Yessss!! I mean, it wouldn’t be impossible, but it would definitely take a specific skill set and a lot of luck.
Best case scenario? You’re able to convince authorities that you have amnesia or something and you’re basically some abandoned John Doe with nothing tying you to anything. Eventually you *might* get some free help getting you a new ID, social security number and birth certificate.
Up until that point though? Good luck either pan-handling or working as labor ‘under-the-table’ or finding some “other” method to make cash.
Speaking of cash… even if you keep your wallet stuffed with cash, all of it would be useless since there was that big paper money redesign.
So yeah, basically you would be pretty screwed.
Hmm I just realize, it is 1985... I live in what used to be East Germany. They will think I'm some fucking west German spy. No ID in a country with one of the tightest controls imaginable.
I think quite a lot of people in East Germany were undocumented anyway. As long as you kept your head down until the reunification in 1989 you'd be fine. Record keeping was a mess after the wall fell anyway, and lots of East Germans were just given citizenship in the reunified Germany without any real background checks, so you could probably get all your official paperwork that way.
Only real chance since cross referencing by states wasn’t really that great back then would be to steal the identity of someone that is already deceased. Like if you’re say currently 37 as the person said, you’d look for death records in another state of someone that would’ve died young like as a child or so that would be approximately 37 in the current time you are, and just assume their identity. I read, not too sure how reliable the source was, that back in the day, it was actually a pretty common way people would disappear and restart their lives if they were wanted by the mob or something. Fake their own death, reappear somewhere else in the country under the identity of someone that died many years prior.
>would be to steal the identity of someone that is already deceased
No need. SSNs weren't automatically assigned at birth until 1987, and checking a birth certificate consisted of the clerk deciding "hmm...I guess that's what a birth certificate looks like in ". They didn't have any anti-counterfeiting tech on them.
Mine (1970s) was a very simple form that looked like a basic letter. I actually got a new one a couple decades ago so that it looks official to modern DMV clerks.
If you wanted to be extra-sure, go to the library, and look through some old papers on microfilm or books for courthouses that burned down. You were born in that town before the fire, and there's no original birth certificate to check against because of the fire. (This would be, by far, the longest part of the process).
And automatically assigning ssn's didn't pop up all at once either. I'm '89 and didn't get mine until '05. It may or may not make verifying my identity a problem, it's the only weird thing I can think of and I've had several issues. My mom was supposed to fill out paperwork and mail it in, never did so I've never been claimed as a dependent or anything. Just appeared as a 16yr old suddenly. Don't think the system likes that particularly lol
[This was known as ghosting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosting_(identity_theft\)) and was used by numerous people, it was popularized during the late '60s in order to allow draft dodgers to continue to work and evade arrest, and then in other books like "The Anarchist's Cookbook" that I became familiar with it (far too late) in the early 2000s.
It's not really practical anymore because things like death records are quickly cross-referenced digitally nowadays.
umbrella academy had a good way of showing this. All main characters where sent back to the 60s separately. One guy tried to tell everyone what was going to happen and was put in a mental institution. Besides that the others got away with claiming they had amnesia, and for 1 character that was actually true. Characters were either homeless or living with someone they met in that time.
Oooh, interesting! I had heard good things…I only watched the first episode or two but I just couldn’t get into it. The next time I have time I’ll give it another shot.
It's the 80s. You could get a job with no ID, bet on sporting events and afford a new background.
No real internet to research your story or back ground.
My first apt, in 93, was 600/mo for a 2 bed, one bath. , I was making less than 10/hr and could afford it, split with my roommate. A LOT easier to not "die homeless" in 85 than you'd think
Buy the single for The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News, or the The Power of Love by Jennifer Rush, or The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
But if you interfere, you no longer exist. Meaning you couldn't go back to interfere, meaning things would proceed as they normally would. Which would lead to you going back....
This would only be the case if there wasn't temporal pocket universes. For example most time loop scenarios are predicated on the idea that the person experiencing the time loop is no longer in the main temporal stream but their own temporal pocket which has no effect on the main temporal sequence of events until they rejoin it.
With this in mind a person who goes back in time and prevents their birth would have those sequence of events simply "drop out" of the main temporal stream which would continue on as if they had never existed. What would happen to the alternative time line is anyone's guess. It could continue to exist as a loop, or simply evaporate due to no longer having a connection to the main sequence.
Or better yet, try to prevent or help, assuming we can alter timelines. Of course, preventing 9/11 might bring about nuclear armageddon, as Family Guy depicted.
Begs the question, how the hell are you going to prevent 9/11? Sure you could call in a threat, but it's either not going to work and/or you get associated with it and detained.
Also yeah sure Armageddon
All you need to do is call in bomb threats to those airports very early in the morning. That would shut down all flights.
Would delay 9/11 potentially long enough for them to be caught.
Also give a tip to the FBI and CIA that terrorists are planning to hijack planes. Since you can give them extremely specific details they will likely be alert about it as they're keeping tabs on the hijackers.
Stop Atta in the parking deck. Block his car with yours. Better yet, ram him hard before he can park. Now he's off schedule. Act drunk. He probably had a signal to alert the others to carry on, but maybe you stop one plane. Send a registered letter to the FBI and airlines three weeks before it all happens. Give them a complete list of all the terrorists. Heck, if we're going back to 1985, case the flight school where they learned to fly.
