Why is it all about money?
I’d take everything I need to teach modern technology, sustainable practices, and cyberpunk aesthetics to the peak of the Mesopotamian society. I want the city of Ur bathed in neon!
I wanna go try some silphium. Idk how far back but def before humans are it to extinction.
I’d go back to February of 2016, to a town in California, at the banks of the river that my friend decided he wanted to “take a swim” in, and try to stop him. I’d bring with me copies of all the news articles reporting about how he drowned in that river and that someone found his body and called the authorities. I’d show him a copy of my text messages back and forth with his sister when she told me what happened to him. She claimed that he went swimming in the river often and that he was unaware that the current that day was really strong. I wanted to believe her, but I knew he was troubled, that he ad psychosis and PTSD, and that he didn’t want to live past 40. And who the fuck swims in a river in February!? I would do my best to try and save his life.
- A fire extinguisher to the library of Alexandria.
- A small pox variolation kit to ~13thC somewhere in the Americas. Probably the PNW to preserve the linguistic diversity there, maybe the amazon river, the Tlaxcala or the groups who would go on the confederate into the Haudenosaunee.
- Vials of horse-plague to the cucteni trypillians, see if we can’t blunt that Indo-European expansion somewhat. If it’s virulent enough, maybe we get lucky and weaken the power of aristocrats across Eurasia for millenia to come. (Sorry horses!).
- Just for me, some magic mushrooms to shangqiu, henan ~325 BCE ish. See if I can’t convince Zhuang Zhou to trip with me.
Myself and tell Scott Norwood to aim a tad left.
*Scott is jump-scared by the arrival of the time traveler, and ends up barely missing.
It was your fault ALL ALONG
I take an entire renewable energy system and a team of people both to set it up and to prepare a settlement. I want to be placed in America in prehistory. We’re getting in there and starting over before the capitalists ruin everything. We’re going resource based babyyy
Renewables require industry and high tech to produce and maintain. If you go far enough back to establish a foothold, your renewables will most likely not be functioning by the time colonists arrive. If you settle just before they do, you won’t be able to have much advantage. In either case, unless you go really far back, you’re still settling and taking land from indigenous people.
What are you hoping to achieve?
Hey they said I could take anything. That includes whatever is needed to keep them functioning. I’m trying to buy us more time before environmental collapse. Cause at this rate we aren’t solving shit. There isn’t a single place you can go back to where someone or something isn’t harmed or changed in the process.
I understand; I’m saying, you’d need to take back an entire industry to produce photovoltaics, batteries for storage, the computer control systems; or the high-tensile composites needed to build wind turbines, the fine machining to produce electric motors and wiring, and the cranes and such to raise them. You’d need to clear swaths of land for either, although you might be able to set up in the great plains, but in any case, all of the current renewable tech is high tech supported by countless other industries. You’d be taking back a civilization, to make it all work. And then you’ll need agriculture to feed all those people, housing for them to live, clothing, and so on; and which native tribe are you going to steal land from to put all of this?
Alright is there another hypothetical you wanna take way too seriously or just mine? It simply said whatever I want and thats what I’d want. It didnt say small scale, or any other restrictions. And if you really want to know I’d jack Greer Arizona, which as far as I know, Molly Butler settled there first.
Lottery numbers for the Mega Millions drawing that happened most recently. Leave them with a note that past me would realize was the real deal to go buy the ticket.
A steam engine back to Ancient Rome, just to see what they might have achieved with that kind of idea.
I believe they lacked the metallurgy to make high pressure steam vessels.
The Ancient Greeks had steam engines centuries before Rome existed and mostly just treated them as curiosities (probably because they were too impractical to use as weapons of war)
Enough money to buy a lot of bitcoin. When I get to a point where Bitcoin is about $70,000 a coin. I would want my account to be worth about $1,000,000,000 usd.
Figure I can sell it to several companies. Then retire.
I’d try to fix major issues by time traveling but the reality is either that issue was inevitable, or the alternative was probably worse.
In 2009 I did a job for a client and he offered me 400 btc or $400. I took the $400 and kinda regret it. Likely as not I wouldn’t have held till now but still
I paid someone 0.1 bitcoin for a ~$30 item in 2013. I checked the receiving wallet in 2014 and it hadn’t been accessed. I reached out to the guy and told him it was worth $60 and asked him if he had access still. Explained to him how he could access it, gave him some links. I reched out to him again in 2021 and told him it was worth $4k and told him he should sell it. He said he didn’t remember how he set up a wallet and he couldn’t access it. In the end I think he likely downloaded a wallet to his computer and then got rid of that computer. Just checked today and that .1 btc is still there, worth 9600 now.
I have almost 2 coins in a corrupted wallet file. I tried to recover it for ages. I still have it, but now it just sits there mildly tormenting me for life.
There’s always hope
https://www.wired.com/story/roboform-password-3-million-dollar-crypto-wallet/
Meanwhile they are probably on their yacht thinking about how lucky they are you chose the $400
They’re actually searching for a hard drive with thousands of Bitcoin on it.
Bitcoin was worthless in 2009, tbf. It wasn’t even until may 2010 that the first "purchase of anything was made with them, and that was 2 large Poppa John’s pizzas. All for a meager 10,000 btc.
Yes I know.
Take a Bic lighter back about 50000 years, I’d be a god. Either that or they’d kill me.
They would absolutely kill you.
I’d go back to when Leonardo da Vinci was designing that tank and bring the schematics for a Sherman or smth, then do my best to explain the advancements that would be needed to make it.
$1MM to 1980, invested into Apple.
Plot Twist: You get arrested for using counterfeit money, the date on the money is probably invalid in 1980.
Plot Twist 2: The CIA takes you to a black site and tortures you because they now believe you are a communist spy sent by the USSR in the future to destoy America, this incident causes the US to start funding research into time travel technology.
Plot Twist 3: The USSR now find out about the US trying to invent a time machine and now they are trying to do so too.
Result: 🚀☢️🌎☠️🪦
Plot Twist: You get arrested for using counterfeit money, the date on the money is probably invalid in 1980.
Now I’m genuinely curious if a bank would catch it if you tried using cash from the future. If there wasn’t a redesign, do they check serials and stuff if every other security measure is present?
Yeah, for US money the serial number is prefixed with a letter to donate the year it’s from and the note also has a series year for the actual design printed on it.
Money has evolved a lot since the 1980s so modern money would be obvious. And banks in the 80s would probably be pretty hot on money fraud as hard case was so central to the economy.
A better option would be to collect money printed prior to the year you wanted to time travel to. It’s unlikely they would be able to detect duplicates of real money already in circulation elsewhere in that time. But it might be hard to fine money that old in large volumes as so much gets taken out of circulation and replaced with new money every year.
A better option would be gold or silver.
Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all
Why are you assuming I’d be dumb enough to use post-1980 currency?
Where the fuck do you plan to get $1M of pre-1980 money? Just bring 20 bitcoins.
Figure out what was needed to be able to use large amounts of gold at the time without suspicion to avoid the printed moey issue.
$1mm in 2014 invested in dogecoin would be worth more. Bitcoin in 2010 would be extra stupid crazy rich.
Also, Apple was probably cheaper to buy in the mid 90’s just before Bill Gates saved the company for Steve Jobs than it was in 1980. You didnt want apple stock before they cane up with the ipod. It went down to 10 cents a share in December of 1997.
Maybe, but I’d rather not feed the bullshit fad.
steel toed boots to the minute before my dad nutted
Spoiler: your dad was into that sort of thing
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He paid me quite well for each kick.
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Taking the schematics for modern hardware back to the mid 60’s to claim I invented them.
