I would go back to the inception of Bitcoin start some kind of shop, maybe pizza ice cream and donuts and offer products for Bitcoin. Any profits I Madoff non-Bitcoin sales I would sink directly into getting people to give me more Bitcoin.
Was there every a better moment to see if you can ride a T-rex? See the dinosaurs walk the earth, experience the wild nature that must have been around back then. I bet we don't know about a lot of the amazing things from that time.
Of course you would have a hard time trying to survive, but it would be cool. Dangerous, but cool.
As a woman I'd rather not go into any distant path.
So i choose last year and slap myself before I do an especially stupid thing that caused me near financial ruin and drained what little savings I had.
That is the way to go. Any point in time in the past is generally worse than the present. So just go back enough to fix something in our own life'and maybe play the lottery or some stock trading to get set for life.
I would go back to my teen years just to relive it again. Assuming I could repeat the process when I read this post I would do it over and over again. I wouldn't change anything, I would just enjoy the ride.
I'd probably go back to around 2000 and tell myself that my stupid decisions were going to catch up to me in about 24 years, and they will definitely cost me the relationship I have with only person in this world who had ever genuinely loved me, and that it will drive her mad and she will react in a most brutal and callous way.
I would remind myself that the way I think other people are feeling is almost always wrong, to some degree, and that i should listen better to her about her feelings while I still have a chance to salvage what was once true love.
I would explain that, if I'm not careful, I will misinterpret everything she says about her feelings, and i will lose all my friends and hobbies, one by one, trying to be someone for her that she doesn't even want.
I would describe the way it feels to be with her, then illustrate the way it will feel when she starts dating other guys while you beg her to please work with you on your relationship, and that it would already be too late no matter how much you want it to work.
I would suggest that, if I decide to proceed while ignoring all my other advice, then I should at least not buy a house with her in 2023 when she is so insistent. Just hold out for one more year before making that mistake.
She wanted to be my forever person, and i didn't know how to deserve that. We were fucking teenagers when we got together, and neither of us knew how to be. We were just spitballing.
I probably go back to when I was a kid and my mom kidnapped me and since I look so much like my dad kick in the door and raise myself as my own father.
Use my knowledge of the future too make myself incredibly rich and give my younger self all of the advantages and opportunities of life.
If not, I would take my kid to see some of the big steam engines of the past that we can't anymore, take a ride on an established safe train/route. (Or maybe buy some old Lego to take home)
Round trip to a 'read only' version of the past? I'd like to see the dinosaurs.
Round trip that can make changes? Probably a few hundred or even thousand years ago, so I could give them modern technology, information about climate change, try to educate people on social issues, etc. I'd create detailed instructions and try to make a religion out of it. There's no guarantee it would work, but I'd hopefully return to a solarpunk utopia. Honestly not sure if I would try this, as it would basically overwrite everything I've ever known.
One way trip? I'd probably pass, unless I can de-age. I would definitely want to go back to being a child with all my current knowledge.
You could visit late 1700s or early 1800s and start a company that makes renewable energy. Maybe something like wind power, wave power etc, should be achievable with the technology available at the time. If your company becomes successful enough, you could compete fossil fuels out of the market. Then, invest that money into developing energy storage technologies to outcompete the internal combustion engine.
Round trip that can make changes? Probably a few hundred or even thousand years ago, so I could give them modern technology, information about climate change, try to educate people on social issues, etc
What tech would you take back if you could though?
It would probably take decades to prepare, and to figure out what the best approach would be.
It also depends on how much I could bring back.
If it's just me and what I can carry, I think I would just bring a few things to demonstrate the tech. Maybe a high power flashlight and solar charger. The important part would be a detailed guide on how to re-enginer everything we have today, as well as the science behind it. Really, I think scientific knowledge would be the most impactful.
If this was a huge operation with near infinite resources, I would send back a giant self sustaining compound with a general purpose factory. I think it would probably be possible to sustain a roughly 60s level of technology indefinitely on a small scale until the rest of the world caught up
I was in West Berlin in 1981, we had a picnic by the wall and rode the metro through the ghost stations. Which were a bit meh to be honest. You had to change a certain amount of currency to visit the east and we couldn't afford it, so we just stayed in the train and went back again.
We hitched to Berlin, and the freakiest part was driving through the corridor that linked West Berlin to West Germany.
If I get to go with a Tardis, language barrier won’t be a problem. If not, medieval Europe will be out of the question, since languages have changed so much during the past few centuries.
If you travel back even further to see mammoths or even dinosaurs, languages won’t be an issue. Who knows what the ancient microbes will do to your immune system, so there are some serious risks.
I guess the past 200 years might be the most reasonable ones to choose from. I think I might want to meet James Prescott Joule (1818-1889), the inventor of the correct unit of energy.
James Watt (1736-1819) would be pretty interesting too, so I hope English hasn’t changed too much. Would be pretty annoying if we can’t communicate properly.
I'd go back 30 seconds before you hit submit on this question and take your keyboard away from you.
Seriously, this is a question that's essentially "What if?" which has been debated by philosophers, argued by historians, fantasized and written about in countless books and displayed in libraries and museums around the planet.
What on earth did you think this question would add to the fabric of society?
What I was actually trying to do is encourage a discourse that furthered society, rather than rehash a trope such as the one found at the source of this thread.
I'm not confident that this will actually eventuate here, but I'm hopeful that someone will pleasantly surprise me.
Seriously, this is a question that's essentially "What if?" which has been debated by philosophers, argued by historians, fantasized and written about in countless books and displayed in libraries and museums around the planet.
so therefore no one should ever be interested in the topic ever again lmao what. Take a breath dawg, chill, it's ok for people to converse on the internet
I'd go back 30 seconds before you hit submit on this question and take your keyboard away from you.
Seriously, this is a comment that's essentially "waaa I didn't like this" which has been posted by toddlers, argued by narcissists, fantasized and written about in countless comments and displayed in posts and videos around the planet.
What on earth did you think this comment would add to the fabric of society?