Alternative life?

[Teaos]

A hypothetical.

Lets say for random reason X you are transported back in time to when you were 4 years old. You have no chance of getting back to your time, your old like is over and now you are living in the time and age of when you were 4. You are still your current age and have nothing but your cloths on you, no iPhones or any form of modern tech.

What do you do? Do you hang around your family, even though its not your family, do you try to guide them through troubles you know are coming? Bearing in mind the more you meddle with the world the more it will change in time.

Do you lay low waiting for an event like 9/11 and try to stop it? Bearing in mind that if you do to much stuff before that, you may have altered history enough to stop it already or change its date/target.

Do you buy into apple computers and google? Bear in mind you will onyl have what little money you can earn day to day. Are you knowledgeable enough to try and kick start the modern computing field?

One thing I could easily do is with the tech of the 80's (when I was 4) is to set up the experiment to discover the cosmic background radiation. It is a deceptivly simple experiment, its just no one thought to do it before the mid 90's in our world. I could get a Noble prize and kick start physics by a decade.

[Tyyr]

I don't fuck with history all that much. Honestly it's worked out pretty well overall. I find a job and put every dime I can into slam dunk companies. Apple, Microsoft, and Google mostly. I don't get involved, I just invest and let it make me rich. There's no real concern about risk there and so long as I don't get involved things should turn out well. I've got from 1980 to 1989 to make zero waves and just worry about money. If I need some cash I can always make some bets on sporting events.

I'm honestly pretty hesitant to mess with anything really. Yes, the world has issues but frankly things have been going pretty well and on an individual basis how much could I actually influence? Of course there's the elephant in the room, something I could influence. Oklahoma City, it's be pretty easy to track down Tim McVeah and given that I have absolutely no connection to him, kill him before he can go off the deep end and blow everyone up. I'd probably wait until close to the time he actually did it just to minimize disruption. If I had some warning about my trip back in time I'd be grabbing a sports almanac and doing some wikipedia research first. One of the big things would be finding out the names and as much of the back ground of the 9/11 guys as I could.

Here's my problem though and feel free to call me a selfish bastard. My current wife and I broke up for a short while when we were in college. On 9/11 we decided to have a date and see about getting back together. I don't really know how much of an influence what happened that morning had on us but we did get back together and have been together ever since. So what do I do? With the info I have I could possibly just kill the guys. Sitting on Apple, Microsoft, and Google stock for the last fifteen years will have made me rich. I'd have plent of time to get a rifle, practice, and when the time came to kill every single one of them well in advance of what happened. Alternately I can just go to the government and tell them what's going to happen. If they need confirmation I can tell them to find my current self in 2001 and check it out, they'll find that I'm genetically identical to my 20 year old self and I can rattle off a bunch of things that will happen soon to prove what's happened. At that point it's a fairly simple exercise to start handing out names of the attackers and let the FBI round them up.

But do I do it? I'd probably insist on meeting with my 20 year old self and beat it into him that he needs to hook up with my wife no matter what and to not give up. As much as part of me balks at potentially fucking up that part of younger me's life I doubt I could live with having had the chance to stop it and not taking it. Sitting younger me down and hammering home what he could have would probably be something I'd do. I don't even know if I'd share my wealth with my younger self. Maybe here and there to bail him out. Lord knows I'd probably pay for his house, but on the whole leave him alone as much as possible after the first word of warning.

My life time as the government's information fountain would be short lived. Probably by 2003 or 2004 I'd have impacted the world enough that nothing I knew would mesh up and be of value. Warning Bush off the Iraq war, hell maybe warning him off Afghanistan too. Give a head's up about the Columbia, Fukishima, etc. In general what I know will peter out and I'll just be another guy.

Then more or less ask to be left alone and live the rest of my life. Probably keep tabs on my younger self, once we hit modern day probably write my younger self a check for a hundred million or so and tell him to enjoy it.

