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If you had a one-way ticket to Jan 1, 1999 that departs on Jan 1, 2024, and you are allowed to bring whatever fits into a backpack with you, what would you bring to use to take over the world, and how (kbin.social)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Assume that the future can change based on your actions, so any historical information that you bring along with you from the intervening 25 years may quickly drift out of the new realities history.

Edit: also assume that you can be given a healthy 21-year-old body if you want or take your previous self's place.

Further, identification will be provided for you if you were not born at that time.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Get every flagship CPU and GPU from 2000 to today that I can get my hands on. Also as much open source code as I can get hold of. And especially AI stuff - there's several fully open source models, so bring those, and as much technical writings on them as possible.

Speaking of which, download every science paper published since 2000 that I can get hold of, in every possible field.

Get as much info on the 2000 election as possible, to hand to Al Gore, see if he can win that election with a solid unassailable margin.

Research stocks, lottery, and everything else I can to get fast money within the shortest possible period of time after I get there, so I can get super rich before the butterfly effect makes predictions impossible, I need billions in seed money and I need it fast.

Then use that money to start a private research group, and hand them all the scientific papers I brought. Get those experts to work studying all this knowledge and figure out what can be turned into practical technology. Turn some of this into profit-making devices to fund continued development, but release as much as possible for free.

Essentially, deluge the world in as much new technology as possible, mostly free and open source, holding back only as much as necessary in order to fund continued research.

And oh jeez the pharmaceutical industry. Release for free every drug made since 2000, so the pharmaceutical industry can't get their patents in them.

Big list of stuff there, but if I pulled off even half of it, the world would probably be a much better place in 25 years than in my original timeline.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's a really smart way. Very interesting, and I agree. It would probably be the best course of action.

I only wonder how quick the butterfly effect would have effects on your "future" documents.

For example, helping Al Gore win could drastically change the imminent future.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

That's why most of the stuff is technical or scientific information for the researchers; things that aren't subject to change, just technical info. The money stuff I would hope to manage in less than 6 months from my arrival, because even in that short time I'd expect a lot to change by the end of it.

It'd just be a question of getting that initial funding off the ground with which to set up my research institution. After that, the few things I don't release for free should cover expenses.

Sidenote since I didn't address it in the original reply, taking over the world is impractical even with future knowledge, but as the person in charge of this outfit that would quickly be the world's most advanced research tank, I'd probably have a lot of influence, which is the best anyone can practically hope for, I imagine. A lot more than the last 25 years of advancement would be needed to actually take over I figure.

[–] Blue_Morpho 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Get every flagship CPU and GPU from 2000 to today that I can get my hands on.

What use is that? Without the asml duv lithography machine, no one could duplicate it. And you'd have no motherboard to plug those chips into.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, I don't know for sure since I'm not an expert; my reasoning was the hope that being able to examine the entire line of advancement would allow the necessary technical knowledge to be extracted and duplicated. I knew that just bringing the latest one would definitely do nothing.

[–] Blue_Morpho 1 points 11 months ago

If looking at a 5nm chip was all that was needed to make a copy, China would already be selling RTX 4090 clones.