You know that you'll be coming back to the present, but don't know exactly when. It could be a day, or it could be a week, but no more. Your electricity, plumbing, and your router works, and somehow you have internet access. You are geographically where you are now, so you could be miles from civilization, or in the heart of the city. Nothing is destroyed for you to exist, so if you're in a building that is on the site of something that was torn down after 1950, you're somehow above it. You need to be careful of accidentally starting a pandemic, so you want to try to limit your exposure to people, just in case you have a modern infectious disease and don't know it.
You wake up tomorrow and find that you, your house (or apartment) and everything in it are in the year 1950. Do you interact with the past to try to change anything? If so, what?
I’m in the same boat I’d fix some of the things that are going to break. A foundation would be nice.
No offense. Sounds like a worthwhile fantasy. But how exactly would you propose to do that. Let's assume that your house and you are suddenly in the '50s. If you check the tax record and had any luck, you might discover that it is somehow in your name. If so, you could establish some covenant to not allow development. But who knows what that might do to the timeline. The chances of you owning it in the future might be drastically altered .
If you had enough time to buy the property, or it was in your name, perhaps you could leave it in a trust or something like that, and hope that when you come back to the future nothing has happened .
Or maybe you have some other ideas.
Plus if you weren't born yet then I would think that would also be an issue. Bc then you would have to will it to a family member and hope it still made its way to you. Def not an expert on those types of things but I can't see how you would do that. You can't will it to a future nonexistent relative bc someone would still need to pay taxes on it in the meantime or they would snatch it anyway. Unless I'm misunderstanding what they are planning to do.
In this magical hypothetical, it would just work out.
All right. I'll go along with that. You come back and find yourself living on a big fancy estate with no neighbors.
Bonus if they are all surfs who have to work the land for your benefit.
It's nothing fancy, really - just a farmhouse in the capital region of New York from 1825 that was most likely an orchard and/or horse farm.
You can put land in a land trust that prevents it from being developed
…Dad?
I’m black and probably won’t belong in the neighborhood where I’ve built my house so…..
This... Like, uh, cower indoors?
It’s always hilarious when you read posts like this because you realize instantly that the person isn’t a POC.
I'm in this line here. Given that I'm in a suburban area in a house built in 1987, I'm wondering if the property I'm on was even developed back in the '50s. Especially since I'm in an area of town where you can still see family properties with horses and such and can tell said properties were there well before this area was fully developed.
Was thinking the same. Being black and in the south, it isn't looking too good for me.
Being black and in the south, it isn't looking too good for me.
It wouldn't be much better anywhere. The U S was shit for poc regardless of where you lived, it was just a degree of how bad, not good or bad
This question really only works for the U.S and much of the UK if you're white european, and even then you have to be the "right" european
Agreed. And true it wouldn’t be much better to a degree. But the south was a different animal. My grandpa was a WWII vet and left Tennessee to the north and he told me some stories that just really are heartbreaking. He said the north would pretty much make sure if you worked that you worked the lowest jobs and it was very difficult/rare to build something for yourself without someone having an issue with it and wanting it gone.
He said in the south there was a real possibility of losing your life if you stepped out of line. He told me how when he was a kid he saw the klan come and get someone for a lynching, and he was like “they were so matter of fact about it” like picking up a to go order. And if there was resistance then they’d just off the whole family.
Yeah I’d just stay in the house the entire time and wait for it to be over. Not worth the risk.
Yea I’m black and in Texas. I’m selling quickly and looking for Malcolm X because I ain’t turning the other cheek.
giving malcolm x internet access would be a hell of a plot twist, i bet. what's the coolest thing in your house you'd show him?
Wouldn’t Malcolm X be jail in 1950? You can always head to Boston and wait for him to be released.
You would instantly drive down the property values in your neighborhood, making it the perfect time to buy up all the houses from the racist crackers... that is just good business taking advantage of a bad situation.
Dude, a black dude owning property in Texas gets lynched. This ain’t a hallmark movie dawg. I’m staying in the house all day and leaving in the middle of the night. Underground Railroad type shit.
Same. I am in North Carolina. No way am I making my presence known.
Don't worry, I'll just go onto the draft board and ruin their lives by sending their son's off to Korea then pose as a salesmen and tell them about a cheap affordable new homes.
In Times Beach....
Buy stock in the new businesses of that time period that are flourishing in today's economy. I am assuming I have any money with me that is currently in my home.
Money is where I'm stuck. Does cash look the same? What bills have changed?
What could I sell or trade?
Canned goods?
Aluminium?
I think all bills, but the one dollar bill have changed noticeably
This is a good point. You couldn’t use any bills or coins minted after 1950. If you have a checkbook, you could use that, I think.
