a fucking boon to that industry. Though probably at that point in tech history there will be very little if any need for human radioactive material handling
"It's eternity in there."
-- Rudy Foggia
Fuck it, lets teleport. Who cares if death is the means of transport if continuity is maintained
How do you guarantee maintenance of continuity? It would be impossible to prove.
Schlock Mercenary has a great story arc on this.
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/
They use various teleport technologies over the years .thé trek version was used un a very troubling spying schème.
Is this before or after the great oil and transportation war has taken its casualties?
It is still possible to use regular transportation at a similar cost as today
I would be scared that the person on the other side is just a clone rather than me.
There's nothing to guarantee that every night you go to sleep that doesn't happen.
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