It's Groundhog Day, but everyone's experiencing the loop. What are some daily patterns that would begin to emerge?
Tangentially related:
If everyone is experiencing it, then everyone is going to change their behavior every day and the only thing that will be the same is the weather. There will be no patterns, but you'll have people walking down the street, dodging pidgeon poop like Nic Cage with a mullet.
I think people would eventually settle into a pattern. It must be like retirement is like: at first you don't know what to do with the time, and then eventually you settle into a rhythm.
I can imagine a lot of people committing creative suicide in the first few hundred loops before they get bored and settle on something else
There will be no patterns, but you’ll have people walking down the street, dodging pidgeon poop like Nic Cage with a mullet.
Lmao. That does raise an interest point -- let's say that animals are not aware of the loop and have to repeat their behaviours
You know, I hadn't considered that. You're immortal and so is everyone else. Do you even bother trying to enforce laws? Anyone put in jail is going to wake up back in their own bed. Anyone in jail is going to do whatever they can to escape. I suppose the guards aren't going to show up for work. In fact, nobody is going to go do their jobs. Why would you choose to slog it out when you could do anything? Power companies will go dark, and public transit will disappear. Telecoms would stop working and anything that isn't automated will just go away.
I suppose the early morning hours would be a mad dash for resources and weapons. Anyone unfortunate enough to sleep in that day would wake up to a world gripped in chaos every single day. Late nights would be either a wild party or extremely lonely.
But with the reset, things wouldn't fall into disrepair. People who want to restore power and communications go just go and turn those back on. Money would be meaningless, so it would just be civic pride and boredom that brings the world back from chaos.
Sex wouldn't mean much. Anyone giving birth that day would probably get weird. Anyone suffering from terminal illnesses would probably secure some great drugs and numb the pain as much as possible.
We would create a lot of performance art. Music, plays, creative storytelling, everyone would have time to create and consume.
Physical art would be almost nonexistent. You couldn't work on a painting or statue, and anything you create would be gone by the next day.
I read most of the comments and I find it interesting how people kind of gloss over mental health. People commiting suicide over repeating their day over and over or the perceived lack of control over their life is one thing. But imagine settling into the mundanity of forever without change. Some will go legitimately mad. Some people live with pain everyday, but now they will for near eternity. I imagine there will be a large number of people who's first step is to futility off themselves everyday.
I imagine there will be a large number of people who's first step is to futility off themselves everyday.
Possibly, although from their point of view (and going by GD rules), they would wake, kill themselves and then immediately wake again.
So, after a while of trying that, it might make more sense for them to try and make the days feel as long as possible to delay that waking up moment.
True. Also depends on what's making them off themselves.
I don't think it's "glossing over", it's that actual mental health problems are outside most people's frame of reference so the thought doesn't occur to them. It's less active ignoring, more simply not knowing.
Very good point of view.
Also think about people with locked in syndrome. You can't move, but you are aware and now everything is repeating.
What changes though is only your current external situation not relating to humans is staying the same. Everyone can still continue to grow and go to therapy, learn more about themselves and the world. This is basically almost completely still the real world. Most changes a human notices is the humans around them changing, not the walls of the apartment. Relationships still evolve, breakups happen, new love can be found. Science can still continue, we can use human memory and the internet to collect and analyze data. Instead of amassing physical wealth we might amass knowledge.
Money and working for it stop making sense immediately, so nobody works at anywhere, no services are going to be in place unless the workers are somewhat bored.
Without service workers, how fast do you think you would go? You will always be in the same city? Can you learn to fly a plane to eventually reach another place? Can you learn to fly a Boeing by yourself to travel farther? No fucking security regulations anywhere baby.
You can go a full day without eating or drinking much water, so maybe some days you eat, some you don't. After few loops, crime rises, and it can't be really punished, but people will remember criminals and what they did, so the next day a bunch of the affected can kill the criminal for the day, until they no longer want to do it.
How Groundhog Day rules would apply here? Everyone wakes at the same time? What happens if some go to sleep earlier and some try to be wake as many days as possible, until their inevitable death?
Most interesting thing is that no real danger would exist, and no real consequences, as the static world resets, but the collective memory of people would survive.
I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to travel a few hours a day to the airport and learn to fly a plane. As for going anywhere, I don't see the point beyond doing some spectacular aerodynamics on a 747.