Probably not since the bank may not have existed/checks would look vastly different/you don’t have a 1950s account
The appearance of the check doesn’t actually matter, you can write one on any piece of paper as long as you include all the information a check would have. The account not existing is definitely a problem though
I’m not sure how 1950s check fraud detection worked. But my suspicion is they’d honor the check until they could determine it doesn’t connect to a legit account
You could probably use later if it looked about right.
You very quickly get arrested for counterfeit bills and possibly questioned by the CIA for having what appears to be future money
You can just walk into any business and ask for a job. If you are a white man that is.
I've got maybe a week and want to invest in something. Mowing lawns or mopping aint gonna cut it.
Rob a bank. They won’t have time to catch you.
Look out for mergers and acquisitions. Many flourishing businesses either started off as a different name or bought many tiny companies along the way
Right, like Honeywell started out as a bunch of chemical companies and then merged to become Allied Chemical & Dye, which later became AlliedSignal, which was later purchased and merged to become Honeywell.
That’s just one example but that’s something you’d want to know.
I’m an East African woman living in Alabama right now. I don’t think the 1950s would even afford me any luxury to try to make a change.
😓 yeah culture was interesting but not the racism.
Although the racism was very much intertwined into the culture
My house was built in 1920 so that would be fine. You say it would be no more than a week and I have enough food for that in the cupboards. Really I could just sit here the whole week. What I would do though is pawn all my jewelry for 1950s money. There are a lot of things that are valuable because they are rare and that are only rare because nobody bothered to keep them or they were fragile. I would use the internet to look up collectibles like toys, records, magazines that I could easily buy in a shop in 1950 but which will be valuable. Then I would go buy those while being careful to social distance/wash my hands/etc. I would knock that out in the first morning and then wait the rest of the time.
Your question doesn't make clear what happens when the time is up. Do I need to be back in my house when it pops back to the future? Do I get stranded in the past or would I just appear in the future wherever I was? If I don't need to make it back to my house I would probably be more adventurous and try to make it to the closest major city and pick up valuable autographs/pictures/artworks.
Built 1920 would be fine, I'm wondering how the people that live there would react.
It's not clear from the scenario what happens to the people from before, I assume they and their stuff would just pop out of existence in the same way I did in this time. Otherwise it wouldn't make much sense, the house would be full of all of my stuff and their stuff?
What if it's a time switch? They pop in 2024 while you pop into 1950
If thats the case, maybe they'd fix a few things when we swapped back. Hopefully, they'd be able to dig up enough info to predict enough future events so that people would listen to them after a few things came to pass. Hopefully, that would drastically change the timeline for the better once we swapped back.
Yeah some variation of this. A week isn't particularly long.
I live in an apartment and don't have anything I could really pawn without it looking super space age. Honestly scrap metal might be my best bet.
I do have an ivory Buddha that's worth $1,300 in 2024 in 1950 that'd be about $100.
A week isn't enough time to track down particularly obscure things.
I think I'd buy collectibles, comics/baseball cards/stamps.
The saving grace is when I come back to 2024 the items would be in insane pristine condition for archiving.
Gold was $40 an ounce in the 50’s and reached over 2400 this year.
Why would you need to socially distance/wash your hands more than normal? Did you bring a vial of COVID in your house?
Imagine if you recently caught Covid, but you don't know you're sick. 1950 wouldn't be able to deal with it. Or H1N1, or bird flu, or any of the new, fancy diseases that modern medicine can deal with. Imagine coming back to today and learning that patient zero of the deadliest viral outbreak in human history - deadlier than the black plague - was that rando you bumped into on your first day as an unwitting time traveler.
I am a hermit who doesn’t leave my house for weeks at a time. How do I know this hasn’t already happened?
until you go outside you live in all potential times at once
Schrodinger’s hermit
I would rob a bank too. No cameras back then. Then I would buy some valuable stuff and tell my family to hold onto it.
Just bring the money back to your house. Sounds like everything in your house travels through time with you, I assume that works coming back to 2024 also
In 1950 precisely? I feel like I wouldn’t really have an option of whether I would interact. As a half Latin American half Asian in warring Korea, I’m sure it would be even more difficult to be inconspicuous than it is now
Probably just gonna send a letter via snail mail to the secret service/White House, since it would probably take a week to be delivered anyway. Politely but thoroughly explain that I am from the future and if they follow this letter, they can save a future POTUS. I would start with evidence of my future knowledge. Since I have access to the internet, let’s just list out major world events of the 50’s. Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, Xerox machine, first business computer, Eisenhower’s election, etc. etc. I would provide as much information and detail as possible while trying not to risk a change in any of the events/details happening because of my divulgence of this knowledge (for example, I might say Eisenhower wins in 1952, but I wouldn’t include vote totals because divulging this information would risk that number changing). The I would finish it off with “On November 22, 1963, shortly after noon President JFK will ride in his motorcade through Dealy Plaza in Dallas, Texas with no roof on his car. A man named Lee Harvey Oswald will shoot him in the head from the Texas School Book Repository building, sixth floor, southeast corner window, unless you stop it from happening. My name is ____ born ____ in _____, in case you want to thank me in the future.”
