You can go back in time, what would you do?

[Not-here-anymore]

Hmm... Naturally I'd buy stock in Apple, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and a number of other electronics/software giants before they become huge, and leave the information about my time-travelling with a trustworthy accountant, so he can maintain my portfolio.

I'd also make sure that the convention for electrical charge is reversed, so that it follows the actual physical principles. Current flowing from negative to positive is silly!

Oh, and I'd make sure to appear in photos from a number of historical events, just to see if anyone notices that I'm always there.

 

[WolfThomas]

I'd never go back further than my birth. I've these paranoid fear that going back further will set off a butterfly effect where I may not be born, this doesn't necessarily mean my parents wouldn't have a child but the odds are they'd be slightly different to me.

I'm loathe to interfere we events simply because it may make me a completely different person. But I'd go back to the right moment and invest in companies like google and facebook, making myself a billionare setting all the money up in a secret trust which I'll access at the time I come back. I'd probably use it to cheat exams, copy the test, study the answer in the days beforehand.

Do we have the option of going forward in time? Because then I'd jump forward by decades till there's technology I can bring back to be a superhero with (which I buy with my fortune).

 

[New Frontiersman]

If I could do one thing I think I would go to see Martin Luthor King's "I Have a Dream" speech, then if I could I would try and show him footage from Barack Obama's innaguration. I don't know why but I think it would be a nice thing to do, to show him that his dream came true.

 

[DJDarque]

I would just go back and see all the acient architecture from any possible culture. I would be a time tourist.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

Kill my biological grandfather before my biological father's conception.

 

[Tartarga]

I would warn John Lennon of the treachery of Yoko Ono. Only I would do it 15 years before he met her just to be a dick.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Travel back to NASA in 1969, watch the Moon landing, and tell them DO NOT ERASE THESE GOD DAMN TAPES! Seriously why would they do that? It wouldn't efffect History too much, but it would make the world cooler.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/back_to_the_future.jpg

 

[Manicotti]

I have two issues with this that need clarification:

1) CAN you go back forward into time? You never mentioned this, so I assumed you couldn't. And I would really hate to be stuck in 800 BC or wherever I went.

2) Do you retain whatever knowledge you have from the future? Because if so, the only thing I want to do is go back to high school and redo my entire education.

 

[movienut]

Following what Manicotti said, if we assume we can move back and forth at will and retain all knowledge I think it would be cool to go back to the Greek archaic period and have a chat with Socrates. I have a personal theory that he was the grumpiest old bust body ever and I want to know if I was right.

 

[Bonus Punctuation]

I'd try to prove Greek mythology right, 'cause Greek mythology kicks ass!

 

[ProfessorLayton]

I would meet Voltaire. And just talk to him. I'd also probably meet George Orwell. You know, I would just meet all of my favorite people from history.

 

[Mr.Petey]

Nothing because I would probably end up ruining the present.

Yup same here. I'd look but not touch, not interact with anybody and just observe things from a local library and out "in the field" to take notes, videos and photos to take back to the present.
There are some aspects of our timeline that are in sore need of documentation so this could help humanity learn further from our greatest mistakes and most powerful achievements

 

[RandallJohn]

In all honesty, I'd tell my past self to stop wasting my life, to own my identity, and to not take everything I am told to be true.

 

[biggles1]

Assuming just being there wouldn't alter the future/create an alternate universe/explode the universe I would like to bring my friends to see some of the great events, people and building of the past, as well as see what the future holds for humanity. however a history of time would be useful, I dont want to materialise in the middle of a nuclear war.....

 

[teutonicman]

Serious: Ensure I get an awesome mark on everyone of my engineering courses.
Silly: See how everything started.

 

[tehfeen83]

Print off the scripts to loads of old blockbuster movies, put my name on them, then travel back in time to hollywood yesteryear and become a movie mogul.

 

[Bruin]

Get a truckload of AK47s and ammo, head back to Rome before the Goths were preparing to invade, give whatever soldiers were still there the weapons, show them how to use them and save humanity a millennia and a half worth of innovation.

We'd a peaceful planet, if the Romans had continued expanding.

Something we'd all be grateful for. Ample food, water, civilized conditions everywhere...

Under the condition that it reverted to a Republic.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

i wouldnt actually do anything, ive seen enough sci fi to know not to

but i would like to see historical stuff happening, like what my family members were like before i was born.

or meet important figures like ghandi or churchill or einstein.

 

[liongurly]

I would go back two years and slap myself in the face.