I’d have picked 40 years if it had been an option. My 17 year old self and my present self could have some truly interesting conversations. And going 40 years forward in time would give me the chance to know my son as more or less a contemporary.
Since that wasn’t a choice, I went with 25 years. My 32 year old self and I could not only have some decent conversations, but we might even share a girlfriend or two for awhile. And 25 years forward would still expand the time I’d get to be able to spend with my son during his adulthood.
Well, at least insulin has been available so as long as I can stay within 25-40 years in the US I would be reasonably fine. I know what I am supposed to eat, and without the metformin and januvia and old school 2 part insulin I can cope. I lived through the past 49 years, so I know I can cope with the past just fine. I can join a typing pool, or data entry onto punch cards. My shorthand is mostly forgotten but I can get it back fairly fast. I learned to type on an old underwood manual and have lots of experience on the old selectrics. I can even operate the ancient switchboard and a teletype - though I would need a refresher course with the old patchcord switchboards.
All I need is a job for a few months to get some money to start investing with. If I can do the sneaky thing and bring a world almanac sort of book with sports winners I could do a little light betting, nothing really major. I know enough to avoid the dot com fail and the housing bubble fail. I also know to avoid enron like the plague =)
Don’t worry about the “killing your grandparents” type paradoxes. if you do something that would normally wipe out your own timeline, you will still exist, but your memories will be of a timeline that doesn’t exist any more as far as anyone else is concerned. Screw with history all you want.
Remember to check the dates printed on anything you take with you, including currency.
If you pick 25 years and happen to shoot forward in time, stay the hell away from Stamford, Connecticut. The Intelligent iPhone Insurrection was a nasty piece of work, I tell you.
This was the reason I opted to carry cash instead of just having my bank issue a cashier’s check. I figured that one would be a little hard to explain if I got sent into the past.
My initial thought was that most people aren’t going to look at the dates on the bills. But then I realized how our currency has been redesigned in recent years. That could definitely complicate things.
But antiques stores have old currency going back several decades, and, at least in the US, it is not terribly expensive for bills 50ish years old and all of it is still 100% legal tender. Nowadays, I find enough old currency in circulation that, if I wanted to, I could probably save up a few hundred dollars in 1980’s or before currency in a year if I really and truly wanted to, by switching to cash for everything (withdraw your entire paycheck in cash, separate out any old bills, spend the rest, filter change for old bills, filing them away, etc.). Spend the rest of the cash (newish bills) on everything - housing, utilities (might need to visit a facility or get a money order), food, gas, vacations, etc. Cash cash cash!
If you’re going to a time and place that uses currency that is now obsolete or demonetized, it’s even easier, since you can gobble it up on the antiques market at whatever it’s collectible value is. US currency, however old, is legal tender and isn’t going to go for anything less than it’s face value since legally it can be used just like modern money.
I really would be scared to go forward at all, but I think my curiosity of whether the machine worked might let me go for one year. Hopefully, I would go back, and I would be prepared accordingly with information about this year that could help me be better off by the time I’m back to this date.
Then again, I might just wait and see if I’m around to tell myself whether I’ll go backward: this seems to be a paradox friendly universe.
It’s a tough call. I don’t want to go far in the past. 100 years would be the max, and it still doesn’t sound too pleasant. 1911? I’d have to wait 8 years to bet against the Black Sox. I might remember a Derby winner if I saw the names, but that’s about it. I’d have no idea what to invest in, if I even brought money with me. And how much gold could I carry anyway? And at current prices I’d lose a fortune as soon as I arrived.
So what about the future? Well 100 years from now there might be nothing but the glowing ashes that remained from WWIII. Or maybe the world is under the control of an Islamic Sultanate. And what would I do when I got there? I doubt I have skills that will be useful in the 22nd century.
So I took the safe route, +/- 25 years. I could make money in the stock market and technology in 1986. 2037? Well who knows. It has less chance of being disastrous than further into the future.
When it actually happens, I might be feeling impetuous that day and go for the 1000 years.
BigT has a good point though. One year in the future isn’t that far, and if you go back and don’t like it, you only have to wait a year to take another shot. Unless this is one of those parallel universe type time machines, and you might go back one year to a universe where no time machine ever gets invented.
Ignoring the fact that I wouldn’t abandon my family – if it was just me, I would take 50 years. The 1960s were pretty good times if you were a middle aged white male, which I am, and with just a little research I could make good money with the right investments and wagering.
And on the flip side, 2061 should be pretty cool but not completely unrecognizable.