Crime would be something that everybody would do at some point I imagine, just out of sheer curiousity. And I think if it's something that everyone is guilty of to the same degree and quantity, then I think people would mostly shrug it off. Carrying judgement into the next loop would not be worth it imo
So normal life, except all the non-human things become unchanging?
The economy is sure as hell going to be different in a hurry. Pretty much only service industries will survive, because anything else gets reset tomorrow. In a way this will be great, because people will be just as well supplied anyway, so it will give room to pursue personal development in earnest. Or maybe we'll find a new way to fuck ourselves.
Why would service industries continue at all? Why would anyone work service jobs? Next day they just reset. They never get paid but never go broke. No reason to work.
You could potentially hole up in your house and live the same day forever, I guess, but a lot of people are going to want to use services. In order to have them and to pay for them, then, you have to provide services of some kind as well, and you get an economy.
Note that giving away the use of something you own for a particular day may be a really common one. Like, maybe I want to eat something that's not in my fridge so I pick up leftovers from a neighbor for a fee. You could call that a good, but since there's no manufacturing and probably little shipping I wouldn't.
You wouldn't get paid in paper for obvious reasons. At first it would be just barter, but we'll get past that pretty quickly with all our accumulated knowledge. Like the other guy said, it might turn into bankers remembering your balance (or something like that) by heart.
If everyone resets, and their memory is retained, then perhaps less would change than you’d expect. For example, if you wanted to organise an event for the following day (ie today, but again), then it’s still possible to plan. In which case, many things about life actually stay the same. Only the physicality of things actually change. For people not already suffering, it’s actually a great mechanism for freedom, since the shackles of money, food, health etc are no longer a concern.
Unless you loop on the last day of the worst pain of cancer.
The key difference in planning would be lack of physical object storage. No notes would be retained.
Yeah, as I say, for those not already suffering.
Those that were suffering, would be abandoned. Once people realise it’s hopeless, their care would cease. Maybe not initially, but inevitably. Like the guy from The Beach that gets wounded by the shark. The rest will go on and the sick will be forgotten.
For the planning aspect, lack of notes shouldn’t matter. Populations would coordinate locally, and as long as you can remember what you’re supposed to be doing the “next” day, you’re golden.
I like that, people's relationships would continue to develop and probably large frivolous events would happen everyday (aided by ample looting of champagne and cake) until maybe people have literally nothing else left to say to each other
So basically marriage? ;)
Yeah, relationships would begin and end as normal I’d expect. The only limitation to meeting new people is how far you can reasonably travel within the window.
Many things change when material needs are vanished. I'd like to think people would eventually find ways to start the day by bringing food to starving, euthanasia for suffering, and similar since this is the only real gratification when self gratification finally runs out
I think the opposite. The starving and suffering would be abandoned, because any attempt to ease it is futile. Their suffering begins again tomorrow, right where they were today.
I think people would help initially, but eventual acceptance that it’s pointless and nothing you can do for them makes any difference, would inevitably lead to anyone that can’t be helped being forsaken. There would be a few saints no doubt, but they’d be in the minority. How many times could you euthanise someone before there’s no longer any emotion it?
It’s bleak, but it’s human.
A lot of answers seem to skip over that people wouldn't know if the repeat is forever. So many people might try to figure out how to make it stop. Others might not want it to stop... that could get interesting.
What I find interesting is that potentially the time loop wouldn’t even be discovered immediately. Most people would wake up in the morning and head to work as normal. There wouldn’t really be an obvious sign we’re in a Groundhog Day, since the usual indicator of that in fiction is that other people are doing the same thing they did yesterday. Which they won’t be, if everyone is experiencing it.
There would be sparse stories worldwide initially of people claiming that it’s the same day as yesterday. Your phone might still have yesterday’s date, which most will attribute to a global software glitch. Maybe some investigation is done, hardware that tracks the skies shows the earth in the same position. But final, global, acceptance would filter down slowly, since you’d only be getting news for one day via technological means, and the only up to date information you’d reliably get is direct communication. Unless of course the technology still works - phone calls etc, wouldn’t just immediately be unavailable.
If you lived remotely, off grid, or alone, how would you even know unless you started to notice actual physical repetition. Rain starting at the same time every day etc. It’s genuinely fascinating.
That's a interesting angle -- I think eventually (past the 20 year mark) there would be a very popular and concerted effort into researching how to make it stop.
