Stipulations:

  • You cannot die and are immune to disease
  • You cannot alter the future such that you change the world from your point of origin. i.e. You cannot become so famous that future people recognize you as immortal.
  • If you vary the timeline too much you will cease to exist.
  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    93·
    12 days ago

    Immune to disease? Welp, time to become a massive slut throughout the ages.

    I would survive on Mamie Van Doren, Brigitte Bardot, Sheree North, Rebecca De Mornay, Pam Grier, Rosie Perez… I mean I could go on.

    …I mean someone’s gotta make horny posts without Violet here, right?

  • ProfThadBach@lemmy.world
    62·
    12 days ago

    if I am immortal then just do my own thing. Work a job for a while and move on. Rinse and repeat. I have been a nobody for 63 years. It is not really that hard. You know like the Highlander.

  • ZeroGravitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    55·
    12 days ago

    As I was reading this, I disappeared in a flash of light and landed in 1945. But I have a plan.

    • Learn acoounting, get a job, grind for 10 or so years
    • Start investing in Ford, GE etc. and wait for the compound interest to kick in
    • Buy a farm, continue to invest. Retire “early”
    • Grow a beard, get some white hair paint
    • Travel to “relatives” in Australia for 6 months every year
    • While in Australia, get rid of beard, set up alternative identity as my own nephew, get involved in fledgling computer domain, invest
    • Back home, take up fishing, end up disappearing at sea one day, nephew inherits everything
    • I am nephew. Got enough money now to stop working, buy a vineyard in NZ, spend 6 months in the year abroad
    • Invest in IBM, I should be filthy rich by now
    • Hire professionals to set up a dozen or so alternate identities in English speaking countries. Kill nephew, avoid Australia for the next 20 years
    • Numbered Swiss accounts, different looks, pro theatre makeup, the works. By now my 10+ offshore companies own 10% of Berkshire Hathaway between them
    • Rotate identities as needed. Invest in the dot com bubble from 100+ offshore shell companies. Cash in and buy tech stocks after the crash. I am now richer than God, but still not intervene in not-yet-current affairs
    • No posh events, no media, no socials ffs. My ghosts come and go. I own a few law firms that take care of business and identity management. When suspicions arise, I change countries. Ireland works for a while. I now own 10-20% of all major tech companies, because I bought them before it was cool
    • I get into crypto early. Money has no meaning anymore. I mark the days and months remaining to May 19, 2026, when all of this began. I need to insert myself into my old life right as past me begins the journey, will probably feign a nasty flu afterwards to get back on track. Small price to pay for total freedom

    And here we are. Money wise, I own about half the world and now I can finally act. Where should I start?

    • Atropos@lemmy.world
      18·
      12 days ago

      Please dump enough “political contributions” into us politics to get intelligent, empathetic, progressive people in charge.

      • NateNate60@lemmy.world
        13·
        12 days ago

        It’s pretty rare for good people to become immensely wealthy and stay good people. Money corrupts, and once you’re to a point where money is no longer survival but a high score, that starts to drive your thinking.

        • Atropos@lemmy.world
          10·
          12 days ago

          Absolutely correct.

          Maybe immortality, infinite wealth, and a hundred year long life won’t corrupt THIS person?

          Brb gotta go pray to the Easter bunny …

          • ZeroGravitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            3·
            12 days ago

            Living 81 years with the prospect of annihilation if one rocks the boat too much will change a man. Likewise honing the kind of duplicitous skills required to simply survive the attention of the world.

            So, would my moral compass stay intact? If I don’t work at it, no - I’m under no illusion that it would. What I expect to happen is that I would continue to avoid the public eye. But once the shackles are off, there’s no telling where this goes.

            Stepping out of this role for a bit, if I had that kind of wealth today, what would I invest in? Education and science. Press freedom. Rule of law. Anti-poverty programs (part of education). Probably others too, but those are the essentials.

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
        5·
        12 days ago

        “If you vary the timeline too much, you will cease to exist.”

        Even if you want to be altruistic enough to sacrifice yourself for the good of humanity, you’ll be wiped out long before you’re able to change enough to lead to lasting improvement.

