Ask Lemmy

Oh god, SNOW!!!

Hide in a cave for an eternity then. If no one knows I exist, then I live forever.

I would have said start betting like Biff Tannen, but that probably will end up changing the timeline "too much".

But if I can't die and am immune to disease, I guess I exploit that. Can't drown so I'll hop in an ocean and go somewhere. No need for food or lodging. I'll just wander for the next 100 years and peoplewatch.

Do I have prep time? I'd like to research what sorts of things will disappear over that period that will be incredibly valuable if "found" in 2026. Stamps, particular issues of comic books, coins, that sort of thing. That way I can build up a nice nest egg for when the "you can't change the timeline" restriction comes off.

Once I get close to modern times, buy a bunch of Bitcoin while it's super cheap. That's easier to sit on without causing disruption than stocks would be.

When 2026 hits, cash in.

You're immortal

How do you survive...?

I think you answered your own question.

I move to a country where you can have quality of life at very cheap costs. One of the larger Greek islands maybe. I try to live healthy even despite the "immune" feature because life is better then.

Make a fortune of course from knowing the future but keep it secret. Remain unknown to the greater public.

Buy a little house and a patch of land to grow my vegetables. Learn languages. Make friends.

Try to do 'good things' with the money (find out what good things are...).

1945? Bank robbery is still incredibly easy. Literally all forensics is during this time period is just fingerprinting. People are also malnourished and incredibly weak compared to the average person in 2026. So beat up some GI that illegally kept a gun from the war, use that to perform a series of bank robberies along the west coast of the US and the American South (where Gold stores were concentrated during the gold standard period we find ourselves in).

After that invent corporate trusts and the concept of multi-layer corporate holdings. This would be having a corporation per property owned, which is owned by a corporation and uses services from another corporation, all of which eventually ends in a labyrinthine ownership path that few, if any, forensic accountants in the 1940s could possibly follow to find out it's all just me.

By understanding, even just vaguely, which cities and areas get built up over time in history and buying surrounding properties cheaply and simply holding them until areas are built up enough to sell them for massive profit I would be able to generate essentially infinite money from basic seed money. Add onto this a series of bank and hedge fund holdings that are informed roughly when to invest in specific companies as they come up through the ages the infinite money glitch becomes an exponential money glitch.

Again layers and layers of holdings on holdings on holdings creates obscurity and complexity that would take well into the age of computers to ever unravel. A kingdom easily rivaling the Rothschilds, while being even more hidden as I'd be copying their modern techniques a half century before they perfect them.

With infinite exponential money during the golden age of capitalism I can wait until the present day when I'd no longer be effecting the timeline and then start funding communist revolutions globally, allowing for myself to become a martyr in the revolution.

Seems like I would survive no matter what?

Since I’m not allowed to become famous I guess I’d go find a sweet island somewhere and periodically send world governments anonymous letters about things to avoid, if I can, rules were kind of unclear, am I allowed to change the future just as long as it’s not to my personal benefit or not at all cause that going to be impossible, and enjoy my life

Why did you make it so easy? Throw someone back to 10,000 BC. If its just ~80 years thats easy. You can't die. Just go make a little place to hang out in a cave or somewhere extremely remote. You dont even need food or water.

What happens when you get to your birth date? Do you stop existing as a time-traveller and start being a baby? I was born in 1952, so I'd get less than seven years of time travel. Hardly worth the effort, especially if I don't remember it.

Live a more or less normal life? Actually, some skills from more modern times could get you some good jobs over the decades, depending on what you know. You could achieve an independently wealthy status without getting wildly famous if you play your cards right.

I wonder how many people in this thread have read/seen 11.22.63 before.

Without some amount of preparation, I think I'd just end up mostly working for cash and living out of a van for most of that time, or otherwise staying off-grid. There's a surprising amount of paperwork involved in legally existing as a person.

Also, since memorizing statistics is not one of my hobbies, I'd want/need some kind of written ledger to have an edge in back-alley sports betting.

Just for fun's sake though, I'd try my hand at writing professionally again, as a novelist, but just ripping off the plots of movies and TV shows that haven't been filmed yet. Self-publishing everything under pen names of course, to preserve my anonymity.

Move to Montana or Idaho. Live out in the middle of nowhere. Read a bunch of books.

How do you start? Like terminator completely naked with nothing as an adult? EDITED - also where do we end up in space?

Functionally impossible unless you completely isolated yourself from civilization. Any impact to "the past" will alter your origin, even if just by changing which sperm cell fertilizes a complete stranger's child. You have to define what "too much" variance means.