If you had a one-way ticket to Jan 1, 1999 that departs on Jan 1, 2024, and you are allowed to bring whatever fits into a backpack with you, what would you bring to use to take over the world, and how would you use it?

Assume that the future can change based on your actions, so any historical information that you bring along with you from the intervening 25 years may quickly drift out of the new realities history.

Edit: also assume that you can be given a healthy 21-year-old body if you want or take your previous self's place.

Further, identification will be provided for you if you were not born at that time.

ilovetacos,
@ilovetacos@lemmy.world avatar

Gray’s Sports Almanac

neidu,

Just hope your school bully doesn’t find it.

ElleChaise,

Why don't you make like a tree and get outta here.

TallonMetroid,
@TallonMetroid@lemmy.world avatar

It’s leave, you idiot! Make like a tree and leave! You sound like a damn fool when you say it wrong.

ShittyBeatlesFCPres,

God forbid we end up on the 1985 timeline. Can you imagine if someone like Biff became rich and powerful?

Brickhead92,

Looks at every billionaire… Yeah imagine that.

grue, (edited )

The joke is that alternate-1985 Biff was literally based on Trump, specifically.

victron,
@victron@programming.dev avatar

Oh la la!

Pietson,

It only had information up until 2000 so better make good use of it for that one year

drolex,

I come with scientific evidence of the impeding doom that will be brought by climate change and urge the world’s powers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while there is still time! Surely everybody will listen to my proofs and act to protect the world!

boatswain,

Sure, Mr. Gore.

Slinky5737,

[Monkey’s paw curls]

sbv,

This time will be different

mutant_zz,

We already had that evidence by the 1960s!

Selkie,

I’m pretty sure someone wrote about it in the 1900s, like 1908 even

sciencesebi,

LOL. It would be easier to just become the richest man in the world and buy politicians

captainlezbian,

Honestly it might be better to bring proof gore is better than bush or they he won florida

CIA_chatbot,

Lottery numbers and a historical record of the stock market: first, win lottery then invest based on performance

Become a billionaire, then join the oligarchy and use my stock knowledge to bankrupt the rest of the oligarchy

DharmaCurious,
@DharmaCurious@startrek.website avatar

… It freaks me out that is exactly my plan that I’ve spitballed in the shower several times.

Tolookah,

Cia_chatbot knows.

squiblet,
squiblet avatar

Yeah, just buy Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook when it comes out and you’re all set.

Bonehead,

Also, start generating Bitcoin in late 2009 and sell it all on Nov 10, 2021.

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

Sell it when it's in the 10,000 range the first time, circa 2015, then buy back when it drops to 400 in late 2016 and then hold

squiblet,
squiblet avatar

It spiked to 17,000 in 2017 too, if I recall.

Zellith,

Bear in mind that logically, the longer time goes on and the more you interfere, things will diverge. You might only be able to win the lottery a handful of times before the butterfly effect starts giving you numbers which don't match your predictions from the future. I figure the same thing happens with investments. If someone buys a tonne of shares using billions, the history of the stockmarket will change and over time be unreliable outside of certain events. Might be wise to buy up aquire certain talent though.

timicin,

make your billions by buying lots of small, but super profitable investments.

CarbonIceDragon,
@CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social avatar

At some point, wouldn’t having future knowledge of the stock market either lead to you changing the stock market with the presence of your money until your predictions lose their accuracy, or else get you investigated for insider trading due to it being statistically insanely unlikely to be that lucky?

Transporter_Room_3,
@Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website avatar

Don’t go all in to try and be the majority in a ton of things, and good luck PROVING insider information.

Besides if you make enough money, you can just make investigations go away as long as you aren’t too flashy about it. Or have a convenient distraction story waiting elsewhere to divert attention away from yourself.

grabyourmotherskeys,

You could just spread it across a bunch of GICs and then ETFs that were solid performers. You have your lottery money, you just need to earn enough to live the way you want. With enough invested but diversified you could make a fortune without influencing anything as a result of personal choices.