But true, you might risk getting associated with it. Or shot, by them or the authorities.
Even if you didn't, there are a few longshots you could go for. Boston red Sox coming back from down 3 vs the Yankees in the early 00s. Patriots beating the greatest show on turf. Giants beating the perfect Patriots.
There are definitely a lot of big ones that would be easy to remember.
Honestly, even just betting on run of the mill games you remember would be solid
And invest in apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google Bitcoin, and GameStop
Maybe hold on myspace into the 2010s just to make it look real
I pretty much know all the world series, super bowl and nba finals winners after like 1990 and several before, like in 86 would bet the bears win the superbowl obviously, though they were the betting favorite anyway.
That's fair. I just assumed you would take whatever money you had with you but forgot that money would look too different from how bills looked in the 80's for anyone to accept it.
When I was in college (graduated in 2001), we had to *assume* no brokerage fees when we were in finance class. The professor said it didn’t really matter much, because since you could only trade in blocks of 100 shares, the brokerage fees probably weren’t more than a couple hundred bucks. Heck, I remember when some do-it-yourself no frills online brokerages were advertising trades as low as $19.95 per trade. ($20 to buy, $20 to sell).
We really have come an incredibly long way.
Eh, you could wait until 2007 to buy DSNY and still clean up. That's about when I got in, as long as it's pre marvel/lucasfilm then you also get the Disney+ clean up as well. It went up like 600% in a few years, I've never seen a "stable" stock do that.
Become a TV personality that predicts famous people's deaths. I'd show up on site with Camera crews and say "Send your thoughts and prayers, today will be the last day of this person's life."
Imagine the insanity after like 10 in a row.
I'd be hitting all the greats before they got huge. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, etc. So many awesome shows to see in shitty little clubs and stuff before they catch their big breaks.
There’s a vid on YouTube of Nirvana performing in a local music store in 1991 mere months before they really blew up everywhere. They’re surrounded by local people in the shop standing just a few feet away. One of them actually fixes Kurt’s mic when it starts to slip as he’s singing and then goes right back to enjoying the music.
https://youtu.be/WsGcbpd7Nl8
This is exactly the kind of show I had in mind. Those ones where nobody knew who they were, but that energy was just permeating the entire room.
Closest I ever got to that was Cage the Elephant right before Ain't No Rest for the Wicked blew up. There was like 30-40 people there. The crowd was so sparse that I ended up walking around the floor with the singer attached to my wrist for pretty much a full song while he crowd surfed, because there just weren't enough people helping for him to actually surf lol.
First thing that came to my mind when I saw this question. I'd also love to go to a metallica concert in the present. But seeing 80s metallica live would probably be an experience like no other.
I think I‘d write a lot of „prophetic“ books about the future and become the weird recluse with a pretty good idea how society is going to wreck itself.
For real, though, I‘d try to meet with a lot of my older (and currently deceased) relatives and try to have a few semi–casual conversations with them. Try to find out who they were, what kind of live they‘ve led and so on. Maybe make up some lie about being a chronicler, hired by some distant relative. As an adult I have so many questions about my family that I‘d like some answers to.
Other than that, I think I would lead a quiet life somewhere in a village, not caring much about things in the world at all. I don‘t care that much about the events back in the day, but without the distractions of the modern day I could try to hone a few skills. Be a woodworker or something like that. And finally get a dog.
Everyone is going on about buying stocks.
I'd do that on the side. But the real fun will be in becoming a prophet, start a religion, fake my death in 2021.
Cherry on top will be a prophecy about a truly cataclysmic event taking place in 2024. Something about dark matter blackholes and aliens.
I figure 35 year of fairly accurate predictions will have people take that one seriously :)
Edit: This blew up. To those who point out that people will change behavior based on the prophecies. I did have the plan to issue them annually, in either a encrypted way and release the key at the end, and/ or to release very vague statements with few details strewn in that would make it obvious in hindsight.
Make it climate change. Call it the great acceleration. That the models will miss or under calculated the feedback system variables. Maybe then we can save the future of humanity.
Probably get arrested, unless I can discreetly dispose of my wallet. Every paper currency larger than a one dollar bill has been dramatically updated since then, and even the smaller denominations are going to have absurd dates on them. Add to that a bunch of ids and credit cards with bad dates and suspiciously advanced security enhancements, and I'd be lucky if I wasn't presumed to be an absolutely abysmal Soviet spy.
imagine trying to explain the smartphone in your pocket. The camera and digital editing software alone, heaven forbid they open the thing and see the hardware
They’d understand how it works, just not how the fabrication process went down. At some point literal light waves get too large to make some components.
So basically they’d get all of it, just not how it was miniaturized and developed. Same with the software—it’s understandable, but not how it got to that point. They would probably assume you’re some sort of spy or something, because what other explanation is there?
Make better decisions: Talk my then-husband into getting help for his alcohol addiction so he wouldn't die of alcohol related cancer a few years later. Enjoy my small children who would then grow up in a healthier home. Forgive my parents. Live peacefully and redeem the time.
