aaah, saw this in a group chat today
I mean, quite obviously acquiring bitcoin at 2010s prices would be VERY SIMPLE to get those 10 BTC.
Option 1: 10 BTC right now, do nothing, just chill, and you get the equivalent of 1.5 U.S. median house. Not revolutionary, nothing extremely special, but on top of where you're already at in life, this is a good bonus. DON'T MIND IF I DO. Nobody knows you have it (let's say?), and there's no chainalysis surveillance trace back to you.
Option 2: Go back, thankfully with the knowledge I have now.
You know the past, roughly (I'm reminded of this Beatles movie... gotta recall the songs nobody else knows!), so you have some semblance of
a) when the price will crash and the cycles,
b) how to safeguard keys, even early and weird ones like the addresses back in the day
c) where we'll ultimately go. And acquiring 10 BTC back in 2010 is child's play (economically speaking anyway, perhaps not technically or legally).
But you have to endure the development, the pain of HODLing. All your stacking will one day be revealing because, trust me, you will mess up some UTXOs... perhaps you'll be in prison, perhaps you'll be wrenched. You have to re-live your life (pretty neat, insofar as you can make new mistakes this time around!); I can't imagine what it would be like having to do teenage Den things with current Den's sarcasm and lack of patience??
While it's obvious you take the going-back option... I wonder if I'd be so depressed and so miserable that I either wouldn't make it here, or mess up and destroy my stash a few times over; maybe rage-quit around SegWit or BIP-110, ending up authoring Luke's forthcoming Spamming Bitcoin book. #1525907
Definitely option 2, no question about it. With the knowledge I have now, I would have accumulated BTC and be holding a few BTC right now, and I would have solved several existential problems!
Dreaming doesn't cost anything, does it?! Hahaha
Dude there are dozens of reasons to go back with the knowledge you already have, that have nothing to do with bitcoin!!
But there's a hidden risk. Knowing the future may change how I interact. What if I don't end up marrying the same person? Then the kids I have now will never have been born. Living with that knowledge would be insane.
Because of that, I'd probably choose 10 btc now over going back
The kids you have now would not be born, even if you marry the same person. If you have the same number of kids, they'd essentially be siblings to the kids you have now.
DON'T EVER GO BACK IN TIME (at least prior to when my daughter was born)!!!
I seriously think lethal self defense is justified against anyone plausibly about to go back in time.
unless you have a theory of time travel (which seems to be the most common one in fiction) that whatever you go back to do in the past is exactly what had already happened, so time is a closed loop and immutable
time travel is only for movies and moral questions like in this post.
even though many of the entertainment works I enjoy use it, I find it lazy and highly likely to be more shit than a narrative solution.
I mostly agree, although I'd extend it to interesting physics paradoxes.
It is usually a bad literary choice.
I forget the paradoxes, still moral dillemas
Same flavor
Which was actually the plot of last week's pretty solid Star Trek Strange New Worlds opener.
(That said, while it's common, I'd say the "changes create a new branch" and "changes actually really matter" theories also are pretty common.)
I was very pleased with the season opener, though I still wish they spent more time unpacking the dilemma like previous Star Treks would have.
In that case, my killing you to stop it was always part of what happened, so it's still the thing to do.
I mean, you'll have a different family and a different daughter. Big deal...?
(I was about to say "you won't know the difference"... But yes, you will!!)
Yeah, it is a big deal. It's like killing your kid and replacing them.
There may be no a priori reason to prefer either hypothetical kid over the other but we do tend to care about whichever one happens to be in our care.
exactly... and so by reasoning, the Undisc that goes back and has a different life will end up caring about their wife and daughter -- possibly equally to the present Undisc and his affection?
But it's the present me making the choice and the present me will do anything to protect this particular family.
true true true. And present you also understands that he's biased (no reason to favor this over that other Undisc no?). And then there's the matter of reliving our choices and, most importantly, the sizeable bitcoin stack amassable.
I dunno, man.
I might consider a 7 year time machine, except that it wouldn't be trivial to amass more than 10 bitcoin by now anyway.
Better to just add some FU money to my current situation than risk catastrophically fucking it up.
the problem is that you said we travel back while retaining our knowledge, including knowledge of your kids who no longer exist. I don't know if I could live with that knowledge. Its effects on my psychology would be unpredictable to say the least.
I never thought about it like that and I hate how right you are.
It’s one of my greatest sources of irrational existential dread
Good news is, time machines don't exist.
Iiiiinteresting. Say more, sir?
Going back! Stack a casual 50k BTC. Spend 1k a year till 2013, then spend 100 a year till 2020, then spend 10 a year till the present.
sounds... aaaah, so easy! Who's gonna take your coins for those first ~10 years?
The Silk Road of course!
B is a no-brainer for me. Yes, the bitcoin part would be great, but there are so many small things I could fix. And even medium ones - I have at least two friends I'd be able to encourage to get medical attention before it got too late.
ouch... that got terrible, quite fast. I'm sorry to hear that
Sorry, I wasn't trying for a downer here! In the span of sixteen years, I suspect many folks my age have lost a few people (but there's always been more good times than bad).
what have you found were the best ways to get through all that? Asking, incidentally, for a friend.
I don't know if there's one good answer, because every situation (and friendship) is different, but in the cases where I lost someone suddenly, I focused on spending time with shared love ones (we had a couple of what were essentially Irish wakes), and spending focusing on the memories. In one case, we planted a rosebush in our garden because it shares a name with a lost friend.
When my wife lost her best friend, she eventually got into the habit of writing her a note every Sunday evening in her journal, and it's worked well for her.
In cases where you know it's coming, at risk of going full cliche, embrace the time you can spend together, and make sure they know how much you care.
incredible. I shall experiment with something similar
the past is the past.
that scammer definitely loaded that blue pill with anesthetics to steal my kidney.
"Here’s the address to transfer the 10 BTC…”
If I could go back, I'd have 10 gigga BTC, not just 10.
Naturally
10 BTC now. No question.
The Butterfly Effect in all its glory... I could go back to the past, but... what if my greed prevents me from being the person I am now? What if I go back and die? What if I go back and circumstances don't allow me to meet my wife, and I don't have my children...? Wow... it's nice to think about having what we have now. Be happy in your present and focus on your future; the past is there to be learned from.
Been there done that.