So, I see this playing out in 1 of 2 ways:
They find Oswald and stop him, I’m a secret American hero and JFK lives long enough to change the course of history in what I think would be a significant manner.
They find and stop Oswald, but JFK still dies, meaning I have to tell my dad I was wrong and his looney conspiracy theories were right all along.
Or it's the CIA that killed him, so he'll die anyways. And they'll come after you too for knowing too much
My biggest problem will be trying to get a job that pays enough.
You're there no more than a week in this scenario.
In the 1950s? Bro if you get a GED you're already a top tier candidate for 90% of jobs lmfao. Everything was dirt cheap proportionately too
I'm a woman and I'm over 25. I can type, file, etc. Most secretary jobs didn't really pay very much. There weren't very many of them. I guess I could learn to be a telephone operator or something.
You could work minimum wage back then and afford a nice apartment. Also you'd have all your future knowledge on what companies to invest in, etc
Oh man I'd Google what the winning lottery numbers were the first year um legal to buy them, send myself a delayed letter to arrive at that time.
Similar letters to arrive coinciding with the launch of Bitcoin, the GameStop stock and any other things I can Google for investment ideas.
Plus life advice.
Don't date that person!! Don't buy that green Yugo!! Take Spanish as your foreign language, not Latin, you pretentious little jerk!
Life advice would be so good. If only I was smart enough to listen.
Open a bank account at an institution that exists today, and put money in it. Come back to present, 70 years of compounding interest go brrrrrrt
What money? All of your current money is in bills that won't be accepted, and your bank accounts can't be accessed. You can view them online, but you can't transfer money into the past.
Basically, you're asking whay would you do if you went back in time and will randomly return to the present.
Since you said I have access to Google and the internet, all I'd do is purchase a lottery ticket, start a corporation in Trust to myself or my patents, invest the money all in S&P500, and call it done. No fancy instruction about bit coin and stuff. I guess, I might use some literary winnings to buy some land for development, and even then since I'm going for investment, maybe buy some rarer cars which could be placed in a warehouse for me to pick up in 2024.
How would you buy a lottery ticket? Did they even have any sort of lottery back then? And your current cash in your home is very likely all minted well after 1950, and you can't access anything in your bank accounts. With a random amount of time - from 24 hours to one week - you wouldn't have time to secure investors and start up a company, let alone realize any profits from it before you disappeared from 1950. You use the words "literary winnings," and I'm not sure if you had a typo, but even if you tried to "write" a great novel by copy and pasting one off a website somewhere, editing to get rid of references to cell phones and microwave ovens, getting it printed, socialized, picked up and published in a few days would be impossible.
I keep some gold in my house. I'd sell it and use that money to gamble on sports and lotteries.
1 - Lottery came out in 1975 in Ontario, didn't see that.
2 - In that case, I'd just do the old-school day laborer job to grab some cash, then go to the casino and use the light wand, monkey paw, or kickstand tech questions to drain the slot machines. The light wand was effective from the 80s to 2000s. I'd have to double check what was used to beat the casinos before the 80s.
3 - it was a typo, was trying to say lottery.
4 - To start a company is a quick process. I don't need investors, I just need a lawyer, and to create the trust. Paperwork can be done in less than one week. If the corporation isn't up with a corporate bank account open, then it'll be fine as I'd take the casino winnings to buy Gold, and bury it.
Sweet, my house is brand new. My job exists in 1950 as does the company I work for. I can stick it out for a while and make some investments.
Mine too. The company I work for was founded in 1948 so I’d be in the ground floor. I could probably become a partner in the business with the knowledge I have of the future.
1950? I’d be in my home, which would be surrounded by scrub ranch land, and miles from any civilization. If my truck is still here, I’d try to make it to town. There, I’d try to sell some modern junk, and ask to be paid only in coins, which were made of 90% silver back then. Maybe I’d bury a horde of silver coins nearby that I could collect in the modern day. Perhaps I could place some sports bets, too?
But there’d be no roads nearby, and the leaded gas from 1950 wouldn’t work in my modern vehicle, so I may be stuck. In that case, I’d probably just enjoy my vacation of solitude in the fresh air. That would be pretty sweet!
What the hell does it mean for your internet access to work? Am I access present-day websites?
Yes, somehow.
I'm posting this from 1950. Somehow it works.
Buy me some stocks, please!!
I would be looking up the most profitable patent filings in 1950-1960 and start filing patents ahead of the inventors. Should only take a few before you have more money than you could ever spend.
Hmmm, what about the family that lived in my house in the 1950s, won't it confuse them that I'm here?
