I’ll go first.
3 options
- Going back to 1964 to watch the Duke Ellington’s Montreal show. Try to meet the man and the musicians. Hang around my city.
- Go in the end of the 70s to meet my parents before they had kids. Grab a couple of beers and party with my young adults parents. See my uncles, etc. in their young time
- Going to 1881 during the couple of days when Nietzsche wrote Zarathoustra. I want to discuss with guy even if he is supposed to be writing all day long. No consequence right.
What are yours?
EDIT: I’ll clarify: You can’t affect the timeline. It means you cant go back to try to get rich with stocks, lottery, etc. It’s like going to see a movie, when you come back the world will be exactly the same. You can interact with people, but in the end, the day you spend in the past will not have existed for anyone but you, in your memories.
Find out a burning question that paleontologists have but can’t find an answer to and tell them where to look.
I would [REDACTED] so that no one has to deal with this shit.
Is it possible to travel to the past without changing the timeline? Even going to a diner for a meal will make a ripple.
If you assume that your visit creates a different timeline than the one you’re coming back to, sure.
Put a large bet on Leicester City to win the Premier League.
The odds were 5000-1, and the last person standing cashed out their £50 stake at £75000. I’d have put £500 on for an initial £2.5m, maybe an accumulator on the top 4 to double it, and live a comfortable life off of the winnings.
What I do redacted.
Good luck with the bookies paying out. Had betway refuse to pay out a £500 bet once. Deleted my account with them shortly after.
Killjoy: If there are no consequences there can be no memory of the event either. Our own future (from the time of returning from the past) would almost certainly diverge from the path of no knowledge otherwise, and that would be a consequence.
As such, every one of us might already have this ability, we just don’t remember doing it.
I think they meant no influence on the target timeline, not that you’d forget about the event.
Since I’m in tremendous pain from an inner ear infection; I would CLOSE THAT DAMN WINDOW!
No no no, that would have severe consequences on the timeline. You have to endure that.
Go back to see how they built Stonehenge
I would prefer to go back in time literally 24 hours and HAVE consequences.
I would not eat the food that likely gave me food poisoning.
Hope you feel better soon.
(Assuming that “no consequence” also means that I won’t die on the trip…)
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Witness the Tunguska impact.
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See a Beatles show when they were just some small time dudes playing in a crummy club.
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Visit the Great Exhibition of 1851 and go inside the Crystal Palace
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If there were no consequences, I can think of a few different things I’d wanna see.
- Just out of morbid curiosity, what an atomic bomb dropping looks like when it explodes, being there in person rather than just seeing footage (from a safe distance with protective equipment, just in case I can still get hurt, otherwise get as close as possible if there are absolutely zero consequences to my actions, as if I’m a spectator in minecr*ft).
- Probably just go back in time and watch as many cartoons as I could back in the early netflix streaming era because I absolutely love cartoons.
- Definitely go back in time and watch either An American Tail or Fivel Goes West in theaters because I really like both movies.
Go back to when I sold all 100+ Bitcoin for like $5 each and tell myself “no”.
Oh fuck, I felt bad for ditching two that I got free with a domain I bought, but over a hundred?!
Said no consequences so sorry, your younger self doesn’t believe you and sells them anyway.
“Some weirdo just tried to convince me this shit will be worth millions lol. Better sell it right away and get those 200 bucks back.”
Damn
- Going back to slavery and beat some slave masters
- Meet my mom when she was younger, maybe in high school. Tell her that she seems like a lovely young lady and very smart. I don’t think she heard that enough.
- Go back to the first day I got my first cat.
- I would like to see a royal party of some kind.
- Go to a Shakespeare play while he was still alive.
- Go back to where my grandma alleges she met Bill Cosby to confirm if it’s true, and, if so, punch him because apperently he was rude as hell.
Why not do the first one in the present?
Kick my dad in the nuts on my conception night
No consequences
Option 1: Attend Stewen Hawking’s time traveller party - he likely won’t expect someone so dumb though
Option 2: Watch and experience Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia - I often hear our conservatives argue this was actually friendlyI’d definitely try to record everything in both cases.
“Warsaw pact” makes it sound like it wasn’t orchestrated by the fucking russians… It was friendly if you don’t count the tanks fire, people overrun by them, tens of thousands people displaced…
I’ve always suspected that Stephen Hawking’s time traveler party did happen and there were many people there but Hawking’s agreed to tell everyone that no one showed up.
I bet they also made a clone of Hawkings and left the clone behind and took the real him to the Future with them.
He’s probably partying in 2743 right now in an 18 year old body, surrounded by beautiful futuristic space babes with neon hair and skintight glitter clothes.
But seriously though, if someone did show up, it’s possible saying that no one did was simply required. Imagine everyone now thinking the future people will save us, and suddenly there’s no future.
But I am sure it would still have some effects because of the butterfly effect. Hey, perhaps travelling into the past creates near-infinite timelines each time with all possibilities. I mean, it would affect the time traveller himself, and something would be slightly different each time. Simple example, because of the time traveller’s presence things will go different and they will arrive at slightly different time due to which they will again arrive at a slightly different time. They may know something else, do something else, with some different effect in each time. But there’s only so much a minor thing could do.
Perhaps if Hawking admitted to the vistors, rather than an unimaginable number of similar timelines, there would simply be no… but then the visitor ceases to exist… but if they already travelled back they must have…
Fuck, I hate getting stuck thinking about time travel.
But perhaps that’s the thing, admitting to this would have perhaps resulted in some catastrophic events. But, like, how would you ensure it does not happen.OK, let’s trace it.
Time traveller goes back, returns, Hawking admits it, we’re doomed with hope, there’s no future, no time traveller to return.
But!!! They have already returned to their timeline. Maybe it doesn’t effect their timeline. Maybe they just doomed one timeline, and only one, because in that one there won’t be…
No, what the fuck, I can’t just… or would that open another timeline… No. If you can’t affect your own timeline it’s not time travel.
Crap.God damnit!!
All good answers, but the simple fact you were not self centered but curious and asked what OP would do back, made your answer great. Thank you. Up vote freely given.