I’d go back to the 1970s, the dawning of personal computer growth in it’s beginnings. I’d take every single idea and patent from today and collect them all in a multiple series of binders. I would spend weeks holed up in some apartment, jotting notes, re-directing credits to me.
I would be the founding father of hundreds of technological inventions, way before they were even thought up. Flash Drives? My idea. Compact Discs? My idea. SSDs? My idea.
Everything will be my idea and I’ll be biding my time, pitching ideas and profiting off of the patents that I sell and my ideas alone, with little to no work involved. By the turn of the 2000s, I’ll be unfathomably recognized and wealthy.
There’s already tons of folks that had “that idea” too early. Those technical innovations don’t just need some rando showing up and saying “hey, we should make a plastic disc that stores music MONEY PLEASE!”
The CD was created in collaboration between several companies, creating a technical standard, and working with the limitations of manufacturing and technology of the time. There’s exactly zero chance you would be able to get a jump on them.
I’d bet $3 that there’s tons of patents from people who had a similar enough idea years before it came out, but they never went anywhere. Sony would just see your patent and carefully design the disc to avoid violating it.
Yeah, it’d be much simpler to just buy some stock in the right companies, place some bets on the right events, and chill out on the beach before hitting the discos and cocktail bars.
The optical mouse was first mentioned in print in the 1980s.
Dude, you’re overcomplicating things. Just bring a modern PC to 2009 and mine a couple hundred thousand Bitcoin.
That would stand out a lot. Probably better to just bring a couple hundred dollars and buy bitcoin when it was worth practically nothing.
Even with a load of great ideas, and lots of the technical data (hardware drawings, software and firmware codes) you’d have still have to set up the supply chains, and convince a host of other people you have insanely good ideas.
Lots of people had ideas for miniaturization and portability of computer hardware but as soon as you quickly got a technology out early, the time line would change and so would the compatibility issues… You’d soon just be Steve Jobs managing a company creating shit, just with some extra juice in your back pocket.
What if consumers were not ready for your ideas? What about all the other dependent technologies? Are you an expert in battery or glass technology that’s needed to really make the smart phone possible? Are you able to just call up ASML in 1970 and explain them how to jump a few generations of chip scaling?
Probably audition for the Electric Light Orchestra
your mission, should you choose to accept it: 1983. CBS is going to tell you that you only get one disc for your double LP. a deflated Jeff Lynne is just gonna slap A1 on the first side and a few random tracks on the second and be done with it. you cannot let this happen under any circumstances. everything wrong with the world in the last half-century? it all starts with Secret Messages not ending with Hello My Old Friend. if you can fix that, you can save us all
if you can also convince him to move Loser Gone Wild to the b-side it would greatly help the flow and pacing of the album but that did not have nearly the same level of impact on the space-time continuum so we’ll just file that as a “nice to have”
I would audition for their string section, which means that by 1983 I’d already been sacked! Nevertheless, I’d try my best to make the Time double album be released!
time-traveling to save Time, it’s poetic!
I love the contrast between this and OP’s comment.
Buy bitcoin
I’m not a hero.
I would go back in time to simply observe and document from afar. Sneaking a pic of historical moments or past times such as what types of games the Roman’s would hold in the coliseum. An ancient bazaar filled with people buying food and things they need. Ancient Greece in its glory. A real samurai. Times Square the moment World War II ended. And, of course I’d take some souvenirs along with me to. An ancient coin. Some authentic mead. A brand new first Gen Apple Macintosh. A Mr. Fusion for fuel for my time machine if its possible to go forward in time. Any money I’d make from my journeys would simply go to funding my journey to see everything that we’ve done and what we’re going to do.
I’d go back in time and give my younger self a sports almanac telling him to place bets with it.
That’s as a dumb an idea a a screen door on a battleship
Alight, alright. Now why don’t you make like a tree and get out of here?
Book: Replay, by Grimwood.
I’d mail my younger self a list of dates when I should invest in various stocks, and when to sell.
Go Back to pre-civilization times and find a nice tribe to chill with
Push some pedos into traffic. Care less what people think. Encourage my family to take better care of themselves. Save more. Take school more seriously. Keep my dog in the house that one day. Be nicer to my mom.
What is this, Endgame?
Smart Hulk would surely see this as a win.
I’d go waaaay back and try to find the Ancient Civillizations. Including and l predating the Sumerians. I’d love to see what they were like, how similar to us now, and how they were better.
I’d also like to spend a night in 80s goth scene London.
Also I’d wanna go back and see some BIG TREES.
You’d probably kill those civilizations off entirely with the germs and viruses you bring back.
I like the idea from Hot Tub Time Machine of going back before various things got started and just “create” it myself. KolaBook. Koogle. Kolanaki and the Heartbreakers. 😎
I’d try to get hired as an extra in the original Star Wars movies.