If anythjng, the initial lottery win will have the biggest impact on the timeline, assuming you lay low afterward.

Now, here’s the thing. I’d say you would be sharing those winnings with the original winner unless you prevented them from getting the ticket so find a jackpot twice as big as you need and hope a bunch of yous from alternate timeline don’t get the same idea.

That’s what would happen to me and I’d end up winning about $3.50.

CarbonIceDragon,
@CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social avatar

If a bunch of you’s from another timeline can come too, that opens the door to more interesting shenanigans anyway, like if they all get unique valid IDs, one of you could run for political office and get enough alternative selves to come back and vote for them to win. Or get different versions of yourself to run for all the political offices in a given area while bringing enough copies to win all their elections, and completely dominate the politics of the area by having everyone in office have the same or very similar views.

grabyourmotherskeys,

The downside here is I’d have to spend all my time with other me’s. I’m pretty sure I’d get on my nerves very quickly.

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

If you have never seen it, you should watch the British television show Red Dwarf.

There is a character named rimmer who is dead and has been brought back as a hologram.

Relatively early on in the series, through some Star Trek fuckery he manages to bring another version of himself back and begins to cohabitate with himself.

Aside from that, if you even reasonably like science fiction or comedy then it's a damn good show to watch. It's been running for 12 or 13 seasons, it started back in the '80s, and as far as I'm aware there is another season scheduled to be released.

grabyourmotherskeys,

“Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast!”

lightnsfw,

We’d be too distracted by all the sex to do any of that stuff.

Bizarroland, (edited )
Bizarroland avatar

You could also find some of the lottery winners that absolutely hated what happened to their lives after they won and win the draw right before their ticket would have won.

That way you spare them the misery that the money brought them and you get a nice chunk of change for yourself in the process.

unoriginalsin,

Now, here’s the thing. I’d say you would be sharing those winnings with the original winner unless you prevented them from getting the ticket

The January 2nd Powerball draw was not won by anyone and paid $39M.

That’s plenty of seed money to invest in Google, Bitcoin, et al with perfect knowledge of stock trends. Even if it’s only short term knowledge due to breaking from the original timeline, you could easily grow your investment into the billions overnight.

Perhaps the most amazing stock of the year was Xcelera.com, formerly known as Scandinavia. Once a closed-end fund specializing in Scandinavian stocks, and then an operating company that owned a hotel in the Canary Islands, it made a small investment in an Internet company last year. Before it disclosed that investment, the family of Alexander Vik, the company’s chief executive, was given options to buy a million shares of stock, at a price of $3.25 each. The shares ended 1998 at $3.75, or $1.25 adjusted for two subsequent splits. They ended 1999 at $139.50, an increase of 11,060 percent. The Viks’ option position is now valued at $415 million.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Just buy Apple and Microsoft. You’ll be fine.

Imgonnatrythis,

A healthy 21 body and 1999? Fuck taking over the world, and I don’t need your stinking backpack, just tell me where to get that ticket and where to show up, I’m not going to miss this! I’m taking a cyanide pill though when 2020 rolls around; I’m not doing this shit again.

Centillionaire,

So prevent it from happening!

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

One of the reasons why the coronavirus vaccine was created so quickly was that the work was already 90% done.

If you orchestrated things that you would be a billionaire by the 2010s, you could purchase the company that designed the vaccine and make sure that they are appropriately funded so that the vaccine for coronavirus would already exist at the time the pandemic struck.

theUnlikely,

And billionaires didn’t have to isolate in a studio apartment.

YoBuckStopsHere,
@YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world avatar

1989 would be better. 2000s were pretty terrible.

PeepinGoodArgs,

You have to prevent 9/11. Then you can still walk your grandma to the terminal when she flies to the Bahamas.

YoBuckStopsHere,
@YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world avatar

Prevent Gore losing

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

All you'd have to do is generate money with the information you brought back and then campaign for Gore in Florida like nobody's business. None of this hanging chads bullshit.

