this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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Okay weird hypotheticals again lol:


Rules (sorry, I know someone is gonna ask for rules, cuz its a time travel scenario mmkay?):

TLDR: Basically you have 24 hours, you can end it at anytime and go back to the future, but once you end it, its over. You can only do it once. You can save this ability for any time in the future, or use it immediately.


Full rules:

  • Basically, you are back inside the body of your past self at any point in time after you were born. Obviously you can't bring anything back, only your consciousness goes back.
  • You have up to 24 hours, you can end the time travel session earlier if you want. If you loses consciousless in your past self's body, or fall asleep, the time travel session immediately ends.
  • You can only do this once.
  • You don't have to immediately use it, you can save this ability for any time in the future.
  • You must be awake to use it, you can't use it in the middle sleep of while unconscious. Although, you can travel back to a time when you were asleep and you would immediately wake up in your past self's body.
  • When you go back, your past self's memories are merged with your memory, and you keep this even when you travel back to the future.
  • When the time travel session ends, you return to the moment in time when you originally left, but now you are in the new timeline with a future that could have changed from your actions in the past.
  • Your past self would immediately resume control the moment you left, if you were still awake at the time of leaving. If your time travel session ended by losing consciousness, then your past self resume control when they wake up. Your past self would remember roughly what happened but wouldn't understand that your future self was in control (unless you leave yourself a note or record a video or something), and wouldn't retain your future memories.
  • If you end up in a timeline where you died before the moment in time when your left your original timeline, you basically just see the last 24 hours of yourself in the new timeline before you died, in 3rd person view, then your consciousness fades and you are gone.

Basically the point is to ask yourself: What are things in your life you wished you could change. Or what period of 24 hours would you like to revisit again.

all 37 comments
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[–] fool@programming.dev 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

I pop out the womb

Good evening, mother. Wait, I forgot I'm not supposed to talk. Um... wah?

I return to the future

LMFAO, your parents would freak out and have to do a satanic sacrifice. You'd be dead lmfao.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

"Greetings mother, it is I, your newborn. Have I ever told you about the tradgedy of Darth Plageius the wise?"

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Ask out my crush earlier, buy NVIDIA stock

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Or Bitcoin before it was $1 per coin

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Was barely a child back then, hard to buy such a thing

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Well, it currently sits just shy of 100K so any time before it was at 50K per coin and you are laughing.

[–] andrewta@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Mathematically that's either doubling or just over doubling... Need a lot of money to make a real difference.

[–] notnotmike@programming.dev 3 points 2 weeks ago

Hilariously, you only need to go back in time two days to when they minted the Luigi Mangioni coin and buy it right away (and sell at the peak). It ballooned something ridiculous like 37k% so that should set you up nicely

[–] Tangent5280@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If I was to find my wife way earlier, wouldn't that alter the possibility of us ending up together?

[–] Graphy@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Not only that but imagine how hard you’d have to work at not creeping them out with how much you know about them.

My wife and I have been together for the majority of our lives. We met when we were teenagers and now we’re well into our 40s. I’ve got a sneaking feeling that if I went back and tried to romance her I’d be a terrible partner. Either I’d creep her tf out or I worry current me is too impatient.

Also, as a side note I get that ick vibe thinking about the mental age gap

[–] notnotmike@programming.dev 4 points 2 weeks ago

This is something I think about a lot.

Part of me would love to go back and redo high school.or college and just be a better student, learn more, and flirt with girls more (although now that you mention it the age thing would make it weird, you're right). But I end up at the same conclusion - it wouldn't be worth not meeting and marrying my wife.

It'd be so difficult to meet her again (we met on Tinder) and to make it so she's interested in dating me. And then the relationship would be so one sided because I'd know every intimate detail of her past and she'd know nothing of mine.

So, I eventually come to the conclusion that nothing I could do in the past is worth risking her.

[–] python@programming.dev 14 points 2 weeks ago

Like anyone else, I'd say buy stock/bitcoin, but the overlap of me being old enough to have my own bank account and the time where stocks/bitcoin was worth it is fairly slim. Maybe I'd go back to like 2019/2020 and pump all my money into Gamestop.

