But seriously though, if someone did show up, it’s possible saying that no one did was simply required. Imagine everyone now thinking the future people will save us, and suddenly there’s no future.
But I am sure it would still have some effects because of the butterfly effect. Hey, perhaps travelling into the past creates near-infinite timelines each time with all possibilities. I mean, it would affect the time traveller himself, and something would be slightly different each time. Simple example, because of the time traveller’s presence things will go different and they will arrive at slightly different time due to which they will again arrive at a slightly different time. They may know something else, do something else, with some different effect in each time. But there’s only so much a minor thing could do.
Perhaps if Hawking admitted to the vistors, rather than an unimaginable number of similar timelines, there would simply be no… but then the visitor ceases to exist… but if they already travelled back they must have…
Fuck, I hate getting stuck thinking about time travel.
But perhaps that’s the thing, admitting to this would have perhaps resulted in some catastrophic events. But, like, how would you ensure it does not happen.
OK, let’s trace it.
Time traveller goes back, returns, Hawking admits it, we’re doomed with hope, there’s no future, no time traveller to return.
But!!! They have already returned to their timeline. Maybe it doesn’t effect their timeline. Maybe they just doomed one timeline, and only one, because in that one there won’t be…
No, what the fuck, I can’t just… or would that open another timeline… No. If you can’t affect your own timeline it’s not time travel.
Crap.
God damnit!!
I am not sure whether the wikimedia foundation actually needs money from individuals. From what I could find by searching “Does Wikipedia need donations”, they seem to have plenty of money. I’ve also seen from people that after donating, they like to haunt your email inbox for more money.
I myself prefer donating elsewhere instead. In my opinion a good alternative is archive.org. It’s hard to track how much they get sued, and now they even were hacked recently.