That and preventing 9/11 would completely and utterly change the world most likely for the better.

Luci,
@Luci@lemmy.ca avatar

A current download of Wikipedia.

squiblet,
squiblet avatar

Can I fill it with whatever I can think of or only things I actually have right now?

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

Anything you can acquire, legally or not, and have in your possession on Jan 1, 2024.

If you end up incarcerated or dead between now and then, the ticket is null and void.

squiblet,
squiblet avatar

Oh well, so much for filling my backpack with rhodium.

rhythmisaprancer,
rhythmisaprancer avatar

Reflecting on my own actions and the folks I met on the way, taking a better attitude would help a lot. I was young and had good conversations with different types of people but did nothing with that for close to another 15 years.

We had much of the information then, IMO. And I remember talking with much older folks who were willing to listen to teens/young adults about a variety of topics. I just wasn't willing to say anything. Even to my peers.

I would take a better attitude.

Delphia,

Simple. Im ripping up the ticket.

Since my actions have knock on effects and the ticket is 1 way that means Id have to abandon my wife and child and given how much my actions would change things, effectively unmake my daughter.

The worlds fucked, I might be able to unfuck it but theres a better chance Id just create a different flavor of shit sandwich. But to know Id never hear “Dayyydeee come pway wif meeeeee” again.

Fuck it. Let it burn.

squiblet,
squiblet avatar

We don't really know what would happen to this reality. It might just flicker and vanish away. But if you had a new daughter, she might be awesome too and without the time travel, would have never existed.

idiomaddict,

That’s cool and all, but they love this daughter now.

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

What would your response be if you could take your family with you?

Delphia,

Id need seed money so Id get the lottery numbers for the biggest win shortly after I arrive, digital copies of the worlds financial newspapers for 25 years, some targeted stock info on companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, Intel, facebook and other “Big Tech” and media firms. Knowing when to buy certain stocks and when to dump them would allow me to slow grow myself into someone that could have serious levels of control over a vast number of industries with far reach.

To make an impact with that reach, Id also have a serious SHITLOAD of research papers for anything related to green energy, cancer research and any other medical research that could save a shitload of lives. With 25 years of “leaps and bounds” in tech and medicine up my sleeve Id start a green energy company that knows which competition to buy and when, what “suggestions” to offer my researchers when I stop by for a visit. Same with biotech and medical research.

Given 25 years Id be a global renewable energy mogul who has done more to cure cancer (especially in kids) aids and a host of other diseases than any other man in history, controlling significant portions of the mass media in every first world country I could get my hooks into AND with the ear of very serious people in academic circles… Id be a fucking kingmaker with such an amazing public persona that to come at me would be career suicide for anyone in politics.

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

You could theoretically also download every single patent that has been filed in the last 25 years and then go back and patent them earlier.

I'm pretty sure being able to release lithium ion batteries in 2001 would make a dramatic change in the world and make you a billionaire in and of itself.

Perovskite solar cells would be a great follow-up to that, and you could revolutionize computing by knowing how to make raspberry pi's.

Obviously as you work your way up the tech tree you need more and more money and more and more time but once you have the blueprints for the technology everything after that is money and manpower.

For instance, risc v is Open source hardware. You could quite easily develop the lithography processes needed to create the CPUs and be a thousand steps ahead of Intel in developing cutting edge top of the line computers. Combine that with releasing a modern Linux kernel with an OS to match for free along with the hardware purchase and you could completely destroy Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Apple and Google in a fell swoop.

In 1999 I think the fastest processors were at what 300 MHz, maybe 600 something like that, Risc V processors are commonly available today running at 1.85 GHz along with graphics abilities that would blow away anything that existed in 1999.

You would also need to redevelop flash storage and RAM to match, and it would probably be a good idea to roll out Wi-Fi as well, but if you had a billion dollars by the year 2000 and all of the equipment you could easily see these things being released by 2005 and not be beholden to any shareholders.