[Teaos]

The thing though is, you assume your old friends and family from your original time line are still going, you've just disapeared.

So this new bunch of people arent really your family.

While I certainly wouldnt want anything bad to happen to them... I wouldnt spend my life watching them trying to save them from themselves.

I think the big thing I would do is try and help Gore win 2000. Either by knocking off Bush in the 90's or by just helping meddle with affairs in a more straight up way. While I dont love Gore, I think a lot of the problems we have now would be less or gone totally if he had won, no Iraq, much reduced (but not none) depression, more money for science and education.

And no matter how much you mess with the world, natural disasters will still happen. But you can try to warn people.

[Tyyr]

Here's the thing. You can quantum it all you want that they aren't my family. They still are. There is absolutely zero difference between them and the people I know. Zero. Same memories, same experiences, same everything. Quantum, quantum, quantum, quantum... still utterly indistinguishable from the people I know and love.

[Deepcrush]

Other then buying in some stocks, I don't think I'd really change anything. As to 9/11, it would happen sooner or later. The most you could do would be to trigger something prior to cause people to get out of the building before the planes hit. The event would still happen but you could reduce the life cost total. The greatest problem with 9/11 remained the wars that came after it.

[Teaos]

Meh, I dont quite see it that way, especially since I am seeing my Dad over two decades ago, when he was a vastly different man. He wont be the man I know for another few decades, and only if I dont mess with his life.

I would keep my eye on them and see how they are doing, maybe hang out with them with out letting them know who I am, but thats just more curiosity for me.

[Tyyr]

I'm not saying I play guardian angel. You'll notice the first time I even mention doing anything related to them is reinforcing that my younger self should still try and hook up with my wife even if 9/11 doesn't happen as it did in our timeline. Aside from that after he knows of me help him out some but on the whole just let them do as they would up until the point I disappeared from my timeline. After that, eh. Besides, with the kind of money I'd have at that point I could write them a check for $100 million and not miss it.

Probably the best way to try and get people out of the WTC early would just be pulling the fire alarm about 7am. Set off some smoke bombs and just in general get everyone moving out. Same in the Pentagon. It would be unlikely the hijackers would know what was going on and you could probably have the towers mostly empty when the planes hit.

[stitch626]

Well for one, I would not bother with 9/11. The only way I could convince them to do anything to stop it would to mention I'm from the future, and we know how the Gov't would take that.

However, I would definitely play the stock market some. Especially Apple...

[Deepcrush]

Its not always about convincing someone to do something about the problem, but making them do something about something they believe could be a problem.

[Teaos]

If you play your cards right, you should have quite a bit of money and maybe even power by this point, you can predict technology and scientific events and trends. You would be a rather powerful man.

You wouldnt walk into thw WTC and throw a couple of smoke bombs, you'd get onto the phone with your close personal friends Rudolph Gulliani and tell him to evac the building. Or you might even have the govermental connection to stop them getting on the planes.

[McAvoy]

I would be 4 in 1988. I would surely love to scare the shit out of parents.

I mean we would have the knowledge we have now but at 4. You would ace every class up until it gets more complicated by high school.

The moment you become four again you change everything. If you fake being a four year old you still will not react or act like a true four year old would. If you use your knowledge to your advantage then you would drastically change your whole life.

Personally I would use my knowledge to get into Heather's pants by high school. I had a shot once and blew it.

[Captain Seafort]

I would be 4 in 1988. I would surely love to scare the shit out of parents.

I mean we would have the knowledge we have now but at 4. You would ace every class up until it gets more complicated by high school.

*cough*

You are still your current age

[McAvoy]

Oh ok. I thought quantum leaping to my four year old body.

[Teaos]

Nah, you have the oppertunity to observe your life from the outside, manipulate if you wish, or just watch.

[Teaos]

I think a fun thing would be to try to change the world as much as possible, then when you get to this date again in 2013, see just how much you really changed the world.