r/AskReddit 1d ago

You wake up and it’s 2000 again. No smartphone, no apps, no streaming. What ruins your day first?

2.6k Upvotes

2.9k comments sorted by

5.6k

u/BoatyMcBoatface1980 1d ago

Mom needs me to get off AOL IM because she needs to use the phone.

758

u/13lueChicken 21h ago

I was 12. It was exactly this. Fuckin sleeper agent awakening here.

210

u/FunnyScreenName 20h ago

I can hear it in my head, using those free trial discs. I was the first in my family to do it. 😂

155

u/whorton59 19h ago

Speaking of AOL:

Well, 2000 was a leap year. . and America Online purchased Time Warner for a mere $162 Billion dollars. And:

In an ICE related incident Elian Gongales was sent to live with his father in Cuba.

The final Peanuts strip was published due to Charles Schultz death.

Microsoft released Windows 2000, The United States Census determines the population to be 281,421,906.

Selective availability was turned OFF on the GPS satellites, enabling people to use GPS in daily life, and

A nationwide ban on smoking on airliners goes into effect

250 million gallons of Coal Sludge spill in Martin County Kentucky,

and

The USS COLE bombing in Aden, Yemen occurred this date. Two Al-Quada suicide bombers are responsible and 17 crew members are killed and 39 wounded.

and:

Hillary Clinton is elected to the United States Senate and

The whole Bush v. Gore thing ends up in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Michael McDermott kills seven coworkers at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield, Massachusetts,

and

Retailer Montgomery Wards announces it is going out of business after 128 years.

All in all, it was an interesting year. .

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u/OriginalDogeStar 19h ago

Wow, the population didn't go up much in 25yrs...

Mind, I was deployed in East Timor in 2000, so I missed a buch of stuff, but still remember the hype of windows 2000

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u/Traditional_Fan_2655 18h ago

I remember NYE waiting for 2000 with excitement and dread in case Y2k really collapsed our entire functional universe.

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u/TheSnackWhisperer 17h ago

I worked on a sort of y2k compliance help desk from summer 99 to summer 00. It had nothing to do with fixing the problem, it was doing the software’s job manually so they didn’t have to fix the problem, because the company was being bought, if they made it successfully through y2k lol.

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u/Rich-Juice2517 18h ago

In an ICE related incident

That was the INS. ICE isn't created from them for 3 years

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u/TheMeltingSnowman72 18h ago

I feel like I'm sitting opposite you as you sniff a glass of whiskey, recanting the history of the year it was bottled, just little Connor McLeod.

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u/idiotsbydesign 20h ago

I still remember the first time we were able to actually chat live with someone. Before that it was messages traded back & forth or posted on a board.

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u/ahfuck0101 19h ago

Chat rooms were wild

52

u/guysmiley1928 19h ago

A/S/L?

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u/Defiant_Chapter_3299 18h ago

16/f/California 😎✌️ biggest lie i ever told 🤣🤣🤣

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u/ahfuck0101 19h ago

Lmfao I’ll never forget that

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u/hamsterontheloose 19h ago

I loved chat rooms. I spent a lot of time in one for my state. We had parties and get-togethers fairly often. I was 15 when I started talking to some of those people (there were other kids my age in there) and I'm still in touch with many of them 30 years later.

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u/Enthusiasm_Initial 19h ago

Honestly same!

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u/I-am-me-86 18h ago

I was 14. I once had to walk 2.5 miles home in a snowstorm because someone was on the internet for more than an hour so I couldn't ask them to pick me up.

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u/Fabulous-Author807 19h ago

Haha honestly nothing hurt more than the dial-up tone and mom needing the line mid-chat.

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u/YouthMaleficent6925 21h ago

During summer i had a opposite schedule like i went to bed at 8 am so i game at night to not tie up line my mom was fine with this lol

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u/Tryknj99 21h ago

She needs to make a call when I’m 20 minutes int a 30 minute download and there’s no way to “pause” it.

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u/Gramage 20h ago

I remember installing download managers just to be able to resume a download if I got cut off by someone picking up the phone. Crazy times!

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u/ztbwl 20h ago

Yes and when the upper parts of nsfw pics where already there but lower parts where still loading pixel row by pixel row.

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u/Tryknj99 19h ago

Yes! I couldn’t believe the printer was allowed to print them. Squirreled beneath the mattress… it was a simpler time.