    • hansolo@lemmy.today
      6·
      12 days ago

      Super excellent. The only notes to add:

      Steal and cycle through 2 new US identities every 10 years. Always churn new idienties faster than you expect. You can be Bob age 20, Jerry age 30 and Sid age 40 in LA, Chicago, and NYC, respectively, at the same time.

      Start a shell company where all your identities are the board. Use it to buy land in LA and NYC.

      Gamble for supplemental income.

        • hansolo@lemmy.today
          1·
          12 days ago

          Fair. However, there’s a lot of runway before that really gets problematic. You can move things offshore prior to 2000 and be perfectly fine.

          • NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world
            1·
            11 days ago

            Funny seeing you here, surprised you didn’t say you’d go back to when we were enslaving and committing genocide on native Americans and capturing and torturing people in Africa.

            • hansolo@lemmy.today
              1·
              11 days ago

              Fun fact: you can talk about things that happened without endorsing or condoning the things that happened.

              You’ll notice that I didn’t say anything about genocide or the slave trade being good.

              Edit:ah yes, you’re the very stable genius that told me to “go die” recently. Very classy.

              Like, do you need to talk to someone? You don’t seem OK.

              • NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world
                1·
                11 days ago

                Sure, that’s a great explanation as to why you used slavery as an example to justify shackling and limiting sentient A.I. and called it great.

                Maybe don’t use condoning language if you’re not condoning something, cause that shit was racist as fuck, no matter how you try to contextualize it.

                • hansolo@lemmy.today
                  1·
                  11 days ago

                  Look, I’m sorry that you’re still not understanding that taking about terrible things that humans in power did, and still do, to exploit other humans, doesn’t mean I’m saying that’s good.

                  It seems like you might be misunderstanding mid-sentence sarcasm as… being a fan of genocide and slavery? WTF is wrong with you? Read the room. Read with context. It’s an explanation that companies that exploit people will seamlessly transition to exploiting AGI.

                  I can’t tell if you’re genuinely stupid or just trying to be the worst internet troll. Either way, you’re really behaving quite inappropriately, sound like a fool, and are not good enough at understanding English to use your misunderstanding as a reason to cyberstalk and bully someone.

        • Strider@lemmy.world
          2·
          11 days ago

          Nono you don’t pin this shit on someone else now. You don’t give an evil mastermind origin story speech and then temporarily back out!

          🤣

          • ZeroGravitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            2·
            10 days ago

            OP tied my hands from day one: change the history and disappear. That restriction expired only 2 days ago. I do have things in place, and some calls have already been made, but these things take time. That being said, I have no ambitions of taking in the limelight. I’m a simple man, and I find I rather like the shadows.

            I could tell you a bit about what’s cooking, but why spoil the surprise?

    • bstix@feddit.dk
      1·
      12 days ago

      Ftting into your current life when you make it to the present would be noticable since you would’ve aged 81 years in the meantime.

  • remon@ani.social
    42·
    12 days ago

    How do you survive until modern day?

    I just do … you literally said I cannot die.

    • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8·
      12 days ago

      There is the caveats they put in that you’ve got to make sure no one finds out you’re immortal or you’ll just cease to exist and can’t change history in any significant way or be met with the same fate

  • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
    23·
    12 days ago

    So you just get a normal job and get to live through one of the greatest economic booms of American history where you can raise a family of 5 with one singular income?

    Literally just go to work for 40hrs a day 5 days a week and you could have damn near anything you want as long as you’re white?

    This is a dumb “what if”.

    • MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip
      6·
      12 days ago

      as long as you’re white

      And male, cis, straight, Christian, etc. You could fake some of those things if needed, but that’s generally a crappy way to live.

      Also, assumes American.

      • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
        3·
        12 days ago

        Yeah you right. I made that assumption but the premise didn’t give you much to go on.

        Plus this would be right as ww2 was ending so you’re relatively safe either way unless you’re black in the south. Again in America

    • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
      4·
      12 days ago

      Well if you want to be boring with your answer and not have fun thinking of other interesting ways to solve this problem then yeah it’s dumb,

    • qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      11 days ago

      The challenge is in not erasing yourself by the rules, by being famously immortal. Presumably, you also don’t age. So you just have to move around every decade or two.

  • vane@lemmy.world
    16·
    12 days ago

    Go to Leningrad, kill Putin parents, die. If still living, go to next city to kill another old fart fucker parents. Fuck this world.