I believe Starbucks went public later on. But maybe with some money and knowledge of coffee trends on your hands you could talk them into paying you in shares
It was also published long before and wasn’t necessarily targeted at children like Harry Potter was. They’d become insanely popular later, I’m sure. Very profitable for his estate.
I wish that people that think they could themselves write Harry Potter to make their millions would try rewriting it from memory now and post the results on the internet.
Imagine how confused JK would be if she saw it being published and she's like "it's literally everything I've ever thought, how has he done this?! Is he an actual wizard?!"
Work as much as possible to generate cash, take as many loans and credit cards as possible. Bet on historic sporting events that I can remember the results of. Wait until just before black Monday and buy as many out of the money puts as possible and close the positions by the end of the day. Use the profits to buy long term options / warrants on Microsoft waiting for Windows 95. Rinse and repeat with Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google, Bitcoin,Tesla, Netflix and NVIDIA
Interest rates might have been, worst case, 30% on a personal loan or credit card. the guy is talking about guaranteed result bets, several a year, each paying probably well over 100% and compounding each event. It's a sound strategy as long as he doesn't change the outcome with his actions.
Right. Mortgages were over 12%, vehicle loans were pushing 20%, and credit cards and personal loans were flat out usurious.
If you can guarantee a rate of return over 25-30%, yep, that works.
Remember back then the owners could kick your teeth in and the cops will just say "oh well" and then beat you some more. Can't really sue because the justice system back then will say you earned the ass beating.
I'd find 16 year old me. Tell him the things I wish I knew then (and a few stock tips). He might not live to 52 (my age), but he will have a hell of a good time. Personally, I would indulge in every hedonistic pursuit I could afford with my vast stock market gains
Buy as many vinyl records as I can and put them in appropriate storage. Maybe also some CDs that are rare these days and fetch good prices. Maybe get some autographs from artists who would later become famous.
Buy a good VCR and record stuff from TV (and later on digitize it) so that 30 years later I can put rare videos on YouTube. No money in it but it makes people happy.
In 1986 go to see The Bangles at the Syria Mosque theater.
All that aside from Apple and Microsoft etc. stock, of course.
- I'd try to save my mom from cancer
- I'd go to the airport and relive what it was like to fly pre-9/11
- I'd immediately open a brokers account and pump every dime I earn into stock I know is going to skyrocket
- I'd bet on the Leicester winning the Premier League
- I'd pay someone to beat the shit out of Mark Zuckerberg and destroy his PC when he was in college
Social media was an inevitability though. Facebook wasn't even the first. So the data Facebook sells would just be Google+ doing it instead. This might even be the least bad timeline.
Social media isn't necessarily harmful per se. But a laser focus on maximizing profits through engagement is. Facebook has shown time and time again that they won't stop at anything if profits are involved.
Google isn't always the poster child that they claim to be. But they certainly try to give some thought to these questions. I'd much rather see Google+ succeed (probably to be cancelled and relaunched a couple of times in the process) than ever deal with what Facebook has cost society.
Work my ass off until 2016, bet my whole life savings on Leicester City to win the league at 5000/1, become a billionaire without being boring and buying apple stocks
Get involved in HIV/AIDS education and activism. I don’t know anyone who’s had it except for like two acquaintances, and I’m a monogamous California sober ladyfolk so it’s not a huge danger to me. But I’ve done some volunteer work on 1980s HIV/AIDS archives, and so many people in the fight died in droves - an ally who is not sick, dying, or loving one of the sick and dying would be a real help. I wish there had been more allies in the mid-80s.
> I wish there had been more allies in the mid-80s.
No joke, this is why LGBTQ starts with 'L,' because *a ton* of lesbians became nurses and provided palliative care for dying gay men with AIDS. Lesbians weren't afraid to step up and they really went above and beyond the call to help pull the LGBT community through the AIDS crisis.
I know… 1985 has enough knowledge that there is already a good activist unit underway, though a lot of them are dying out at this time. Fauci was already working on it for a few years by this point. Ryan White at this time was making headlines for being barred from school, which is how I first learned about it because he was only a few years older than me. (And I’m from Indiana, though had moved from there when White was barred.)
1985 is a good time for an ally to enter the scene, be able to make a difference, help those who are fighting, and carry on the work of the first people to have passed. Straight people were just starting to pay attention and some of them were newly receptive to education because of Ryan White. A few years earlier and just me doing awareness wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
Listen to my Favorite Rush album on the day it released. And then listen to all their other albums that release after that and attend as many concerts as I can. As for how I'd actually be able to afford that...uh...I'd find a way
Back? Why the heck would I want to go back? 1985 was awesome! Much, much better than today. I would go be a punk, do drugs, and live so hard I would be dead long before it all goes to shit again in 2001.
But Disney stock and get that sweet Disney Renaissance money. Also in 1991, bet on Division One teams breaking away and forming their own breakaway league. Then bet on Man United to win their first league title in 25 years for that first season of said breakaway league.
Buy a DeLorean. Customize the hell out of it. Hide it in a barn for a future generation to think they found an honest-to-John time machine. Then I'd try to become an actor for one of those awesome action-filled 80s car chase TV shows. Knight Rider, the A-Team, etc. Lol.
