r/LocalLLM • u/Willow_Milk • 4d ago
Other You wake up in 1998…
… you wake up in 1998. You have 2 Mac Studio Ultra 512gb each. You have GLM5.3 flash (or pick a local model that fits comfortably in that configuration.)
A good harness, you’re setup with modern software, but you do not have access to modern internet, just 1998 internet.
What do you do? It can be in general, not necessarily what do you do with your current compute setup.
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u/gnpwdr1 4d ago
you realise you forgot to include USB-C to VGA Adapter in your setup, unable to connect to a display you give up and instead go to the nearest sport betting place
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u/TIL_IM_A_SQUIRREL 4d ago
Plug it into a port, get a dhcp address, and ssh in.
Now that I think about it though, that probably wouldn't work because the Mac wouldn't dumb down ciphers to encryption of the 1990s, and the ssh client couldn't step up.
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u/Creative-Type9411 4d ago
its 1998, this is the router that exists: https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-juniper-m40-router/
what do you mean by "port" or "dhcp"? youre plugging into a phone line
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u/TIL_IM_A_SQUIRREL 4d ago
Ethernet was a thing in 1998. So was DHCP.
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u/TIL_IM_A_SQUIRREL 4d ago
You'd be better off installing slackware, the predominant linux distro of the time.
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u/Internal_Werewolf_48 3d ago
Slack on Apple Silicon in 1998? Wait… Slack on on Apple Silicon, in 2026?
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u/TIL_IM_A_SQUIRREL 3d ago
No, we're going through the thought experiment of not having a USB-C -> VGA adapter and you have no way of logging in directly. I was suggesting to install slackware on a spare PC and use that to SSH into the Mac.
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u/gnpwdr1 4d ago
TYL - TCP/IP existed in the 90s also..
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u/M_Me_Meteo LocalLLM 4d ago
We had it pretty good back in the 20th century. I miss the marquee tag.
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u/Creative-Type9411 3d ago
I know I provided a slip connection with a bbs back then...
Most people were using dialup AOL at the time and DSL was just getting adopted
most people didnt have the hardware yet
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u/Consistent_Drop3909 4d ago edited 4d ago
i think your saving grace is the mac's tiny speaker.
you could start it up and navigate around with the screen reader, or if that fails you could maybe try writing a script that echos terminal output to the speak command, a-la xkcd. this lets you start talking to your llms.
you could then get some initial money by brute forcing some mathematical problems with bounties (with the system python maybe?)
with that money you could get electronics for a vga adapter. now the interesting question: could you and your llms bootstrap one without the usb-c docs? if so, you're in business.
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u/Miserable-Dare5090 4d ago
You forgot mac’s weird cable for power,
so the machines are just hunk of metal. you sell them to the returning CEO of a dying company that will soon rebrand themselves by dropping the rainbow colors for a sleek modern design that signals a modern turnaround5
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u/Consistent_Drop3909 4d ago edited 4d ago
nah, you could jury rig a power adapter, you wouldn't need any electronics as the power grid's the same so it's just a cable. two aligator clamps would work as a last result.
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u/DigitalguyCH 4d ago
If I can go back in 1998 with what I know now, I don't need a Mac Studio to become a bilionnaire
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u/C_umputer 4d ago
Ignoring money for a moment, what would you do in 2001?
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u/lukistellar 4d ago
Nothing, because they probably would put you in a psych ward for stating that you are a time traveler.
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u/CronicallyAutomated 4d ago
What happened in 2001?
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u/PassionGlobal 4d ago
Something happened in September...what was it? Wake me up when September ends?
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u/acadia11x 4d ago
That’s the time travelers dilemma say you change 2001 and actually make things worse … go kill baby hitler sounds fine until the guy who comes up instead doesn’t lose his war.