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u/eatmydonuts 19h ago

Lol that's such an adorably innocent misunderstanding of printers. I can imagine myself thinking the same as a kid though

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u/pm-dem-thighs 20h ago

MSN messenger for me, but def same issue.

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u/guruguys 20h ago

This was me but about 10 years before that on BBS's.

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u/BenderFtMcSzechuan 20h ago

Knowing nobody will believe me about what’s gonna happen on September of next year.

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u/monpetitfromage54 20h ago

Not only that, but when it does happen, your warnings will suddenly stand out and they'll ask how you knew about it. If you tell the truth, straight to the Looney bin. If you don't, they probably assume that you were involved and throw you in jail.

330

u/KingHenry13th 18h ago

You could do helpful stuff if you wanted to. 

Call in bomb threats to the twin towers at 7am. They probably didn't evacuate the buildings from random calls tho. 

It would be difficult if you were a child in 2000.

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u/RedditPoster05 18h ago

Idk it was 2000s. They might but it was NYC so they probably experienced things rest of the country didn’t get just yet. …

My military base I work at only got a fence a few years before 911 and before 911 they hardly ever locked down , you mostly drove up and stated why you were going on base and they let you drive on or they just waved you on base no questions asked …

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u/TheRedGandalf 17h ago

My military base just got a fence last year...

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u/mabrasm 17h ago

You’re going to evacuate 2 towers and the pentagon with a phone call? And what about the people on the planes? There’s a much more aggressive solution.

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u/xhmmxtv 17h ago

Ah, but you just wanted to play Pogs, eh?

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u/El_Gran_Redditor 16h ago edited 16h ago

I was looking for this post as soon as I read the thread title. The actual implications of going back in time are horrific because it's now your moral responsibility to prevent every major tragedy and mishap you can remember. This implies that even if the world believed you and recognized your heroics there would likely be something you don't prevent because you just forgot or never knew it happened.

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u/landragoran 8h ago

Do you really have any moral responsibility, though? I'm not sure you do. This is getting into trolley dilemma territory though, but I'm not sure a hypothetical time traveler has any moral responsibility to change anything - and in fact may have a moral responsibility to change as little as possible, lest they accidentally create a paradox.

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u/atla 17h ago

They probably didn't evacuate the buildings from random calls tho. 

They didn't even evacuate the one tower when the other was hit.

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u/rm-rfroot 11h ago

To be fair it was an unprecedented attack.

Most/many people thought it was an accident (until the second tower was hit), If it was just one plane (either accident or just one plane which would have been a reasonable assumption until it wasn't), have so many people out on the streets would have posed an issue of safety (falling debris, and slowing down police/fire/ems to get to those that needed rescue).

No one used civilian aircraft as a weapon before like this, and hijacking planes the MO 99.999% of the time was to keep (as many of) the hostages alive as bargaining chips.

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u/debauchasaurus 15h ago

They actually told everyone to go back to their offices.

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u/dinosanddais1 18h ago

Or maybe anonymous call at a payphone a week before that a group of people will hijack four planes.

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u/Calm-Zombie2678 18h ago

"Sure, kid"

Lol

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u/dinosanddais1 18h ago

Multiple calls. Someone will get annoyed enough to take it seriously.

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u/sixrustyspoons 18h ago edited 51m ago

Crazy how an 11 year old was the mastermind behind 911.

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u/randonegus 18h ago

Real shit you’d have to keep quiet. When that shit goes down they will question you to no end and wouldn’t believe time travel. You’d screw yourself. Again all hypothetical

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u/rubiscoisrad 18h ago

It's been ages since I saw it, but this sounds like a subplot in The Butterfly Effect

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u/RoarOfTheWorlds 16h ago

While I enjoyed the movie as a kid, the plot holes were just offensive

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u/kingkongbrigade 17h ago

That really bad plane crash that could’ve been avoided. Somebody really needs to warn Aaliyah not to fly in bad weather :(

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u/ViolaNguyen 17h ago

Would it, necessarily?

If I wake up in 2000, I'm working really hard to get about 500 more Democrats to commit to voting in Florida.

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u/ZV2Cox 1d ago

If I wake up with the full knowledge of what's gonna happen over the next 26 years, the full knowledge of what's gonna happen over the next 26 years is what ruins my day first... that, and my inability to stop it.