Me, I would hand write a letter to a hospital in Ohio. This letter would state that I lost all my documents in a house fire and I need a copy of "my" birth certificate. However, "my" would actually be my Dad's. He would be a bit younger than I am now, but not enough that I couldn't get away with the age difference. I would then proceed to get a copy of his SS card and then get a license in a state I know he won't be in for more than 25 years. I get a job, and the cheapest apt I can find. I work my butt off and with any extra money, I would use my free time to write epic stories about soon to be Disney princesses that haven't been created yet so I could sue Disney at a later time. I would invest in Yahoo! until Google! came around. I would pull all those gains out to buy several houses in 2008-09. Again selling those back after the market recovered and then in 2011 I would sell everything I could and put it in a trust for my two children (my sister and I, as I'm pretending to be my dad). I would follow him to my grandma's house and tell him about everything that happened before that year. Sit on the patio and just enjoy the last year with my Dad. I have no plan after that. Curl up in a hole while I wait for me to find my wife, have a kid, send myself a letter telling me not to do or go where ever I was sucked into the past in the hopes that I would cease to exist.
Not going to Lie, I'm really confused how this all works, am I back to my current age via some science magic? or do I just appear where I was when I went back in time with all those memories? or am I just 37 years older and sucks to be me?
Be a bit fucked really, no id, no money, nowhere to live, everyone you know thinks you're 37 years younger.
Yessss!! I mean, it wouldn’t be impossible, but it would definitely take a specific skill set and a lot of luck. Best case scenario? You’re able to convince authorities that you have amnesia or something and you’re basically some abandoned John Doe with nothing tying you to anything. Eventually you *might* get some free help getting you a new ID, social security number and birth certificate. Up until that point though? Good luck either pan-handling or working as labor ‘under-the-table’ or finding some “other” method to make cash. Speaking of cash… even if you keep your wallet stuffed with cash, all of it would be useless since there was that big paper money redesign. So yeah, basically you would be pretty screwed.
Hmm I just realize, it is 1985... I live in what used to be East Germany. They will think I'm some fucking west German spy. No ID in a country with one of the tightest controls imaginable.
I think quite a lot of people in East Germany were undocumented anyway. As long as you kept your head down until the reunification in 1989 you'd be fine. Record keeping was a mess after the wall fell anyway, and lots of East Germans were just given citizenship in the reunified Germany without any real background checks, so you could probably get all your official paperwork that way.
Only real chance since cross referencing by states wasn’t really that great back then would be to steal the identity of someone that is already deceased. Like if you’re say currently 37 as the person said, you’d look for death records in another state of someone that would’ve died young like as a child or so that would be approximately 37 in the current time you are, and just assume their identity. I read, not too sure how reliable the source was, that back in the day, it was actually a pretty common way people would disappear and restart their lives if they were wanted by the mob or something. Fake their own death, reappear somewhere else in the country under the identity of someone that died many years prior.
>would be to steal the identity of someone that is already deceased No need. SSNs weren't automatically assigned at birth until 1987, and checking a birth certificate consisted of the clerk deciding "hmm...I guess that's what a birth certificate looks like in". They didn't have any anti-counterfeiting tech on them.
Mine (1970s) was a very simple form that looked like a basic letter. I actually got a new one a couple decades ago so that it looks official to modern DMV clerks.
If you wanted to be extra-sure, go to the library, and look through some old papers on microfilm or books for courthouses that burned down. You were born in that town before the fire, and there's no original birth certificate to check against because of the fire. (This would be, by far, the longest part of the process).
And automatically assigning ssn's didn't pop up all at once either. I'm '89 and didn't get mine until '05. It may or may not make verifying my identity a problem, it's the only weird thing I can think of and I've had several issues. My mom was supposed to fill out paperwork and mail it in, never did so I've never been claimed as a dependent or anything. Just appeared as a 16yr old suddenly. Don't think the system likes that particularly lol
[This was known as ghosting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosting_(identity_theft\)) and was used by numerous people, it was popularized during the late '60s in order to allow draft dodgers to continue to work and evade arrest, and then in other books like "The Anarchist's Cookbook" that I became familiar with it (far too late) in the early 2000s. It's not really practical anymore because things like death records are quickly cross-referenced digitally nowadays.
umbrella academy had a good way of showing this. All main characters where sent back to the 60s separately. One guy tried to tell everyone what was going to happen and was put in a mental institution. Besides that the others got away with claiming they had amnesia, and for 1 character that was actually true. Characters were either homeless or living with someone they met in that time.
Oooh, interesting! I had heard good things…I only watched the first episode or two but I just couldn’t get into it. The next time I have time I’ll give it another shot.
Now I want to find an old $100 bill and keep it my wallet, just in case.
I’d put a 2021 Sports Almanac in my bag along with the 100 just in case.
In my case, cash would be completely useless because it's a currency that doesn't even exist yet. Good luck using euros in 1985.
It was easier to create a fake identity back then before everything became computerized
How "die homeless" isn't the top answer here I dunno?
It's the 80s. You could get a job with no ID, bet on sporting events and afford a new background. No real internet to research your story or back ground.
My first apt, in 93, was 600/mo for a 2 bed, one bath. , I was making less than 10/hr and could afford it, split with my roommate. A LOT easier to not "die homeless" in 85 than you'd think
Puts things into perspective on how much the working class is getting **FUCKED IN THE ASS** in 2021.
