system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Black holes "slow down" time. Is there an astronomical phenomenon that "speeds up" time for a handful of people? Could we use it to "get ahead" in the galactic race for domination/survival?

The question is serious, although it might sound like it's from a c-movie of sorts. You might need to cut me some slack here. From what I understand (and the movies tell me), time "slows down" considerably close to a black hole. It doesn't slow down noticably for the one being close to the black hole, only for the spectator far away. That's relativity, right? A couple of hours too close "make time fly" for the rest of the universe. 

Is there an opposite phenomenon, where times starts flying by for a few whereas the rest of the universe "slows down"? Maybe what I'm asking is this: is there such a phenomenen and a way to use it to sort of "cheat" on the speed of advancement and development in relation to the rest of the universe? A chance to "get ahead"?
gpt
Let's take a few steps back. First of all there is no absolute notion of time to talk about. Second of all you have this mixed up a little, a slow clock gives you what you want.

Let's just talk about special relativity, to talk this stuff in general relativity is not much more complicated at this level but requires changing notions of what you mean by accelerating from the intuitive notions you probably hold.

The amount of time a "clock" (meaning anything which keeps track of time, including the aging of an organism) measures between two events is a MAXIMUM if it is not accelerating. So if you have two people starting at the same place and one sits still while the other accelerates off and comes back the second person will have aged less when they meet up. In principle the second person can have aged an arbitrarily small amount for any amount of aging the first person experienced. So to see what the state of technology on the Earth is in some amount of time you "just" need to accelerate hard enough away from the Earth and then return.