Travel into Leningrad and take out the parents of Vladimir Putin who will be born in two years time.
Man, if you get in, pull off a successful hit in the Soviet Union in 1950, and get back out...you deserve instant tenure at MI6. Full access to a 00 card and all of Q's toys.
Technically you only need to take out one of them. Or just punch his dad really really hard in the nuts.
Pull a Back to the Future move and send a telegram to be delivered to me in the future telling me to buy certain stocks and bitcoin.
I’m gambling on sports, a lot.
Didn’t any of you watch Back to the Future 2?
No because it would cause a paradox.
My house suddenly appearing in the desert would definitely draw unwanted attention. Or become a holy shrine....
Since my router works I’m going to google the biggest most valuable hidden treasure discoveries in the world/country/my state since 1950. Probably state since I might go back to 2024 as soon as the next day. Once I find it I guess I’m going to find a way to bring it back to 2024 with me. Sounds like as long as it’s in my house I’ll be ok
Yummy time to face more racism
I'm gonna really fucking hope I landed in a black city
I would wake up in a swamp given that area of south Florida was still part of the Everglades. So that would be interesting
Haha! I hadn't considered that outcome! I hope you have gator spray (the kind that repels)!
I wonder if whoever writes these.... I have to panic ...IM A BLACK MAN....IN THE DAMN SOUTH!!!
Well, Ronald Reagan would be about 39 at the time, and he would not have much security as president of the screen actors guild.
I'd bet on everything I could and have the winnings put into a trust fund with the exception that when 3 little companies go public, I buy stock in them. Amazon, UPS, and Microsoft. Now I'm living like a fat cat.
My house was built in 1948, so I’m good there. Next step registering voters in the Deep South.
I’m older, and the first thing that leapt to mind was that I could see my late parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, and even five or six of my eight great-grands and one great-great. Nothing else would even matter.
I’d warn JFK and get locked in the looney bin
This is literally a mental exercise I do all the time.
First and foremost, if you claim to know the future or try to prevent war, etc, you will be arrested and labeled as a communist. You have insider information and you are obviously a spy. The more you STFU, the longer you will live.
HOWEVER, I will ignore my own advice this time.
Since it's 1950, I think I would goto a recording studio, sit down and record my soon to be #1 hit song, The Twist. My stage name would be Tubby Chesser. After I complete that, I'd goto a Yankee game.
First things first, I’m getting ahold of some quaaludes. Then the usual stock market/sports gambling.
I'm gonna go to those KKK meetings that happened in the open & give them fools the rona
Brown person in what would have been rural Georgia at the time. Nope nope nope.
Find my grandparents and help them be better parents for my parents
I wouldn't try to change anything, but it'd probably be really cool just to find my grandparents and see what they looked like back then and observe them from afar.
I’m a huge fan of the Fallout series so temporarily transporting back to the 50s would be incredible
Not for women. Or minorities.
You said the internet and router worked, I'm assuming you also have devices or a laptop. Sell everything and access to the internet, then invest all of the money. You've just helped advance technology by decades, and you have an insane amount of wealth waiting for you when you go back to the future.
I'd go buy a ton of property where the city will eventually expand into.
Selling stuff that is great for the time,but cheaper nowadays while still looking similar enough to not create questions, buy as much gold as possible, when in modern day sell the gold, probably end up having enough money to maybe afford a month or more of rent in a NYC apartment, but don't do that because that would require being in NYC, so I don't wish to do that. Instead of renting a NYC apartment, save the money for when I need it.
I wake up in a single apartment unit surrounded by mountains in every direction. It's unclear where my water and electricity are coming from since I'm miles from the nearest town and utilities hookup. That town might have one general store that sells eggs and produce. There's also a post office. I have no easy way of getting there without my car. I'd have to bushwhack on foot about six hours or so to get to the store. Fortunately there's a compass in my apartment, so I'd be able to guesstimate how to get to town based off that.
My best friend's family is local and in the year 1950 they should've just finished building their house. I'll try to find it, again navigating by compass. When I get there I'll address them by their names, act as humble as possible, and sweet talk them into helping me find work.
Unfortunately as this is the year 1950 in the South and I'm a person of color, I will probably be dealing with a lot of discrimination. I'll take care not to wander into the wrong part of town, especially after dark. It's unlikely I'll be able to find a well-paying job, but maybe someone will take me on as a farmhand or unloading boxes at a warehouse, for a few cents a day.
When I have enough money saved up for a bus ticket, I'd leave and go to my Dad's home town where I actually know way more people who I could look up that are alive in the year 1950. There would be way more jobs available there too, and my great-grandfather could get me work with the railroad if I tracked him down. I might be screwing with my own timeline, but I really don't see any other alternatives for finding gainful long term employment and surviving the 1950s (aside from joining the military).