[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I would go back to the time when I got my first computer and write myself a long message from the future. It would contain things like:

  • Make several backups of this list and review it every year.
  • Watch out. Some people are really toxic. (list of people to avoid)
  • Know yourself, and act accordingly. (list of traits I have, but haven’t realized or fully understood at the time)
  • Be careful. (list of minor accidents that could potentially happen in the future)
  • Be mindful of important decisions. (List of some big decisions that turned out to be good, bad, great, awful etc.)
  • You can do it 👍 (encouraging words)
[–] scytale@lemm.ee 9 points 2 weeks ago

Considering the butterfly effect, I think the safest way to do it is to go back the immediate past 24 hours to have as little a domino effect as possible and prevent altering what I already have in my current life I don’t want to lose. So I’ll probably just go back to yesterday and buy a lottery ticket or something.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

24 hours? That's not enough time to fix anything 😮‍💨

[–] notnotmike@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago

You could go back and stop yourself from wasting money on something silly at least

[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I return to my zygote phase and renegotiate some CGTA's for BDE turned up to 11

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Nah, only after your birth.

[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago
[–] maxalmonte14@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

I'll do like in Back to the Future and win the lottery, come back, put it in the back and live from the returns. Yes I'm that boring, but the best timeline IMO is one where I don't have to break my back working 9 to 5.

[–] Elaine@lemm.ee 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I’m old and I like my life well enough to not want to fuck with changing things. But your rule about merging memories - I’d absolutely love to go back to any holiday in my childhood when I could see my dad, cousin, and grandma one more time. I could come back with fresh memories of them all healthy and happy. I’d sell my soul for that.

[–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 weeks ago

Depending on how I'm feeling that day, jump in front of a bus as a child or tell my parents about adhd

[–] MTK@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Too complicated to really do anything far back, best option is to do a lottery winning by going back after a big jackpot.

[–] VirusMaster3073@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

I would go back to when I was 15 and prevent myself from leaving public school and relapsing into religion

[–] jared@mander.xyz 3 points 2 weeks ago

I've seen too many time travel shows and movies so I wouldn't fuck with it.

[–] Free_Opinions@feddit.uk 3 points 2 weeks ago

I'd go back few years and quit my job and start my own business sooner rather than wait to be fired first.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

I was sitting at my computer one night watching standup way too late. I was thinking, “I should move my bitcoin off the exchange into my local wallet.” But I was too sleepy and I just went to bed like an idiot, ignoring my gut. The next morning I found out that in the last few hours Mt. Gox had gone crazy and my wallet had been emptied. Still think of that regularly. I get emails from the trustee doling out what they get back but I was rejected. Doesn’t matter how much but it was enough that my life would look very different. Very.

But I like my life so maybe for the better.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

I'd go back to the day of my birth and smother myself. I have a good life but wouldn't mind having not existed to begin with.

[–] wildcardology@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Mine is simple, teach myself to save for the future.

I hope it doesn't fuck up my current present.

[–] andrewta@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Buy a lottery ticket on a state where I don't have to publicly state that I won. Wait until it's close to a $1,000,000,000 USD and there was no winner. Retire. Help my family but not tell them I won. Just say I invested really well and have done extra cash.

I'd wait for a cure to alzheimer's then go back and hand over the cure to my younger self, but I doubt I'll see that cure in my lifetime. So yeah go for the money.

[–] Fleur_@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

I'd go back something like 3 or 4 years ago and write a list of things to do. Would write things like

Don't go to therapy it didn't really help and just made it more difficult to apply for jobs with psychology requirements

NVIDIA stock

Lotto numbers

Would spend the rest of my time thinking of more things to write down lol

[–] sprack@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Go back to a holiday when my parents and grandparents were alive and got together so I could spend time with them again.

[–] urheber@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 weeks ago

if i return to a time before i was born, will i be older now?

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Nothing major since I don't have major gripes and complaints about my life currently, but definitely go back to roughly winter 2020 and make sure I pack a CD storage thing I had that contained a bunch of PS2 games alongside other things as well and a 3rd part cheap memory card from Amazon into my backpack when my family had limited time to vacate a house we were renting. Would love to have my old saves alongside saves from my dad and brothers from some different games, alongside having certain games as well. Probably just get those games and the memory card.

That, or go back to when I was maybe 3 or 4 years old and my family lived with my maternal grandma just because there was some edutainment (possibly not and was a different genre) game on PC that had a pirate theme that I wanna know the name of and cannot remember for the life of me. All I remember about it is that this was still early 2000s and there was a section where you cleared/cleaned an area by moving things to where they should be, like a cannonball pyramid to the corner of the room. Probably would end up staying that whole day just to also have some form of memory from back then if I retain memories from going back in time.