Property would lose all meaning, since everything just resets anyways. Experiences are the only thing that would have value. Some property lets you have experiences, but like... just steal it. What does the owner care? No matter what you do to it, it'll be there again tomorrow in perfect condition, and both they and you have unlimited time to use it.
Are you supporting pirating media?
That sounds like you are supporting pirating media...
You should never ever pirate movies and tv shows by going to vumoo.com or 123movies
Day 1: World experiences "The glitch" simultaneously and gets set back 24 hours. Dead come back to life, religions take it as proof of god
Day 2: Media: "ground hogs day?" memes: "Its def groundhogs day grandpa has come back from the dead twice."
Day 3: Religious freak out, no one is saying they went to heaven when they died, reincarnation cycle has been haulted, souls bound in earthly bodies
Day 4: Various religions attempt violent crusades, general violence, and mass suicide
Day 5: Nukes
Day 6: No fighting because dying by nukes hurt the whole time
Day 7: Hey want to eat the chocolate bar today? I had it yesterday
Day 8: Live television and internet broadcasts become only new form of entertainment. Massive downloads for rogue like games and short games you can beat in a day. Money starts to lose meaning
Day 9: General Hedonism, people pursue self gratification / or self betterment as nothing else lasts
Heh, I sort of believed that people would not be on their smartphones much - but you're right there will be plenty of live broadcasts, and no way to record or share them, so you just have to watch everything everyday
I am shocked no one mentioned the possibility of nuclear warfare every day. If everything resets, what's stopping a few people from just nuking the world on a daily basis. One country does it first, the next day the other country does it back in retaliation. The entire world may just suffer horrific deaths every single day. Even if it only happened once, the trauma of living after having experienced it once would be enough to ruin peoples mental health (I guess you could say it would nuke their mental health). I cannot imagine people finding peace and living freely. I imagine it would be endless suffering.
I don't see how any government functions after the first few days. By that time, everyone knows they're looping. So why go work? Maybe a small percent will but a vast majority of people will just do their own thing. No need to worry about job security when you'll wake up tomorrow with the same amount of money.
Personally, I think the world would probably be very pleasant if we all looped. No one would be able to take anything from you, since you'd get it right back the next day. Might just be boring after a couple thousand loops, as no new movies, games or news would be able to be produced.
Definitely read the Friday Black book I linked above, it touches this briefly.
I think after the first few initial times it happens, it just becomes a bit boring after a while and nuke-inclined leople will shift their focus to other things.
As for the trauma, well, time heals all
Side note, anyone who hasn't seen Palm Springs should check it out
If everyone is reliving the same day over and over again most people can go a day without eating with some mild discomfort, pretty much all agriculture, grocery, etc would become luxury and less needed or used.
All travel would become short distance you can't spend 24hrs traveling to the other side of the planet just to get reset back home. Markets would go into stasis and stay closed there's no interest earned over 0 days, which means most people would stop working as most jobs wouldn't be necessary if everything just resets after 24 hours, you can't build or destroy anything permanent.
I think most people would panic or just vacation for a few months worth of repeated days before organizing around new myths and practices and traditions around what caused it and how to change it back.
pretty much all agriculture, grocery, etc would become luxury and less needed or used.
But if everything is reset every day, you still have the same stock of food available every day, and it never depletes (beyond the depletion that happens in 1 day, but that gets reset quickly). And any money made from selling food is also not kept. I can't imagine food sellers would be bothered to try enforce their prices when profits etc don't matter. Maybe food just becomes free. If we're optimistic, people might prioritise getting food to people who are already starving, since the people who are well-fed won't be too bothered by going a day without food.
Groundhog Day becomes society's Russian Roulette.
M U R D E R
I can imagine some people going full battle mode, leading to constant death and attempts to protect oneself
What's guaranteed is that after the first hundred loops you'll probably never feel safe ever again
But... Why would anyone do that?
Sure, people might try it out more because of the "apparent" lack of consequences... But the reason we humans don't do violent shit isn't because of things, it's because of other humans, and they remain exactly the same.
If one person turns out to be a murderous maniac, the people around them would probably band together and take them out at the start of the loop, effectively being a very real consequence you'd wish to avoid.
You should read the Friday Black story I posted above
People would eventually begin to realize the futility of possessions and start to live truly free lives.