My (town)house is suddenly its own, miniature 3-story skyscraper in the middle of a field.
Go out and buy a ton of stocks of companies on the cheap and cheap land in areas of future development to be rich when I get back. Changing history would be great, but that would take years to accomplish. Biggest impact would be the prevention of the coup in Iran in 1953 and the assassination of Robert Kennedy.
I'd just go out long enough to buy some gold. However much I could get for my house. Then, I'd ride it out in an old hotel in my area that I know still exists today.
Well I’m gonna pull a Biff Tannen/Nostradamus for a decade to 2, get Rich and become president
A
Okay, what time travel system is it. I need to know how fucked I am by the act of simply going back in time. As that will definitely cause this version of me not to be born due to the butterfly effect. Not even due to my parents not meeting or anything as severe as that, even just a different egg and/or sperm. Different weather on certain days causing me to make different choices. The smallest tweaks could cause major changes.
So the specifics of how time travel work are critical
Use my old money to buy stock certificates.
I would avoid the pine twin at all costs, lest the consumers of the future have only one.
Also I'd convince everybody that I knew the future and that we'd have flying cars and be harvesting the asteroid belt for minerals by the time we hit 2020. It'll either become a self-fulfilling prophecy, or they'll all think it was my fault, which I'd be dead by that time so it'll be left to them to scratch their heads and wonder what happened.
My house would be occupied by my grandparents. The room I'm in now would be a carport, but otherwise, I'm good.
Robbing a bank in 1950 with today's knowledge wouldn't even be hard.
Try my hardest to make sure the internet never happens (I’m joking, mostly)
I would find my grandma and grandpa, and tell them to invest in specific stocks. I would open a savings account in my name at the bank in my hometown that was there then. I would tell my grandpa and grandma to deposit half the earnings into that account, the other half they keep. Grandma will need it while grandpa is In Vietnam and Korea.
They are not to tell anyone about this. When I turn 18, I will have the money to buy my own farm.
Sell my computer to the government. The old one. The good one stays a secret.
I'm mailing my ancestors stock tips, easy money
I think I'd try and buy some land maybe even a house. It would be cool to rent it out and put that money in a trust for my family. Set it up to have some generational wealth. If not I'll just buy a bunch of stuff that will be more valuable now. I'd also try and invest in the stock market somehow setting it up to get the money now.
The router working is kind of a moot point. There were no websites in the 1950s. There would be nothing online to access. I would probably take my guitar out and play some tunes for a little bit of money, then buy only the good stocks. Maybe buy a large piece of land for cheap.
If i had a warning on when this would happen, I'd purcjase as many late 1940s paper money as possible. I'd try for at least $2000, which would be worth about $80,000
I'd research which well performing public companies were around in 1950 and set up an investment account with $50,000.
I would next research which artists or designers are sought after now and spend $15,000 on goods.
With the remaining $15,000, I'd purchase gold, which was about $40 per troy oz. That would net me 375 oz of gold, which would be worth about $875,000 today.
With my 74 year old investment account and my gold, I'd have enough cash to retire
Private ownership of gold was generally illegal. Be sure to use the jewelry exception.
I'd be naked and in a field.. terminator style .
Pawn some shit and buy stock.
I live about a mile from where my grandpa lived in 1950. I'd probably go and try and give him some financial advice, put my family in a better place than where they are now. Even if it means aiding the family members I don't like.
No because if I alter the future I may not meet my wife and have my children and I could never survive that.
Get a factory job and buy stock
I set up several funds to accrue interest with instructions on what stocks to buy and sell when, and make sure I’ll be able to draw on them in a week from today, 2024
I'd buy stocks, put them in a trust, and if I have any other time left, I'm going to eliminate as many problems as I can while they are still young and easier to handle.
Oh man, that would be a dream come true. My only regret would be that I'm 57 now. I would rather be younger. Since I don't know how long I have I probably wouldn't go down to LA for some good jazz, swing, and rhythm and blues, and to see Lalo Guerrero perform. I'd love to go to New York and see cab calloway and Benny Goodman, and then Louis Jordan and whatever else I could take in .
But since I didn't know how long I would have, I'm in Seattle so I would head down to Jackson Street. That's on the edge of the black part of town back then and there were many hot clubs full of great music. I'm Latino, but there wasn't really a problem with people of any color going there. They were predominantly black clubs though .
With any luck, I might catch Ray Charles or a young Quincy Jones, but I would be sure to see a lot of great music, have some booze, maybe meet a nice lady or two.
After a day or so I might try to figure out how to stash something away for my modern day self to benefit. Don't know what I might have or have to do for money. So maybe try to pick up something cheap that will be worth a lot of money someday.
But since it's only a day or a week, I would be looking to have myself a good old time.