Delphia,

See I think that you’re thinking too “directly” which would make you enemies and draw too much attention. Coming out of nowhere with unproven ideas 20 years in the future… People are going to ask questions.

By owning my own green energy and biotech companies I could hire the people who would eventually make the breakthroughs themselves and drop breadcrumbs in front of them “You know I was reading your paper on blah blah blah and I’m by no means an expert but it seems to me like yadda yadda yadda might be worth looking into” because when I back the money truck up for the 3 leading researchers into Lithium Ion batteries in the world because I’m “Passionate about green energy” it stands to reason that we would make radical breakthroughs and patent them.

And I was just lucky enough to buy a lot of bitcoin when it was cheap and sell just before peak, I got out of real estate just before the crash in 08. I supported presidential /Prime Ministerial candidates when they announced they were running because “I have faith in you Mr Obama”

I dont need to make breakthroughs, I just need to make sure I surround myself with people who will make them and ensure I get myself a cut of the profits. Me being involved will have people lining up to pour their money into the pile.

Oh and while I’m at it Ill cozy up to that sick fuck epstein and sink his boat way fucking earlier.

SnipingNinja,

We have a very similar way of thinking.

JokeDeity,

Part of me thinks it would be hard to convince people you were from the future, but I think if you did all this, everyone would be certain you were.

teawrecks,

Was there a specific breakthrough you’re referring to with Li-ion batteries? Because they were discovered several decades prior to 2001. Maybe just getting manufacturing and mass production infrastructure up and running?

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

Well yes, goodenough invented them in 1991, but the density increases that tripled their capacities and themanufacturing capabilities that decreased their cost to manufacture by a factor of 10 didn't happen until the mid-late 2000s.

There are also other battery technologies that you can release like glass batteries which are still being worked on today.

You could use modern tech to get a 30x increase in their ability per penny and corner of the market.

teawrecks,

I think taking over the tech industry like this might be the most difficult strategy to take over the world. Firstly, the only way all of that info fits in a backpack is either if you commit it all to memory (which no single human has ever done), or you load it all onto a hard drive and keep it secret the whole time you’re in the past.

Second, if you do manage to keep it secret, you still need to know it well enough to leverage it to convince the Intel’s and AMDs of the world to fund you to create these advances in technology. A random homeless person who magically knows how to execute EUV lithography probably isn’t going to be given the time of day to prove it.

If you can’t keep it secret, and it leaks, you’re now useless and the Intel’s, AMDs, etc. with more resources will kick you to the curb and do everything themselves.

The lottery/investing strategy is probably the more lucrative strategy, depending on how much of a difference the butterfly effect makes.

idiomaddict,

My dumb ass would put it on a blu ray or a flash drive or something unavailable to a normal person in 1999

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

I was assuming that the order of priorities would be to first identify the best lottery that you can win within like a 1-month period of your arrival, and then immediately follow that up with purchasing the best stocks that you possibly can purchase that will 500x your lottery winnings within the next 2-4 years.

Once you have those in place then acquiring capital via bank loans and Angel investors to do things like build and develop lithography machines to roll out your brand new processors and the flash storage and ram that runs it would be a comparative Cakewalk.

Obviously it would be much more difficult than just waving your hands but considering that you should be able to turn 15 or 20 million US Dollars into a billion+ dollars within 2 years then people should believe that you are some sort of vunderkind and follow you around and do whatever you tell them to do and hopes that some of your money will rub off on them.

teawrecks,

That’s fair. Basically pull an Elon, but instead of shit posting and ruining it all, you let your PR team make you president.

Protoknuckles,

If you got a camping backpack maybe you could bring them! That’s my plan.

GullibleOyster,

Chad

teawrecks,

Uh, no one said save the world. The assignment was to take it over.

Delphia,

Dont want to do that either if it means abandoning my daughter. If I was going to do it I’m doing it benevolently.