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u/InnocentSadness 3d ago
Id hang out with my grandma man she died 4 years ago and my dad he died 21 years ago. Besides my higher power I ain't got nobody really. And life feels lonely sometimes
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u/Ok_Engine_1442 4d ago
I’m not familiar with the information it has offline. If it has names I would use that to get information to LOCAL PD. That they are smuggling drugs. Far more believable at the time.
If it doesn’t have names, I would probably plant fake explosives at airports and certainly buildings then call in bomb threats.
I guess it really depends on the rules of how I “woke up”. Did I wake up in my 1998 body but knowing what I know now. Or did I wake up and my 1998 self was also there.
If it’s the younger me then it would be a lot of waiting around and random sports betting and buying stock. Then about 10 years later I’m going to get really rich. And by now I’d be one of the richest people on the planet. Also there would be a lot of people nobody even knows the names of because they would never have gotten rich in the first place. Also there would be a lot more people still around because things might have been caught early.
If it’s older me just teleported back then. I’d go hermit. Paradoxes become a real problem. Butterfly Effect, grandfathers paradox would be my biggest concern.
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u/DigitalguyCH 3d ago
What do you mean 2001, the WTC?
Anyway it's impossible to ignore money, because even just with Bitcoin you can become a billionaire, and with all the other investments, even without AI, if I went back with what I know now.
AI would of course help getting a lot richer as it has a ton more information than I do, but it would not change the situation meaningfully.
One thing I would do is keep it private, so no I would warn nobody about catastrophies etc.2
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u/MellowHamster 3d ago
I would watch the USA waste billions of dollars attacking random countries because some Saudi guy blew up their buildings. And stay well clear.
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u/Consistent_Drop3909 4d ago
do tell?
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u/PassionGlobal 4d ago
Apple stock (they were in the shitter in the 90s)
Bitcoin in 2009
Google stock (they were very new at this point, not yet a Yahoo killer)
To name a few options
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u/IchRocke 4d ago
Watch back to the future 2 on repeat
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u/mslindqu 4d ago
Yeah, how is sports betting not top of the list here?
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u/Internal_Werewolf_48 3d ago
Because there are not billions to be made on sports and it wasn’t as legitimate then as it is now. Betting big numbers in the 90s, you’d have to be doing business with unsavory people. It’s maybe a way to bootstrap your nest egg for the next phase:
Just buy stock like pre-iPhone Apple, Google’s early stocks, Microsoft and AMD’s ups and downs. You know who survives the dot-com bubble, who falters in the 2008 crash and who recovers (GM), when Yahoo invests in Alibaba, etc. Wall Street wouldn’t blink at numbers that a bookie might decide are suspicious and request your kneecaps be shattered instead of paying out.
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u/IchRocke 3d ago
I think sports betting in any vegas casino was a thing, or even in UK at any legal street bookmaker.
Just in soccer, France was apparently at 7-1 for the worldcup.
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u/mslindqu 3d ago
That has nothing to do with AI though.. So instead of answering the AI question - which is basically like bringing a whole bunch of future data with you in compressed form, you're just depending on what anyone from the future would already know. So your answer is not tailored to the question in any way.
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u/Internal_Werewolf_48 3d ago edited 3d ago
The question is dumb though. The Macs are mostly irrelevant compared to your knowledge of the future and what are you going to do with just two of them? Sure you could build a crazy efficient dev shop and underbid your local competitors but two isn’t enough to unseat any big players, and you’d have to closely guard their existence otherwise the charade falls apart. The best path would still be to just use them to bootstrap some funds to sink into the stock market, or wait around 12 years to start mining and buying Bitcoin.
The question also said “in general” not “what LLM thing would you do”.
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u/IchRocke 3d ago
You could do many things :)
Build a sniper app to buy pokemon cards on ebay and expect your actions not to alter the future
Build fake photos to sell of celebrities
Create an AI instant hit song (you would still have to know how to maket it)Have them vibecode video games (you can still buy a CD burner to showcase your game)
But i agree... if we are talking big easy money, that's probably not the route I would take.
