You're a time traveler, what would you do if you went back in time to make the most of it? ( kbin.social )

I'd go back to the 1970s, the dawning of personal computer growth in it's beginnings. I'd take every single idea and patent from today and collect them all in a multiple series of binders. I would spend weeks holed up in some apartment, jotting notes, re-directing credits to me.

I would be the founding father of hundreds of technological inventions, way before they were even thought up. Flash Drives? My idea. Compact Discs? My idea. SSDs? My idea.

Everything will be my idea and I'll be biding my time, pitching ideas and profiting off of the patents that I sell and my ideas alone, with little to no work involved. By the turn of the 2000s, I'll be unfathomably recognized and wealthy.

TrueStoryBob ,

I think the most good I could do would be to go back to the mid-1700's colonial America, probably a center of education like Philadelphia, Boston, or New York. Patient a couple of simple but yet-to-exist technologies like the addiator calculator, rifled gun barrel, etc, but especially the optical telegraph. I would try to leverage these devices/systems into myself joining the Continental Congress as a representative. The optical telegraph is 100% technology that was possible, but not in existence and one that I think could have had unforseen relevance to the founding of the United States. Imagine if long distance, nearly instantaneous communication had existed when the Constitution was being written... think about the implications of that for communication privacy protection. Might even be able to convince the founders to include such a system to be part of the constitutionally mandated post office. I think all it would take would be to point out how important communications had been in the War of Independence: "imagine Savannah has been attacked by Spain. It would take several days for a place like Boston to be alerted to that event... with the optical telegraph the whole nation would know within a matter of a few hours." After all that, I'd probably try to help get germ theory off the ground and write rebuttals to push back on the various scientific racism theories floating about at that time.

spittingimage ,
@spittingimage@lemmy.world avatar

I'd try to get hired as an extra in the original Star Wars movies.

afraid_of_zombies ,

Go back about 70,000 years ago to Kenya and have sex with stone age hookers for trinkets, knives etc. Fathering several children.

Attention humanity: I have made you in my image.

TempermentalAnomaly ,

I'd go back in time and give my younger self a sports almanac telling him to place bets with it.

afraid_of_zombies ,

That's as a dumb an idea a a screen door on a battleship

TempermentalAnomaly ,

Alight, alright. Now why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?

mipadaitu ,

There's already tons of folks that had "that idea" too early. Those technical innovations don't just need some rando showing up and saying "hey, we should make a plastic disc that stores music MONEY PLEASE!"

The CD was created in collaboration between several companies, creating a technical standard, and working with the limitations of manufacturing and technology of the time. There's exactly zero chance you would be able to get a jump on them.

I'd bet $3 that there's tons of patents from people who had a similar enough idea years before it came out, but they never went anywhere. Sony would just see your patent and carefully design the disc to avoid violating it.

afraid_of_zombies ,

The optical mouse was first mentioned in print in the 1980s.

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