Roflmasterbigpimp,
@Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e23d8e19-3399-4054-b83b-3cf7227976aa.jpeg

CADmonkey,

That’s kinda where I’m at. My wife is probably the entire reason I’m not either dead at my own hand or crazy. And meeting her was a complete accident.

tetris11,
@tetris11@lemmy.ml avatar

There is a subplot in the INVINCIBLE comics that follows this very premise, and chooses the same decision you do for the exact same reason

hightrix,

All of Wikipedia on a thumb drive

List of winning power ball numbers for the past 2 decades.

$20 cash to buy bitcoin

That’s enough. More than enough money to never work again and info to help stop 9/11, etc…

IIII,

Your smartphone probably has a comparable amount of processing power to some of the earlier mining farms. May as well just mine the bitcoin

grue,

$20 cash to buy bitcoin

Bring a 2023 model computer back with you and you could just mine all the bitcoin yourself.

Hell, you could even temporally-plagiarize Satoshi Nakamoto and invent it yourself.

hightrix,

This is a great idea but it requires effort and if I were to mine 10billion bitcoin very early, that may change the future of bitcoin such that it never hits 30k+ value per. It seems safer to simply buy 1000 of them at a $0.10 to resale at 10k+.

My plan is minimal effort, minimal impact to anyone that isn’t me, and to get all the money I could ever need.

meekah,
@meekah@lemmy.world avatar

But on the other hand we could maybe stop NFTs from existing if Bitcoin never gets popular

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

I have a theory about NFTs.

One of the issues with running any system on the internet where users can upload files is that you have to store those files and make them accessible to people.

Which is fine. But often times users will upload the same file repeatedly or with only minor trivial alterations and that is how you end up with a multi petabyte server farm completely full of duplicate memes and reposted video content.

If there were a system that could uniquely identify each and every single file that is uploaded to it and then on the fly cross compare that file with previous uploads and identify when the file is a duplicate, that would be very handy.

If such a system like that existed, then system would only need a single copy of the file to share out to every single person that wants to view it, saving possibly hundreds of gigabytes of storage space.

Something like NFTs could be used to accomplish that, if it were fully fleshed out and developed.

It would probably need one of the new neural network systems overlaid on top of it to analyze the content and cross compare it, and to single out minor differences and create overlays to account for them.

For instance, if you have a base image on knowyourmeme.com, then all the AI would have to do is separate a layer that contains the text in text format with the information of the font that is displayed on top of the image, and it could share up millions of variations on a base level meme for only a few megabytes of storage space for the text information.

If your computer system already has the base meme file on it rather than sharing the entire file to you it could just share the text overlay to your computer and decrease transmission file sizes and time as well.

meekah,
@meekah@lemmy.world avatar

If there were a system that could uniquely identify each and every single file that is uploaded to it and then on the fly cross compare that file with previous uploads and identify when the file is a duplicate, that would be very handy.

That exists. And we could probably even make something that recognizes small changes like added text on the image and save the data accordingly, probably using some kind of neural network as you later mentioned. The issue is just that that would be extremely computationally expensive, so companies usually choose to just buy a shitload of HDDs. Maybe something like this might be more feasible with quantum computing at some point.

Something like NFTs could be used to accomplish that, if it were fully fleshed out and developed.

What makes you think that? An NFT is basically just an ID card with extra steps. I don’t see how NFTs relate to the problem you described at all. Just because most NFTs the public heard about were somehow tied to images or videos, doesn’t mean that NFTs are a technology for detecting duplicate images/data in general.

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

I mean nft's basically serve as a identifier for a file. So if you can identify the file then you can set it as a base image and then cross compare with that identifier. Idiots are using it to like have some sort of weird digital ownership of something but that's not its ideal use case

meekah,
@meekah@lemmy.world avatar

NFTs are non-fungible tokens. They are literally made for claiming some sort of weird digital ownership of something. There isn’t really another feasible usecase for that technology, even if I agree that that hasen’t been done in a meaningful way yet. If you want to identify the files in that anti-duplication system of yours you are better off using just a regular incremental integer or GUID or something. No need for all the extra steps to the ID card

rwhitisissle,

what a hero you would be

Zippy,

Win the Powerball more than once and someone will be doing an investigation.

hightrix,

Oh yeah, definitely. I’d take all the numbers because I’d assume at some point history would change such that the record wouldn’t be perfect forever.