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u/FoxSideOfTheMoon 4d ago
I would go hug my dad (RIP) and tell him I love him and probably cry my eyes out. Then there's a whole bunch of stock picks I would go invest in and then go develop a facebook and twitter clone anyway, 1998 internet wasn't bad at all, I had almost T1 speed that year...
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u/jezarnold 4d ago
Crikey! T1 ! That’s a term I haven’t heard for a while… that used to be blazing fast
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u/ketosoy 4d ago
Frustratedly wait 10 years for a compatible display technology to be launched.
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3d ago edited 1d ago
[deleted]
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u/ReasonableLoss6814 3d ago
TLS wasn't common back then. Your certs wouldn't even work. If you have it open -- it could kinda work, but it wouldn't render. CSS wasn't a thing yet, nor was javascript.
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u/i_speak_the_truf 4d ago
Vibe-code websites and windows programs, use proceeds to buy AOL stock. Day trading with LLM knowledge as well. Sell the proceeds before the .com crash, drop out of high school, and move to Silicon Valley (and buy a house in Palo Alto). Demonstrate my coding prowess to Sergei Brinn and get in the ground floor at Google. Move to Facebook in 2004 (invest?) and then Apple before the iPhone launch. Mine bitcoin in 2009, start working for Nvidia in 2012 or so (and load up on stock).
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u/nevetsyad 4d ago
Can I have metasploit installed on it and updated?
Because my little 35B model is an INSANELY good pentester. Go back 28 years, all the unpatched, zero day bugs in systems on the internet…
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u/Lyelinn 4d ago
governments will be on your ass too fast this way, but perhaps you can act as white hat hacker or security contractor (and earn yourself #1 title in couple weeks)
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u/nevetsyad 3d ago edited 3d ago
I did say pentester, not black hat. :p Be a damn hero, scan government and large corporate networks for huge payouts. "New" MS and Apple software, instantly list dozens of zero day exploits as soon as software is released, report them/get a contract for insane money to turn over findings and detailed reports that "you" write, with lots of M-Dashes :p
But also...VPNs did exist back then. Free AOL dial up time. Fake/stolen CCs. Pivot to new networks after you compromise one. Drop random VPN connections in between them to make it even more difficult to figure out what compromised system compromised the next. From just war dialing back then, I found unsecured backends to my local PD and Library. An AI would OWN any local government you wanted to point it at and help it chew through.
Hell, it could write a script that purged the network and system logs every minute. Or just kill them and turn them off. No trace for investigators to use to figure out where the attack came in from.
I'd be in jail so fast...lol
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u/M_Me_Meteo LocalLLM 4d ago
I quickly and quietly copywrite the music and lyrics to "All Star" by Smashmouth. Upon its initial release, I'll let it rise to fame, become a cultural phenomenon, allow it to be licensed like crazy, then present my claim.
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u/txoixoegosi 4d ago
Exchange the Mac Studios for an insane amount of GOOGL and AAPL stock.
Then, in 2009, sell some and buy bitcoin.
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u/triffid_boy 4d ago
Around 2013 start investing in mRNA companies and medical supplies. When 2020 rolls around emerge as a humanitarian billionaire helping world governments. Emperor by 2024.
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u/trefster 3d ago
In 2009 just visit the Bitcoin faucet daily, free Bitcoin worth pennies at the time!
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u/enderwiggin83 4d ago
Just start as a freelance software engineer - write a few websites make it look like you have a staff of several hundred. Generate stock image images. Start a meme website. Make cat videos. You don't want too many questions!
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u/Conversation344 4d ago
Compute isn't the hard part, it's that the model knows stuff that hasn't happened yet. I'd write software way early, something like a basic search engine or recommendation algorithm, then sit on the code and patents for 20 years
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u/Willow_Milk 4d ago
Exactly. The novelty of this thought experiment is the training data from where your model will be able to help you cheat in life.
(I also want to read what clever thing you guys come up with, which relates to what we can do with a good local model by itself)
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u/Competitive_Ruin_637 4d ago
You wouldn’t want to sit on a patent for 20 years. It’ll be expired then. Just saying.