  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
    14·
    12 days ago

    Do I have prep time? I’d like to research what sorts of things will disappear over that period that will be incredibly valuable if “found” in 2026. Stamps, particular issues of comic books, coins, that sort of thing. That way I can build up a nice nest egg for when the “you can’t change the timeline” restriction comes off.

    Once I get close to modern times, buy a bunch of Bitcoin while it’s super cheap. That’s easier to sit on without causing disruption than stocks would be.

    When 2026 hits, cash in.

  • vagrancyand@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    9·
    12 days ago

    1945? Bank robbery is still incredibly easy. Literally all forensics is during this time period is just fingerprinting. People are also malnourished and incredibly weak compared to the average person in 2026. So beat up some GI that illegally kept a gun from the war, use that to perform a series of bank robberies along the west coast of the US and the American South (where Gold stores were concentrated during the gold standard period we find ourselves in).

    After that invent corporate trusts and the concept of multi-layer corporate holdings. This would be having a corporation per property owned, which is owned by a corporation and uses services from another corporation, all of which eventually ends in a labyrinthine ownership path that few, if any, forensic accountants in the 1940s could possibly follow to find out it’s all just me.

    By understanding, even just vaguely, which cities and areas get built up over time in history and buying surrounding properties cheaply and simply holding them until areas are built up enough to sell them for massive profit I would be able to generate essentially infinite money from basic seed money. Add onto this a series of bank and hedge fund holdings that are informed roughly when to invest in specific companies as they come up through the ages the infinite money glitch becomes an exponential money glitch.

    Again layers and layers of holdings on holdings on holdings creates obscurity and complexity that would take well into the age of computers to ever unravel. A kingdom easily rivaling the Rothschilds, while being even more hidden as I’d be copying their modern techniques a half century before they perfect them.

    With infinite exponential money during the golden age of capitalism I can wait until the present day when I’d no longer be effecting the timeline and then start funding communist revolutions globally, allowing for myself to become a martyr in the revolution.

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
      5·
      12 days ago

      So beat up some GI that illegally kept a gun from the war

      You realize that in 1945 it was before most gun regulations, right? You could buy a gun for cash at a hardware store.

          • vagrancyand@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            That would be ridiculously expensive and time consuming. The question does not present a lead up scenario but one would assume whatever deal this is doesn’t allow for a lot of prep time or extra money.

            Additionally any money that would exist in that time period that survived to today… would still be present in that time period. In a pre-computer world it’d be easier to get away with what is essentially counterfeiting or what would be explained as counterfeiting to those that caught you; but that’s still a massive risk for saving at best a few years building up that wealth yourself.

            And that’s all assuming you didn’t create a paradox by allowing those two versions of the same item to exist simultaneously. Like you traveling back is fine, as you wouldn’t exist in 1945, but bringing items that did exist would either displace the money to avoid the paradox, changing the future possibly significantly which breaks the rules, creates a paradox which would cause you to no longer exist.

            • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
              2·
              11 days ago

              one would assume whatever deal this is doesn’t allow for a lot of prep time or extra money.

              Why would we assume that? We assume that you become immortal, and are sent back in time, and the part that seems unrealistic to you is that you’d prepare for the trip before you go? :P

              Any money that existed then would exist today, so you avoid anything serialized. Stick to things that are non-serialized and fungible- precious metals for example, or gemstones (without laser serial #s of course). Pre-serial cash would work too (probably the easiest to counterfeit in modern times).

              But as for existence paradox-- the mere action of going back would create such an issue if it is an issue. All the molecules in your body and clothes existed in 1945, if perhaps in different arrangements-- IE anything plastic might have been in the ground as crude oil, the molecules of your body would be things like plants, dirt, trees, etc, anything metal you have would be ore in the ground, etc. And per butterfly effect paradox, from the instant you arrive you’ve changed things, just by breathing and walking around you’ve affected air flows and converted a little more oxygen to CO2. If you arrive in the middle of nowhere, hold still for 30 seconds, then depart again, that might have no real effect. Or it might create a butterfly effect that changes a weather pattern or something and has a huge effect.

              By that measure, the whole thing becomes a not fun exercise in paranoia- knowing that even saying hello to someone (or not saying hello) might alter the future and erase your existence.