I might be in a military training base? I don’t know the exact timeline of my town, but at some point the military was here and some of my neighbours say that they’ve found foxholes, so I’m not sure how safe I’d be.
I’m mixed and I’m married to a white woman. So do what you will with that
I am so screwed, the 50’s would see me as satan incarnate
Invest in Amazon, Microsoft, iTunes, etc.
Get rid of Jack Welch and Ronald Reagan. Might as well get rid of the Koch brothers and James Buchanan too.
if i took my tech to any of the tech companies working at the time with detailed explanations of how they work i'm pretty sure our space race stuff goes way better. also i'd have gorbachev killed
It would be less than a week? Would my roommates come too? I’d probably die.
Our house is a half duplex that was built in the late 70's, so I have a couple questions. Is my actual house transported through time to the 50's? Does it drop into the 1950's landscape like Dorothy's house in the Wizard of Oz?
Does my neighbour's half get transported as well or do I need to learn to build an exterior wall real quick?
Probably I wake up to an angry farmer wondering why I built a ridiculous house with three walls on his land...
Your whole building, but only you. No family, friends, or neighbors. Yes, your house would exist right there in the middle of the farm, complete with magic electricity, plumbing, and internet access connected to 2024 websites. you would have to deal with the confused farmer and local sheriff and all that until you get transported back to now.
Both me and my neighbour are going to have a very weird time. Hope no one's in the can when the house disappears...
Sell my coins for big bucks convert new money into to old money sell sell sell
Not much I could do with the 50's.. if I had a way to get a letter to my future self, privacy via my mother side she was already alive then, I'd tell me to invest in Google when my mom told me about 'this thing called youtube' that was starting up. I wasn't rich then but I did have some spare funds and didn't have debts. Heck, she would have helped me invest if I wanted to. Doesn't even need to end up as a lot either, I'd just like enough to pay my house off.
I'm a mixed race native woman with extreme disabilities that require an electric wheelchair. I'll stay in my house thanks. Maybe rescue a kitten in my fenced back yard if the mood, and kitten, strikes
I dunno. Hitler was already gone, so maybe tell Elvis not to strain on the toilet and just go get an enema instead. And tell a few musicians to avoid airplanes.
If I can't use/access the (little) money I have to invest in something I would probably sell all my jewelry, invest the money in a business that I know will succeed in the future and then try to find a house that is owned by someone old that has no close family members to inherit it and try to set up a deal to buy it very cheap on the condition that the previous owner can still use it until they die.
Also find my dad and mom and give them some gifts as just a kind stranger.
I'd find my grandma and tell her it was very important that she tell her future granddaughter to invest in bitcoin from the start lol
"Hey I know you think this is crazy but hear me out. If the day comes that you have a granddaughter named my name born on my birthday then you will know this is true. And when she hits 18 you need to tell her to start keeping her eyes out for bitcoin and she needs to invest. It's very important. "
I think this would be my best bet of not changing my future. She would never believe it until it happened. And even then she would tell me but be very skeptical and probably tell it like a funny coincidence. But I however believe crazy things so I would have taken it seriously.
No, I don't interact with anything, so that wall of text you posted was a waste
Do I have my current life savings? Because if so I'm fucking loaded. I have a little over 50k in savings, and an average priced home in Southern California was around 7k. I guess for work I'd work for the police department or something. Be like the 3rd Hispanic guy ever in LAPD 😂😂😂
I would go hang out with my grandpa. He always seemed like he was a pretty cool dude in his younger days. My dad was already born, so I'm not in danger of erasing myself.
Well.. there wasn't even a radio station here yet (until 1993) and it was all lumber and forest. I'd prolly just stay inside as long as I could.
I'm going to stay in the crib, play games, and watch TV until I'm back in the present. No one should come across me, and I want no smoke.
This would be cool. My coop that I own was already built by then, as was the subway line I take regularly (built in 1932). I would have any money to spend and my bills would all be too new, so I couldn't really research any stocks, unless I had time before hand to stockpile some gold or something like that.
I would take the subway around the city and see what NYC looked like in 1950.
Get my suit on, take my cane and hat, then make my way to the nearest bank to put some money in an account. Then I would go buy some stocks in Coke, McDonald's, Walmart, Johnson and Johnson, and Proctor & Gamble . Then I'd buy a cool car to drive around, then put in my garage, so it hopefully sticks around when I return to present. I'd possibly also buy a couple suits, a hat, and a cane. Depending on what's right around me, I might pick up a few Winchester model 70s, and look at getting a few "old" guns.. civil war revolvers, etc.
I'm buying McDonald's stock. You could buy shares over the counter at the franchises back then. Gonna grab all I can get before returning to the present.
If I'm there long enough, I'll be buying other stocks as well.
If I only have a short time, open a CD at the bank and set it to keep rolling the interest back in at maturity.