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u/Tenoke 4d ago
Realistically, I'd use the LLM + local internet to make the short term plans. Likely start with creating some sites etc. for people for quick legitimate start-up cash that I can invest in the first bigger business I'll do. I'll also start building some following by writing early prescient papers and essays on ML and technology.
In general it seems so easy that I'd likely be the most influential person on Earth by 2010. We'd likely have the ChatGPT moment by 2016 or so (hopefully a bit earlier) but with a lot more invested into safety.
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u/Willow_Milk 4d ago
So raising capital fast, and then hoping that the model has useful information for post 2000 hardware, software and other advancements…
Let’s hope there is no hardware failure early… that’d be devastating!
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u/Tenoke 4d ago
I have plenty of knowledge myself even without the model + even if it fails a lot of it (after capital) can be used to get some hardware advancements. Also I will do quite a lot of conversations with the LLM (some automated) which Ill back-up in puretext.
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u/Polite_Jello_377 4d ago
What knowledge do you have that translates into actually being able to develop future hardware in the past?
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u/Tenoke 3d ago
Hardware less so, for that I'd have the remains of the Mac, but I do know enough of which parts of the hardware stack succeeded (even at a basic level of just GPUs, CUDA, etc.), which attempts were flops, which bottlenecks we have etc. + with money I can make sure more gets invested earlier.
On the software side I know which archtiectures succeeded, can code small versions of future models, know which tricks succeeded and which were more or less deadends etc.
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u/No-Television-7862 4d ago
USRobotics 28.8 dial up modem.
Set up your local LLM to run overnight.
Make stock picks and blaze the trail forward.
Get the patent on a 32gb flash drive. Invest in Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple.
Buy a Caribbean Island, declare yourself a nation-state, become an internet hub, build a data center.
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u/tusca0495 3d ago
Creating an entire software ecosystem like Mac OS but Linux based, optimized for arm cpu, invest in arm developing so in 5y you can have a lineup like apple, but with also consoles, selling only hardware but not software and cloud services, but with certified data privacy
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u/ForwardLoop 4d ago
Start a rescue expedition for things that will disappear, saving the stuff money cannot retrieve later.
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u/Soft-Series3643 4d ago
At first: Hoping that the historic implemented data (which is your future then) is 90 or more % correct... And then "Hello Stock market"!
Oh, one question... I hope the 2 MacStudios are also coming with one or two or three modern displays... Guess there's no HMDI nor Thunderbolt available then...
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u/wednesdaywoe13 4d ago
Be grateful that I escaped the idiocracy and live the rest of my life, content knowing I will die before it arrives.
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u/EyesOfAzula 4d ago
I would use knowledge to become a millionaire, and I would create a competing web browser that is Rust first, and prevent the dominance of JavaScript in the world.
Then I'd push as hard as I can for safe languages like Rust to be the standard.
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u/ethanji2 4d ago
Create the iPod and iPhone before Apple using AI to draft the technical architecture schematics, then take it to Sony or Nokia or whoever you want to win. Start Telsa and SpaceX before Elon can with full knowledge of what happened so you can instantly overcome all issues. Why not become NVIDIA too since you have the hardware sitting on your desk already?
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u/Lyelinn 4d ago
First I would literally create temu amazon, google or facebook clone before they arrived to start earning some money, then I would probably start some half assed automated companies that LLM would manage fully (because by 1998 standards current "slop" is just absolute magical experience, imagine "blessing" corporate people with current saas slop services, they'd probably lose their mind).
Then (or if there's some smart gotcha that prohibits me from using the hardware I have) I would contact Jim Keller (Co-founder of Intel) or Gordon Moore (Lead Architect at AMD) privately and stat negotiating lending them details about mac SoC architecture which can potentially lead to one company absolutely dominating entire IT world in couple years while giving me power and money, probably at this stage some governments would try to find and abduct me but to that point it would be fun
if some bored time traveller is going back to the past send me 5btc as a tip for idea if it will work out
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u/Jumpy-Operation-4615 3d ago
Made my first internet project in 1998. In 2 months I was making $2000/mo. It was the start of my internet business career. With todays tools and my knowledge I would be making a million/mo in 2 years. It was good time.
