I'd start a bunch of buzzword-heavy .com's and cash out late 1999. Then I'd go into real estate and cash out in 2007. Then I'd retire.
Well put.
Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
21–30 of 31 posts
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#22I would try my hardest to prevent 9/11.
Could the first black president have been elected with out it? (Serious question) I doubt Bush would have gotten elected for a second time if it wasn't for 9/11 and I think Obama would have had a much harder time getting elected if Bush hadn't destroyed the public's opinion of the republican party.
I think I'd rather prevent an eight year war that's going nowhere and all the unnecessary death than comes with it, rather than elect an arbitrary minority who may not have been elected if his opponents weren't the worst possible option.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could the first black president have been elected with out it? (Serious question) I doubt Bush would have gotten elected for a second time if it wasn't for 9/11 and I think Obama would have had a much harder time getting elected if Bush hadn't destroyed the public's opinion of the republican party.
I think I'd rather prevent an eight year war that's going nowhere and all the unnecessary death than comes with it, rather than elect an arbitrary minority who may not have been elected if his opponents weren't the worst possible option.
I think "an eight year war that's going nowhere and all the unnecessary death" is not an overall assessment of the effect 9/11 has had.
Indeed stop it and you could well kill more people (no by atroscities but by the butterfly effect etc.) - do you then go back and stop those deaths? Where does it stop? Do you go back to influence the decisions that affect every innocent life, do you constantly tweak history to ensure the maximum people "survive"?
The fact that 9/11 HAS happened means that if anyone has invented a time machine at some point in the future (or whenever) they either took the correct decision not to change history dramatically. Or they did and that was a potential consequence.
As I said below. Tampering with History itself is an unbelievably dangerous game.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#24Founding a company would be the wrong way to go about exploiting this time hack. Too much relies on execution, so the possibility for failure is substantial. There is a much easier way to make money if you can time-travel.
What I'd do: ask for 30 minutes before I go, and log into Yahoo finance. Find a 2% gainer for each day on the stock market. Each day, move half of my net worth into the gainer (only half as a measure of caution; I might inadvertently alter the future and screw myself). The reason to aim for +2 is to avoid insider trading suspicion; putting my money into a +10 or -20 (shorting) every day would land me in jail; no one would believe I could tell the future because of time travel. Each day, I'd earn a 1% profit.
Starting from $10000, I'd get to $10 million within 720 trading days, or about 3 years. At this point, I'd limit my profits to $100k per day because otherwise I'd be at the level where I could actually change the future, eroding my gains. So I'd gain "only" $25m/year for the next decade, cashing out at $250m.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#25I'd start a bunch of buzzword-heavy .com's and cash out late 1999. Then I'd go into real estate and cash out in 2007. Then I'd retire.
Why not just make "risky" stock trades? It's work to actually build stuff. Seriously though, I think the OP meant something a bit different than the literal interpretation of future knowledge that I'm taking.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#26I would try my hardest to prevent 9/11.
... thus precipitating the dirty-bomb attack of 2006
"Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip." http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
No-one would believe you.
the key would be to go back a bit farther so you had large pools of resources way before 09/11. Then use said resources to "plant" evidence of the upcoming atrocity. But then, you in a cycle, because I am sure there are lots of past tragedies one would want to pre-empt. Personally I would leave it as it is: harsh as it sounds, tampering with History seems a worrying path to tread... (no reasons why you couldnt track…
> no reasons why you couldnt track down Osama
But to stop 9/11, you would have to track down Cheney.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
No-one would believe you.
the key would be to go back a bit farther so you had large pools of resources way before 09/11. Then use said resources to "plant" evidence of the upcoming atrocity. But then, you in a cycle, because I am sure there are lots of past tragedies one would want to pre-empt. Personally I would leave it as it is: harsh as it sounds, tampering with History seems a worrying path to tread... (no reasons why you couldnt track…
> no reasons why you couldnt track down Osama - for example - then jump back in time to tell the US forces where he will be at XYZ date to pick him up
The US knew where to get Osama many times. They didn't because they didn't think that he wasn't interesting.
That's the Cassandra problem. How do you convince the US to do something about Osama before 9/11? Lots of people claim to know the future.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#29I would try my hardest to prevent 9/11.
... thus precipitating the dirty-bomb attack of 2006
It all depends on the approach you take...
Re: Ask HN: What would you do if you knew the future?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
the key would be to go back a bit farther so you had large pools of resources way before 09/11. Then use said resources to "plant" evidence of the upcoming atrocity. But then, you in a cycle, because I am sure there are lots of past tragedies one would want to pre-empt. Personally I would leave it as it is: harsh as it sounds, tampering with History seems a worrying path to tread... (no reasons why you couldnt track…
> no reasons why you couldnt track down Osama - for example - then jump back in time to tell the US forces where he will be at XYZ date to pick him up The US knew where to get Osama many times. They didn't because they didn't think that he wasn't interesting. That's the Cassandra problem. How do you convince the US to do something about Osama before 9/11? Lots of people claim to know the future.
Ah no not what I meant; thatapproach would be on a par with trying to stop 9/11 (aka bad).
I mean NOW, in the modern day, find Osama then jump back a month or 2 and provide the military with the date / time / location :)
Theoretically then you are not affecting the "past" provided the US military dont arrive till after you make the jump back in time.