My home wasn't built until 1970's and it's an HOA community so imma just buy my land and make sure it's not in the HOA.
The guy who built this house in 1948 might be startled.
I'm just going to live my life as normally as possible and use every advantage I have. Having the internet connected to the present day is godmode.
I would borrow my wife's diamond ring, pawn it, and invest in blue chip stocks that will still be around like AT&T or GE, or heck just put it in an interest bearing bank account for the next 74 years.
My house was built in '52, so I guess all my stuff is in a field.
Edit: but I'd love to hang around for a few years and help my dad build it.
Oh my lord yes. Posing as my nuclear physicist great uncle who shares my address in 1950 I write my uncles letters instructing them on everything we know about biofuels, photovoltaics, desalination, batteries, networking protocols, Vietnam, fission, fusion and the fates of the Aral and Salton Seas as trends that my great uncle has noticed may result in the future. I throw in a few easy predictions to add to credibility, but I won't really need it because they already respect him. In truth this probably causes me to not exist but I am hoping that this is an alternate universe rather than having to worry about causality problems. I set these letters in intense sunlight and use my respirator when sending them in hopes of limiting contagion. I attempt to guide them to construct backup battery systems for barns and irrigation pumps at reasonable prices. If we can push them along a little further I try to get them as far as a hybrid car but even with twenty years and future knowledge it would be a bit of an ask. When the gas crisis hits I make certain that as many barns and houses as possible have electrical production, storage and maybe even transport without fuel. The initiatives of the Carter administration should be able to pick up on the progress of my relatives and expand the capacity worldwide while focusing on individual household production to limit fuel needs, decentralizing the grid and making it possible to override the transmission cartels that will be reeling at that point. Nixon has already opened the Chinese market and I know where all the minerals we need are, so we should be able to cheaply and effectively extract minerals without being cornered out of the market. Maybe even save the Salton Sea while still extracting lithium from it if those designs work. This will extend American hegemony, which has its downsides but at least can change the energy standards to a carbon free model and save money using the crisis as economic and political motivation. Effective cheap renewable energy and desalination technology before the information revolution that made them possible should be applicable to several desertified areas across the world and prevent famine if we can get the US to actually try to help.
Hell no. They'd kill me or put me in an asylum
Grab my cash savings and buy the whole neighborhood for 15.67$
With modern internet, I'd look up valuable collectibles from the time period. Get them super cheap.
Maybe try the stock market.
Look up sports upsets in the near future.
Realistically, not much I can do aside from making my own life comfortable (or if it's truly short time, just biding things out).
- I'm not a people person/political leader, so I won't be able to affect meaningful historical change by building a group of people to have sizeable influence
- I don't have enough specialized knowledge of the past/tech to become instant billionaire - yes I can probably realistically get to be comfortable financially easily; but NOT to the level of wealth that would buy me individual influence; and would take years, not a week
- If I claim knowledge of the future, best case scenario I'll be laughed out of the room, worse case, I get put into a mental health institution (and they weren't all that great in 1950). If I actually prove I can predict the future, I'll be shanghaied by some 3-letter-agency, to serve their interests, and never see the light of day again. And they would NOT be following agenda I'd prefer, I'm sure.
- Sure, I can warn people about 9/11/2001. There were actual intelligence professionals warning their peers/bosses about risk of 9/11, they were just ignored.
- Sure, I can tell people Putin will invade Ukraine. Spoiler alert - I told people that back in 2006-8. Nobody cared.
- Sure I can tell people invading Vietnam, or allowing Shah to fall in Iran, is bad. People with that viewpoint existed in US, they just weren't listened to.
In theory, I can try to pull a "Terminator" type thing, and provide technology and info I have to some research lab, to jump-start communication and information revolution; since your weird hypothetical made it all travel with me. I'm sure people at IBM and Bell Labs would be grateful. Now, whether I can get to anyone with any influence at IBM or Bell labs, as a rando from the future, is a bit more iffy. And a LOT of that tech is based on materials science they don't yet have, and I have no idea about beyond very very rough generalities.
If I'm only there for a week, the best I can probably do for myself is to grab something that would become a collectible, and hide it. First editions of some comic. Find Andy Warhal and beg him to paint me something. Get some rare books first print? I have internet as per your conditions, so I am sure I can research good ideas on what will be available AND appreciate in value a lot.
Well thought out - I love it! When I originally wrote this, I was thinking of how one might try to change the future with such limited time. The internet thing was to give "unlimited" knowledge to the time traveler, but I didn't want to say "you're there for a week" or "you're there for a day," because I felt like the randomness, within a limited time frame, made the urgency much higher. If I say one day, people might say "nothing I can do in a day, I'd just go get a cheap meal and see if I can steal a car to put into my garage. If I say one week, someone might think they have time to do too many things. So I made it random to give a sense of urgency.