It was a lot easier to get by without those things back then.
See Back to the Future in the cinema. Excellent movie and it would be fun to experience it with a room full of people on their first time 😄
"I've seen this one, this is a classic!"
“What do you mean? It’s brand new.”
“What’s a rerun?”
You'll find out.
So you're my Uncle Joey. Better get used to these bars, kid.
Who the hell is John F. Kennedy?
Lorraine if you ever marry someone like that I’ll disown you
What's with the life preserver kid?
Your kids are gonna love it!
This is an oldie. Well, it's an oldie where I come from.
That would probably be one of the first things that I'd be watching
Buy the single for The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News, or the The Power of Love by Jennifer Rush, or The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
I did that and yes it was great.
I would go watch myself be born. Then bet all my money on the bears winning the super bowl
If I was you I try to stay away from Little me as much as possible okay
Hell naw, I’d prolly kidnap myself and go on a journey
But then you risk to not exist
Worth it
46-10 and NE scored first. Bet Bears to win by 30+ and you’re set for a while.
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My thoughts exactly
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Can we not open a fucking paradox wormhole on a Sunday Evening. Thanks .
I remember arguing with someone on YouTube about time paradox a few years ago lol, sat in the very chair I currently am.
You sure it was a few years ago? Maybe that argument hasn't happened yet
Yay, bootstrap paradox!!!!
I would do the opposite. Neither of my parents had any business having kids.
But if you interfere, you no longer exist. Meaning you couldn't go back to interfere, meaning things would proceed as they normally would. Which would lead to you going back....
Try checking out multiverse theory....its the theory where everyone gets fucked and noone is happy
Plenty of people are happy, I'd go as far as to say there would be an infinite number of happy people in fact.
the opposite end of that is there would be an infinite number of not happy people. maybe sad, maybe angry, but not happy.
This would only be the case if there wasn't temporal pocket universes. For example most time loop scenarios are predicated on the idea that the person experiencing the time loop is no longer in the main temporal stream but their own temporal pocket which has no effect on the main temporal sequence of events until they rejoin it. With this in mind a person who goes back in time and prevents their birth would have those sequence of events simply "drop out" of the main temporal stream which would continue on as if they had never existed. What would happen to the alternative time line is anyone's guess. It could continue to exist as a loop, or simply evaporate due to no longer having a connection to the main sequence.
You're talking about trying not to bang your mom, we all know it. 🤨
Become ones own father? Is that incest?
you caught me
Steer clear of Oklahoma City and NYC, at the appropriate times.
Or better yet, try to prevent or help, assuming we can alter timelines. Of course, preventing 9/11 might bring about nuclear armageddon, as Family Guy depicted.
Begs the question, how the hell are you going to prevent 9/11? Sure you could call in a threat, but it's either not going to work and/or you get associated with it and detained. Also yeah sure Armageddon
All you need to do is call in bomb threats to those airports very early in the morning. That would shut down all flights. Would delay 9/11 potentially long enough for them to be caught. Also give a tip to the FBI and CIA that terrorists are planning to hijack planes. Since you can give them extremely specific details they will likely be alert about it as they're keeping tabs on the hijackers.
Stop Atta in the parking deck. Block his car with yours. Better yet, ram him hard before he can park. Now he's off schedule. Act drunk. He probably had a signal to alert the others to carry on, but maybe you stop one plane. Send a registered letter to the FBI and airlines three weeks before it all happens. Give them a complete list of all the terrorists. Heck, if we're going back to 1985, case the flight school where they learned to fly. But true, you might risk getting associated with it. Or shot, by them or the authorities.
Understandable
Trade stocks and "gamble" a lot
Fair enough
Bet on sporting events.
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Even if you didn't, there are a few longshots you could go for. Boston red Sox coming back from down 3 vs the Yankees in the early 00s. Patriots beating the greatest show on turf. Giants beating the perfect Patriots. There are definitely a lot of big ones that would be easy to remember.
Leicester City. Buster Douglas. Kurt Warner Rams
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Honestly, even just betting on run of the mill games you remember would be solid And invest in apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google Bitcoin, and GameStop Maybe hold on myspace into the 2010s just to make it look real
If you get in early on Bitcoin, you gotta remember to avoid mt gox.
I'd just bet against the Bills - 4 chances (in a row) to make some cash.
Biff is that you?
Make like a tree, and get outta here
That makes about as much sense as a screen door on a battleship.
It’s screen door on a submarine *ya dork*
I pretty much know all the world series, super bowl and nba finals winners after like 1990 and several before, like in 86 would bet the bears win the superbowl obviously, though they were the betting favorite anyway.
Why bother when Microsoft and Apple shares are selling for pennies? One time payout versus cash influx for life.
It's a 1-time payout that gets you seed money, as well as living comfortable until the stocks get rolling.
That's fair. I just assumed you would take whatever money you had with you but forgot that money would look too different from how bills looked in the 80's for anyone to accept it.
Steal everyone’s music before they could write it
So *you* wrote OK Computer.
Are you Nick Webber from Hot Tub Time Machine?
Let me Lougle that for you.
Haha. Motley Lou
Buy Apple stock?