Unless they're due to give birth. Also curious about people who might be in the middle of an oceanic flight. I'm sure there are other typical circumstances that would be hell.
But if the birth isn't today, the pregnancy might as well not exist. I mean of course the physical disadvantages of having a big belly are relevant, but the baby isn't, it can't do anything, it will never be born
I just fuckin finished All You Need Is Kill, that was a neat story!
In a Groundhog day loop, I can tell you that suicide would become so much more casual...
Yep. Just "nope, not today, see you fuckers tomorrow!"
All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Book was great. Never bothered to see the movie with tom cruise.
I haven't read the source material but the movie is one of the best sci-fi films of the new millennium, and certainly one of the most enjoyable. Films like Arrival, Dune, Blade Runner 2049 are visually striking and thoughtful but Edge of Tomorrow is also great fun.
The film is pretty good. I'd treat as a separate thing altogether, the film is very loosely based on the book.
Plus there's a manga illustrated by Takeshi Obata (of Death Note fame) that's half decent. The illustrations of the book were done by Yoshitoshi Abe (of Welcome to the NHK fame)
Great post OP, really made me think. I love time loop stories, but "literally everyone is in the time loop" isn't one I've encountered yet. Will definitely check out your links.
We would not be about to store data. Any changes to digital (or analogue) data would be reverted. So even if we all collectively try to ignore the fact that time is repeating and live as normally as possible, we can't have a society that keeps track of things in anything other than human memory. Advanced accounting, modern engineering, and scientific research would be impossible.
Somebody mentioned that the scenario doesn't make sense because of time zones. Consider this scenario: Things are only reset locally at midnight. If you pass something across a time zone boundary, it doesn't get reset until midnight in the new time zone. You could theoretically carry forward information or important objects indefinitely if you swap them before midnight in your time zone and then swap them back before midnight in the holding time zone. Things for which this cannot be done for cannot be preserved from being reset.
Wow, brilliant scenario - and fantastic hack! You could technically create an infinite amount of any items that way.
I'd envisioned that the world reset globally at say 2am GMT or something. I can now appreciate how that would suck for someone in Hawaii who misses half the day asleep
Not sure how this would work with different time zones. Unlike the movie, things would be resetting mid-day for a majority of the world, rather than mid-sleep. Even in the time zone where it lines up with a majority of people's sleep, those with non-traditional sleep cycles will have mid-"day" resets
I mean people would just adjust to the new time patterns. In every time loop story, people try staying awake past the reset and usually it just resets regardless of whether they're asleep or not. The exception i can think of being palm springs, where they only reset once they fall asleep or die. But if the reset happens at a constant time for everyone, everyone would just adapt. Day and night already barely matter now that we have electric lighting and instantaneous communication. 'Days' would just start at the reset, and either last until the next reset, or 8 hours before it happens, or whatever the equilibrium ends up being. Maybe sleep would stop being necessary for most people altogether, if their bodies' clocks reset along with everything else. That could be kind of interesting.
There would be a lot more respect between people, if everyone was in an iterated game with everyone else and they knew it.
Respect or a general mutual indifference? I feel that eternity is a long time to maintain pleasantries
If we all retain our memory, as is usual for a time loop, then we all have agency in the next loop, as is usual for a time loop, and the only things that "repeat" are natural things like acts of nature.
So eventually we would know where the things happen and they would become sources of energy. Billionaires would buy them and other means of life, everyone would become dependent on something that the oligarchy would gain control of, and everything would be the same as it is now, essentially.
Possibly they threaten the masses with quick death unless they serve is some capacity? I'm being terribly pessimistic, but I do think all it takes are a couple of assholes to ruin things.
How are the money not reset? People working as "transaction secretaries" to uphold the oligarchy is very slim
That's an interesting take. People are indeed whipped already, with money being the carrot. In a time loop I can definitely see the powerful threatening nukes to "incentivize" everyone.
Though, I think this would only be a pattern in the early stages. Once you've been nuked, you get used to it, and the threat wears off
By everyone do you mean everyone in the town,the world. Does money reset is everyone locked into the financial status they were going into the loop? I feel if it's everyone in the world. People would adapt and life would go one like normal.
The world resets. Money and stocks go back to what they were at the beginning. Any finances transferred over during the day would just reset back to their respective accounts the day after
I'm so happy you are a person. Thank you for living.
I will read your book recommendations and follow you. Please feel free to add more.