Thanks for the thoughtful response!
1) Barter for some money with shit people have never really seen that I have lying around my house.
2) Put it all into stocks that are just starting up that I know will be giants in the future.
3) Wait to return to the future.
4) Profit.
Don't even need a ??? Step cause it's that easy.
I’d work to prevent the Korean War, probably by discrediting Kim Il-Sung in such a way to prevent Mao Zedong from agreeing to intervene.
Being in 1950 for a day I’d do everything in my power to buy some stocks then I’d figure a way to leave a note for myself to buy Bitcoin early.
Time travel doesn’t work that way. Changing the past doesn’t change the future.
Think about it. If you go into the past, that past becomes your future, and your former present becomes the past, which can't now be changed by your new future!
That’s just my initial reaction off of the top of my head on the subject.
I would tell Kennedy to ride in a hard top
I’d but all the ocean property around LA and San Diego. Then I’d come back here and sell it.
I'd have to run for my life since where I live, now, was prohibited to Black people in the 50's.
My house was built in 1908, so I’m good.
I still have access to the net? Shiiiiiit. I'm playing the lottery and betting on sports. Need to find a way to get a fake identity though. Probably gonna have to bury the money but I know a place.
That would be pretty neat given that there would be an active coal mine about 30 feet behind my house. I'd probably just spend my time showing coal miners my cool future stuff and cooking for them. It would be pretty cool too, to walk into town and see what it looked like in it's heyday during the mining boom.
Question: do I have any access to cold hard cash?
Edit: type-o
Ummm I watch the stocks daily for certain companies
Find someone and make a contract with them and give them a bunch of investing tips in return for them giving you a bunch of money in the future.
I'd influence tech at least a little. Meet Claude Shannon, Martin Luther King Jr., probably some tech people.
Having read 11-22-63, I would do nothing.
If I know that I'll be here long enough, then I'm trying to make sure that Ronald reagan and Margret thatcher don't get to have political careers
Run to a bank and open a account
I’m a black guy in Mississippi I would be pretty fucked? I guess just hide in the house and use the internet to get rich.
Invest, win the lottery, use the internet and historical information to profit and set my family up for life.
I’d need a white proxy or avatar to listen to me and trust that I could set us up for life
I'm not legally allowed to own my house in Atlanta in 1950....
I try desperately to explain the TV and sound system
The house I live in was built in the 1940s; however, my dad has told me that less than 30 years ago the population skewed white, which I am not, so really id just stay inside until I get sent back. I dont want to find out how racist people were back in the day, first hand.
I live with a materials engineer, and i have a few to many history books… we would need to disappear before our info gets out
I’m black so imma just stay my ass inside till I go back.
No thanks, I’m a woman and like to own my own self.
I would prefer to not ask permission from normal male rights.
Sell my precious metals and use them to buy the most profitable/easy to sell item, maybe. Or maybe I could use the net to win a bunch of money betting, but seeing as I dont know how long I've got I think my first plan is the most likely to succeed
I'm assuming if I stack the merch in my closet it will still be there when my house goes back.
If it's under 3 days I go back I'm probably just sol though, even now my house is sort of rural. In the 50s there's unlikely to be anything around for miles. etting a ride to where I need to be (and back) may be impossible otherwise. I'd have to imagine I def need at least 2 days. Really depends on how deveolped the closest "city" is back then. It's old as shit but back then it still was mainly textiles iirc
I wonder if I could find and convince my or my wife's grandparents to invest how I tell them.
Or great grandparents.
Did wife come with or is she magically "normal" or?
Just you. No other people were effected.
If I had Internet access, I would look up the contagious period for major infectious diseases. And I would quarantine until they had passed. Then I would do some research about stock market trends from 1950-2024 and use them to time the market. Then I could try to prevent the Vietnam War and 9-11 but would have no idea how.
Easy man, just go meet the president and show him your phone powers
Go back and be extremely racist?
I'M KIDDING.
I'd try to convince people to be less racist but I'm honestly not sure how I'd do it.
I'm a black man who lives in Kansas. What do you think I'm going to do?
I would visit my grandparents and give them lotto numbers from the future and tell them to give me a cut
I’d buy a few cars and keep them in my garage. I’d probably also invest or get a fuck load of gold or stock in companies that still exist and ask for my physical copies. Then I’d search for Lee Harvey Oswald, even though he’d still be a kid. Help him learn the wonders of capitalism to help keep the U.S. out of Vietnam. Oh, and find LBJ and kick him in the balls.
House was built in 1948 which is good because otherwise I’d be camping a farm field
First thing I would do is get the deed for my house/land squared away.
I live in a 200 year old farm house where the property owners sold off the farmland in the 1970s. That farmland became a housing development. The residents of that development plague my existence.
I would love to own the house with all the land that was originally with it.