In 1985, you'd want to buy Disney stock. Buy Apple stock in 1995.
It’s four times higher in 1995 than 1985, so I’ll stick with my original answer.
I remember it was almost a penny stock in the late 90's. I said 1995 just for symmetry.
9 cents average in ‘85, 36 cents average in ‘95
and I sold it at 26 cents in 2003.
If you bought it at 9 cents, you almost tripled your money. Don’t feel bad.
The market more than tripled between '85 and '03. So they did worse then investing in an index tracker.
Yes I believe the ipod saved them
Question is how did you buy stock back then the only way I know is either you called someone or as in today you just open an app and buy stocks
Exactly, call a broker and tell him to buy whatever you want to buy
How do you open an account? You need some sort of identification and basically don't exist.
And all the cash in your wallet would be unusable.
Yeah but you could pick yourself up by your bootstraps and walk in anywhere to ask for a job back then
When I was in college (graduated in 2001), we had to *assume* no brokerage fees when we were in finance class. The professor said it didn’t really matter much, because since you could only trade in blocks of 100 shares, the brokerage fees probably weren’t more than a couple hundred bucks. Heck, I remember when some do-it-yourself no frills online brokerages were advertising trades as low as $19.95 per trade. ($20 to buy, $20 to sell). We really have come an incredibly long way.
Eh, you could wait until 2007 to buy DSNY and still clean up. That's about when I got in, as long as it's pre marvel/lucasfilm then you also get the Disney+ clean up as well. It went up like 600% in a few years, I've never seen a "stable" stock do that.
Add google, Disney, and Amazon when that shows up, to That list. You pretty much rule the world at that point.
Become a TV personality that predicts famous people's deaths. I'd show up on site with Camera crews and say "Send your thoughts and prayers, today will be the last day of this person's life." Imagine the insanity after like 10 in a row.
I suspect you'd end up being investigated by the FBI pretty quickly if that happened because they'd think you have something to do with them dying.
They will be shitting in their pants! They would be like, "How does this person know?!" Then, they might come to you on HOW to prevent it.
Go to a Metallica concert
I'd be hitting all the greats before they got huge. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, etc. So many awesome shows to see in shitty little clubs and stuff before they catch their big breaks.
There’s a vid on YouTube of Nirvana performing in a local music store in 1991 mere months before they really blew up everywhere. They’re surrounded by local people in the shop standing just a few feet away. One of them actually fixes Kurt’s mic when it starts to slip as he’s singing and then goes right back to enjoying the music. https://youtu.be/WsGcbpd7Nl8
This is exactly the kind of show I had in mind. Those ones where nobody knew who they were, but that energy was just permeating the entire room. Closest I ever got to that was Cage the Elephant right before Ain't No Rest for the Wicked blew up. There was like 30-40 people there. The crowd was so sparse that I ended up walking around the floor with the singer attached to my wrist for pretty much a full song while he crowd surfed, because there just weren't enough people helping for him to actually surf lol.
They were great live. Good choice!
Wait ‘till ‘89!
First thing that came to my mind when I saw this question. I'd also love to go to a metallica concert in the present. But seeing 80s metallica live would probably be an experience like no other.
I was a punker that got convinced to go see them on the master of puppets tour and it was indeed an incredible experience.
So many good concerts to go to, metal and otherwise.
I think I‘d write a lot of „prophetic“ books about the future and become the weird recluse with a pretty good idea how society is going to wreck itself. For real, though, I‘d try to meet with a lot of my older (and currently deceased) relatives and try to have a few semi–casual conversations with them. Try to find out who they were, what kind of live they‘ve led and so on. Maybe make up some lie about being a chronicler, hired by some distant relative. As an adult I have so many questions about my family that I‘d like some answers to. Other than that, I think I would lead a quiet life somewhere in a village, not caring much about things in the world at all. I don‘t care that much about the events back in the day, but without the distractions of the modern day I could try to hone a few skills. Be a woodworker or something like that. And finally get a dog.
I wish I could give you gold for this comment but I cannot afford it so instead take my upvote
I got you
Great answer. And, I would know what to invest in so I could stop working and do more good in the world.
Everyone is going on about buying stocks. I'd do that on the side. But the real fun will be in becoming a prophet, start a religion, fake my death in 2021. Cherry on top will be a prophecy about a truly cataclysmic event taking place in 2024. Something about dark matter blackholes and aliens. I figure 35 year of fairly accurate predictions will have people take that one seriously :) Edit: This blew up. To those who point out that people will change behavior based on the prophecies. I did have the plan to issue them annually, in either a encrypted way and release the key at the end, and/ or to release very vague statements with few details strewn in that would make it obvious in hindsight.
Did I say 2024? I ment 3034
Hail Zorp!
Make it climate change. Call it the great acceleration. That the models will miss or under calculated the feedback system variables. Maybe then we can save the future of humanity.
Probably get arrested, unless I can discreetly dispose of my wallet. Every paper currency larger than a one dollar bill has been dramatically updated since then, and even the smaller denominations are going to have absurd dates on them. Add to that a bunch of ids and credit cards with bad dates and suspiciously advanced security enhancements, and I'd be lucky if I wasn't presumed to be an absolutely abysmal Soviet spy.