I’d win one that is over a billion. Then quit.

cyborganism,

An entire offline copy of Wikipedia up to Jan 1 2024 on a tablet. Having all the world events up to that date available to consult at my fingertips, I could use it in so many ways.

DeepFriedDresden,

Don't forget a charger, otherwise you'll be screwed for awhile

akatsukilevi,
akatsukilevi avatar

USB 1.1 was already around in 1999, USB 2.0 being released in 2001 with Mini-A/AB/B being available in 2001, and the standard Type-A as early as 1996.
Take one of those USB Type-A to USB-C and you're good enough until circa-2008 when USB-C starts to get around

DeepFriedDresden,

USB-C wasn't designed until 2014. So yeah you'll need a charging cable regardless

akatsukilevi,
akatsukilevi avatar

Even nowadays USB-C devices aren't the de-facto yet(specially true in 3rd world countries like mine), Mini-B and Micro-C are still fairly common(tho really limited compared to USB-C), so depending on the devices being taken, it might not be that much of a trouble

brianorca,

But the old USB chargers didn’t have high speed charging (2+amps) until much later. Most cell phones can’t charge effectively from the original 0.5A standard USB.

Froyn,

Future weed.

squiblet,
squiblet avatar

That's true, a big sack of super dank 30% seeds would go a long way. Funny thing is we'd be just as happy with some of those old strains, so you could win again by freezing seeds from true NL5, Skunk #1 and so on in 1999.

livus,
livus avatar

I'm squashing my partner into a very large backpack and taking them with me.

I don't think I could take over the world so I choose love. But I can't resist the new body part which is why I'm not just staying here.

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

Don't worry, they can get a ticket and a new body too, but between the two of you you can still only take one backpack.

livus,
livus avatar

@Bizarroland thanks, that's great!! I think we'll probably put a couple of reasonably modern computers, components, and drives containing information into it, and paper printout backups of the things I need most, and whatever pharmaceuticals I can get my hands on for retroengineering.

A 24 year jump on scientific and tech research might not help me take over but it could at least make the world a better place. ART for HIV in developing nations for starters.

I'm guessing the butterfly effect probably applies to lottery numbers, but the stock market's likely still good to go, and that can fund me (along with a few non essential drugs I can sell to pharma) so I can be more influential.

I was already an adult in 1999 so I will know my way around just fine.

squiblet,
squiblet avatar

I read this as 'new part of the body' and was wondering what new part you'd get (like is it also an optional gender switch? Or perhaps you're an amputee?) but then I figured out oh, okay, you mean the part about the new body.

livus,
livus avatar

@squiblet yeah I could have worded that better!

peanuts4life,
@peanuts4life@beehaw.org avatar

To take over the world? I’d take the records of every international technology and medical patent. And, a cell phone. I’d get the local news interested in my new handheld PC, find the least scrupulous tech company which reached out to me, and hatch a plan to create a trillion dollar tech empire.

FunkyMonk,

Pingy Putty and Reaganism would all still be in heavy effect, I can't think of a way any one person is going to bring down 3 nuclear super-war-states. We don't have any anti nuke tech eminence in shadow but nice writing prompt for potential suffering trying.

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

Pingy putty? I've never heard of this before.

Bizarroland,
Bizarroland avatar

Also, nothing comes up when I search it on DuckDuckGo or start page

FunkyMonk,

Putin and Xi Ping would still be serious threats to trying to take over the world even from 1999 perspective.

theUnlikely,

Eminence in Shadow? I only know the term from the anime. What does it mean here?

FunkyMonk,

Trying to Isekai to 1999 to take over the world brain.

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