Buy a cheap pistol, go back in time, and shoot Gutenberg.
We'd still be living in medieval times.
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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I support this one.
I'd kill my parents before I was born.
Easy now. You only have to kill one of them.
Where's the fun in that?
Life will find a way. Going back can be used to create nuclear winter but even then, life will go on.
To completely screw over the world, I would go into the future and acquire the source code for a general AI.
Then the world can be locked down and robots can be built to abuse every human and sentinent being individually, for a very long time.
The biggest killer for indigenous people is said to be infections - bacteria and viruses. Collect some in this time - maybe a cold - and go back and presence will be enough.
It depends on how you interpret "screw over the world", but I guess "you hate everyone" implies humans. If you go back to the first humans from Africa, before spreading out, that may have the biggest impact - significant delay or suppression in development and spread, or eradication.
Go back 1000 years before Europe makes contact with the Americas. Infect everyone and let their populations get wiped out, but give time to recover so first contact with Europe doesn't go as poorly. Also give them horses much earlier.
Bring COVID and HIV to the USA in 1929.
Maybe Zika as well.
Well current events lead me to believe that allowing the orange turd to live would do the job nicely so in the spirit of laziness I'd do absolutely nothing.
I'd sink Cortez's ship.
Go back to the stone age and drop modern steel tools and weapons where a tribe could find them. That tribe would likely become dominant and perhaps change everything.
Land the time machine on top of the first animal to walk on land. Don't even have to get out of the machine.
Kill all the chickens before humans had the chance to domesticate them
Let the Cuban missile crisis actually happen?
Go back from 2026 to 2024. Report a pet has gone missing and you heard that an immigrant neighbor ate it. Come back to 2026. Book your dream vacation at the Trump Gaza resort.
Tell Hitler to focus on Operation Sea Lion and to leave Russia alone
If I ever got sick from something like COVID, I'd just go back to medieval Europe and let it spread like wildfire. I guarantee this modern disease would absolutely wipe out a large majority of Europe and everywhere else it spreads in the world. And little to no effort besides waiting for if I ever get it (which I thankfully never have had and hope I never will).
Much more virulent diseases didn't wipe out Humanity I don't know why that one would.
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"so there's this dude named God..."
I could skip my next union meeting, I guess...
Nahhh I'm not messing up my opportunity. Im going back in time and giving John Brown kamakazi drones just before he gets to Harpers Ferry.
Give the ancient civilization ruled by the most evil ruler modern weaponry and explain how it works
Your plan fails and the proletariat rise up and seize the weapos. You return back to a world of gay space communism.
Lowkey, just travelling back may be enough with the amount of diseases we would carry with us
Stop Hitler's parents from getting together in the first place.
Re-read the question
We just found Elon’s account here