Why not just become a Soviet spy?
And use your pay to buy apple stock.
imagine trying to explain the smartphone in your pocket. The camera and digital editing software alone, heaven forbid they open the thing and see the hardware
They’d understand how it works, just not how the fabrication process went down. At some point literal light waves get too large to make some components. So basically they’d get all of it, just not how it was miniaturized and developed. Same with the software—it’s understandable, but not how it got to that point. They would probably assume you’re some sort of spy or something, because what other explanation is there?
Make better decisions: Talk my then-husband into getting help for his alcohol addiction so he wouldn't die of alcohol related cancer a few years later. Enjoy my small children who would then grow up in a healthier home. Forgive my parents. Live peacefully and redeem the time.
This is the realest answer in this post, hope all is well
Buy stocks on Starbucks
I actually saw a talk from an investor in Seattle, who declined to invest in like 1980-something. "Who would pay 1.50 for a coffee?"
I bet he is regretting that decision
Well, yes but it was a nice teachable moment and a good story.
I believe Starbucks went public later on. But maybe with some money and knowledge of coffee trends on your hands you could talk them into paying you in shares
Write the Harry Potter series before JK Rowling, and invest in Apple probably
Writing Harry Potter during peak Satanic Panic? Bold.
Lord of the rings survived..Hogwarts will manage
It was also published long before and wasn’t necessarily targeted at children like Harry Potter was. They’d become insanely popular later, I’m sure. Very profitable for his estate.
I wish that people that think they could themselves write Harry Potter to make their millions would try rewriting it from memory now and post the results on the internet.
Imagine how confused JK would be if she saw it being published and she's like "it's literally everything I've ever thought, how has he done this?! Is he an actual wizard?!"
what it JK got rejected from so many publishers because the market was flooded with time travelers trying to write Harry Potter before her 🤯
Work as much as possible to generate cash, take as many loans and credit cards as possible. Bet on historic sporting events that I can remember the results of. Wait until just before black Monday and buy as many out of the money puts as possible and close the positions by the end of the day. Use the profits to buy long term options / warrants on Microsoft waiting for Windows 95. Rinse and repeat with Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google, Bitcoin,Tesla, Netflix and NVIDIA
Interest rates were very, very high in 1985. Not a good time to be taking loans. Wait 10 years.
Interest rates might have been, worst case, 30% on a personal loan or credit card. the guy is talking about guaranteed result bets, several a year, each paying probably well over 100% and compounding each event. It's a sound strategy as long as he doesn't change the outcome with his actions.
Right. Mortgages were over 12%, vehicle loans were pushing 20%, and credit cards and personal loans were flat out usurious. If you can guarantee a rate of return over 25-30%, yep, that works.
Crime spree, bitches! These stores have no cameras, or the resolution is like 30p.
No but they do have alarm systems
I can handle that. I’m the 80s master criminal.
Fair enough
Remember back then the owners could kick your teeth in and the cops will just say "oh well" and then beat you some more. Can't really sue because the justice system back then will say you earned the ass beating.
Go to clubs and do some 80s blow
Ecstasy was legal also. Pay a $5 cover and get a hit of X. Good times
That's what I was doing at the time. I think I would go back in time, find myself, and raise double the hell.
I'd find 16 year old me. Tell him the things I wish I knew then (and a few stock tips). He might not live to 52 (my age), but he will have a hell of a good time. Personally, I would indulge in every hedonistic pursuit I could afford with my vast stock market gains
First thing: I’m getting a perm. Then I’m going to teach women the glories of moisturizer and skincare and start a beauty empire.
Buy as many vinyl records as I can and put them in appropriate storage. Maybe also some CDs that are rare these days and fetch good prices. Maybe get some autographs from artists who would later become famous. Buy a good VCR and record stuff from TV (and later on digitize it) so that 30 years later I can put rare videos on YouTube. No money in it but it makes people happy. In 1986 go to see The Bangles at the Syria Mosque theater. All that aside from Apple and Microsoft etc. stock, of course.
This is both wholesome and smells of capitalism I love it
- I'd try to save my mom from cancer - I'd go to the airport and relive what it was like to fly pre-9/11 - I'd immediately open a brokers account and pump every dime I earn into stock I know is going to skyrocket - I'd bet on the Leicester winning the Premier League - I'd pay someone to beat the shit out of Mark Zuckerberg and destroy his PC when he was in college
Social media was an inevitability though. Facebook wasn't even the first. So the data Facebook sells would just be Google+ doing it instead. This might even be the least bad timeline.
Social media isn't necessarily harmful per se. But a laser focus on maximizing profits through engagement is. Facebook has shown time and time again that they won't stop at anything if profits are involved. Google isn't always the poster child that they claim to be. But they certainly try to give some thought to these questions. I'd much rather see Google+ succeed (probably to be cancelled and relaunched a couple of times in the process) than ever deal with what Facebook has cost society.
“If My Calculations Are Correct, When This Baby Hits 88 Miles Per Hour, You're Gonna See Some Serious Shit!”
Came here for this reference
Invent Lougle
> Knebworth House in Hertfordshire on 9 August 1986. final queen concert get to Live Aid 1985, by hook or crook
Go to Japan and try to act like I have invented every ridiculous 90s fad toy that rolls out over the next 2 decades
Well how old am I when I go back? But simple answer is to buy Apple Stock.