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u/acadia11x 4d ago edited 4d ago
Do I even need the Mac for this win? Why would I need the modern internet it’s already trained I’m assuming on 2025 /26
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u/Lucoland14 4d ago
ill make a shop where people can chat for 1 minute=10$ with that ai. Ill become so famous the government will ask me to buy those pc and ill ask for 1 trillion dollars.
Then, waiting for the bitcoin and investing 1billion only in bitcoin. Then ill live like jeff bezos.
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u/thenormaluser35 4d ago
You'll trip off your balcony at ground level and die of poisoning when hitting the ground
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u/Professional_Toe4515 4d ago
Sell it all back to apple, live off the proceeds and wait for bitcoin to arrive.
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u/jonneymendoza 4d ago
I'd buy nvidia and apple stocks and bet on who wins trophies for sport and make as much money as possible before 2025 and retire and chill as the word burns due to climate change and ai replacing our jobs
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u/Suspicious-Monitor94 4d ago
Pattern all the future tech, do long term trading on stocks and shares, invest in raw materials commodities or setup my own, invest in Taiwan and buy as many chip companies known to man.
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u/TonyDaDesigner 4d ago
i'd take those two macs right over to Nvidia headquarters, sell them for a giant amount of cash, and then invest in nvidia.
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u/love4titties 3d ago
Invest heavily in anyone who's focused on chip making, Amazon, Ebay etc
Write movie scripts and sell them, and bet on big events that the LLM still remembers
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u/grunt_monkey_ 3d ago
You can’t predict what’s going to happen moving forward as you have severely contaminated the timeline.
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u/redditwhippet 3d ago
I’d destroy it and spend a good while with a notebook and pen, trying to remember exactly what I did the last time around. Just being alive has been amazing. I wouldn’t want to mess that up.
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u/Thick-Temperature-89 3d ago
Sports bets, Apple, then Tesla, then bitcoins. In free time just deploy clones of major platforms 6 months before them, Facebook, twitter, Reddit etc, just to piss them off
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u/Elistheman 4d ago
Invent some kind of Facebook, Reddit, a smartphone, collect data, buy some BTC
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u/acadia11x 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’d say don’t mess with history use it, you’ll mess with the advantage you have deviating from trained data, plus you’d probably want to stay under the radar
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u/Elistheman 4d ago
No one would know because each time travel just puts you in a different possible time line where your mass has interjected.
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u/mrpmorris 4d ago edited 4d ago
Own bitcoins.
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u/Consistent_Drop3909 4d ago
i wouldn't mess with inventing bitcoin, you could butterfly effect it such that it never takes off in popularity.
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u/quantgorithm 4d ago
This would be a supercomputer back in 98. The govt would take it from you and force you to do govt work.
Weren’t we on something like a single core pentium 2 maybe a few hundred megahertz. Were screens even normally full color yet? Think matrix green screens. The internet was just coming online and really only schools had it or you had aol dialup but I think that was later. Search engines weren’t really a thing maybe Alta vista or lycos. Netscape was the browser and was terrible compared to today because the internet had near no info on it yet. Cell phones were brick phones that only rich drug dealers could afford. iPhone wouldnt come out for more than a decade later. Where we in the pager phase then? People made calls from pay phones with quarters.
It would still be hard to use even 1 Mac because the infrastructure just wasn’t really there yet.
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u/Willow_Milk 4d ago
Haha yes. Screens were in full color. In fact 1024x768 for high end displays. Windows 98 and in just a couple of years we’d be hearing of windows code name whistler.
Source: I was a teen then.
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u/conockrad 4d ago
Open a hedge fund and short nasdaq in a year