/sci/ - Science & Math

So I was recently thinking about time travel, from an outsider's perspective i.e. the perspective of someone other than the person who entered the time machine.

To me, there are two things that could possibly happen, and neither outcome is really positive:

>1. the person goes back in time, and the effects of said change are seen by the outsiders in their own timeline
This implies that whatever the person did to go back in time already happened, and that the universe is deterministic. Everyone knows it's deterministic anyway, but for the vast majority who are in denial about it they'll have their whole world view shatter. The suicide rate will increase, religion would become a niche area of interest (with the remaining few still clinging to the idea of this confirming God's plan, but longer believing in free will). This is the theory that films like Primer and Twelve Monkeys explore.

>2. the person goes back in time, and the timeline of the observers remains the same
To the outsiders, the person will have entered the machine and just disappeared. Nothing will have changed for the majority, and only the person who used the machine will notice the changes upon "return" (which is actually to a different timeline). The implication of this then is that time travel is unable to be abused by government or companies, as without the effects being visible for the observers there's no point in using the technology for their own gain - the only way around this would be to send all the people back temporarily, and then send them forward again, something that would be highly expensive if they were ethically forced to send everyone back or no one and thus the technology would be kept a secret amongst a small group.

Have I missed anything here, or is that pretty much what the general consensus for time travel logic is?

APPS APP APPS
ENTREPRENEUR ENTREPRENEUR ENTREPRENEUR
HACK HACK HACK
STARTUP STARTUP STARTUP
INNOVATE INNOVATE INNOVATE

Seems like everyone and everything is drinking the Computer Science kool-aid, like it's the most important field of science. When the fuck will it end?