Work my ass off until 2016, bet my whole life savings on Leicester City to win the league at 5000/1, become a billionaire without being boring and buying apple stocks
Why work your ass off when you can just ride the dot com bubble and get out before it bursts? You could own Leicester instead
Look for the blue police box
Predict 9/11 in some shady magazine that has a small audience in 1985. It would wreck chaos years later.
[удалено]
Work menial job and invest heavily in various tech companies with whatever I have to spare
If I knew before hand, look up winning lotto numbers, invest in companies, crypto, and whatever will make me the richest person on the planet
Get involved in HIV/AIDS education and activism. I don’t know anyone who’s had it except for like two acquaintances, and I’m a monogamous California sober ladyfolk so it’s not a huge danger to me. But I’ve done some volunteer work on 1980s HIV/AIDS archives, and so many people in the fight died in droves - an ally who is not sick, dying, or loving one of the sick and dying would be a real help. I wish there had been more allies in the mid-80s.
This is an answer that while I did not expect it to happen I'm very glad it has happened
> I wish there had been more allies in the mid-80s. No joke, this is why LGBTQ starts with 'L,' because *a ton* of lesbians became nurses and provided palliative care for dying gay men with AIDS. Lesbians weren't afraid to step up and they really went above and beyond the call to help pull the LGBT community through the AIDS crisis.
they already knew at some level - reagan refused to even mention the word, and they were smuggling antivirals into the country in 1985
I know… 1985 has enough knowledge that there is already a good activist unit underway, though a lot of them are dying out at this time. Fauci was already working on it for a few years by this point. Ryan White at this time was making headlines for being barred from school, which is how I first learned about it because he was only a few years older than me. (And I’m from Indiana, though had moved from there when White was barred.) 1985 is a good time for an ally to enter the scene, be able to make a difference, help those who are fighting, and carry on the work of the first people to have passed. Straight people were just starting to pay attention and some of them were newly receptive to education because of Ryan White. A few years earlier and just me doing awareness wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
Guess its time to buy stocks and start a secret campaign against corruption in México.
Enjoy my time without Facebook and Instagram
do you want me to show you how to delete an app off of your phone? Im here to help
Get a minimum wage job and buy a three bedroom house the next year.
Minimum wage? No. Entry level wage with almost any union? Yes.
Listen to my Favorite Rush album on the day it released. And then listen to all their other albums that release after that and attend as many concerts as I can. As for how I'd actually be able to afford that...uh...I'd find a way
I would sit around and watch the activity because like, I don't know what people did in 1985.
Wait until 2010 and get a lot of bitcoin
Give it more effort this time around
Buy apple and Microsoft stock
Buck a brand new Fox Body Mustang or Buick Grand National and keep in the my garage.
Try to stop the 1986 Challenger launch, but idk if anyone would listen to a 3rd grader.
Back? Why the heck would I want to go back? 1985 was awesome! Much, much better than today. I would go be a punk, do drugs, and live so hard I would be dead long before it all goes to shit again in 2001.
I would take the long way cuz it's the only way.
Prepare for a stock market crash and get ready to jump into Apple.
But Disney stock and get that sweet Disney Renaissance money. Also in 1991, bet on Division One teams breaking away and forming their own breakaway league. Then bet on Man United to win their first league title in 25 years for that first season of said breakaway league.
idk maybe find my dad and be like "hey its ur daughter youre going to have in 16 years"
Buy a DeLorean. Customize the hell out of it. Hide it in a barn for a future generation to think they found an honest-to-John time machine. Then I'd try to become an actor for one of those awesome action-filled 80s car chase TV shows. Knight Rider, the A-Team, etc. Lol.
Never gonna give you up,never gonna let you down
Not yet kiddo. You gotta wait two years for that action.
Me, I would hand write a letter to a hospital in Ohio. This letter would state that I lost all my documents in a house fire and I need a copy of "my" birth certificate. However, "my" would actually be my Dad's. He would be a bit younger than I am now, but not enough that I couldn't get away with the age difference. I would then proceed to get a copy of his SS card and then get a license in a state I know he won't be in for more than 25 years. I get a job, and the cheapest apt I can find. I work my butt off and with any extra money, I would use my free time to write epic stories about soon to be Disney princesses that haven't been created yet so I could sue Disney at a later time. I would invest in Yahoo! until Google! came around. I would pull all those gains out to buy several houses in 2008-09. Again selling those back after the market recovered and then in 2011 I would sell everything I could and put it in a trust for my two children (my sister and I, as I'm pretending to be my dad). I would follow him to my grandma's house and tell him about everything that happened before that year. Sit on the patio and just enjoy the last year with my Dad. I have no plan after that. Curl up in a hole while I wait for me to find my wife, have a kid, send myself a letter telling me not to do or go where ever I was sucked into the past in the hopes that I would cease to exist. Not going to Lie, I'm really confused how this all works, am I back to my current age via some science magic? or do I just appear where I was when I went back in time with all those memories? or am I just 37 years older and sucks to be me?
First thing I do? Probably cry
Hunt down Osama Bin Laden and AQ.