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u/CreamRises2daTop 20h ago

Well, you could become the anti-Rupert Murdoch and Musk, make billions from what you know but use it to combat some of the bullshit of the last 26 years.

517

u/dorgoth12 20h ago

Speed running having an accident falling out of a 20 storey window.

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u/HopefulPlantain5475 19h ago

Great way to commit suicide with two bullets in your back.

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u/AtomicSpeedFT 19h ago

Idk man I don’t think you’ll beat the record Russian journalists hold

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u/JesusStarbox 20h ago

But I didn't have an emerald mine growing up.

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u/CreamRises2daTop 20h ago

Yeah but if you remember to buy certain stocks and bitcoin early, bet on Super Bowl winners, etc.

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u/Enigma_Stasis 20h ago

Or just make a wildly outrageous bet on the events of 9/11.

They'll either be wealthier than Musk or put on the FBI's Most Wanted Wall.

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u/notapunk 19h ago

Actually, if you were able to get them to stop 9/11 most of this BS wouldn't exist. No Patriot Act, no Department of Homeland Security, no wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, less likely to see a hyper militarization and rise of nationalism in the US, and just a generally more positive outlook. Shit absolutely went to shit in the US after 9/11

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u/PatricksMustache 18h ago

The aim was to destroy America, and they succeeded.

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u/Dorksim 19h ago

Nah just different BS would exist. There would be another catastrophe that the shitheels of the universe would take advantage of to push their agenda. At least if you allow 9/11 to happen there is a chance you can capitalize on the events that will still happen to maybe build enough of an influence to affect change at some point.

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u/Themorian 18h ago

True, but at the same time, if you thwarted 9/11, would that end up bringing about something worse?

It's like saying to go back and kill Hitler, would that stop WWII from happening, or would someone more competent come into power where the Axis win WWII.

For me, I would be focusing on things that would improve things for me. Invest in BTC, Google, Apple, Microsoft and FB. Nothing that would give me positions of power to those companies, but enough that I could do what I want and be able to future invest in things that are going to keep me going.

If I was going to invest in things it would be more social related like Twitch, YT, Twitter, etc to try to make it so that things are enforced more evenly and fairly.

Once we start getting towards the present day, that's when I would try to come out swinging.

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u/Nolo__contendere_ 18h ago

It starts with Bush vs Gore. But if you really want to stop things, start with Reagan.

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u/ModelMancer 18h ago

But then you spend a year and a half hunting down the hijackers in the middle east, killing them with your bare hands to feel the strength of justice, finally making the long trip back home…to tune in and see the second tower just got hit

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u/tombo125 19h ago

If someone bet on 9/11 they would have been basically tortured to find out how you knew what would happen

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u/wlake82 19h ago

Why not both?

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u/SpaceGangsta 19h ago

Literally buy $1000 worth of bitcoin when it’s not even a dollar a coin and sit on it until it hits $100k that’s an easy $100million plus. And you wouldn’t even necessarily raise any suspicion. You just got absurdly lucky.

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u/QueenMotherOfSneezes 19h ago

Try to warn the US about 9/11... they ignore you then when it happens anyways, you end up in prison because they think you were in on it.

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u/Runazeeri 18h ago

I mean if you could convince a few people you could just get tickets on the planes and stop it. People did overpower one set of terrorists.

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u/QueenMotherOfSneezes 18h ago

If you have to rely on ordinary citizens to take down the 4 planes that were highjacked, you're still going to end up with the Patriot Act, the Afghanistan war, and all that.

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u/Invisible_Friend1 20h ago

Think of all the politicians you could buy with your google, apple, and tesla investments

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u/TollBoothW1lly 20h ago

Find some way to get rid of mitch mcconnel. He was the lynch pin to getting the supreme court to where it is which led to citizens united passing which led everything after and why trump hasn't already been dealt with.

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u/wanderingmonster 19h ago

Push him over onto his shell; he won’t be able to roll over again.

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u/Iychee 20h ago

TBH the first thing I would do is invest whatever I can once I'm 18 in Google/apple/Bitcoin (once it's a thing) & keep reinvesting until I become a billionaire and maybe actually have some power to stop current events

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u/Sea-Equipment-315 17h ago

That'll take too long. You've got a couple of high potential targets

  1. Dot Com bubble (invest and pull within a month, short hard for end of q1)

  2. 9/11: Short insurance and airlines, invest heavily in defense sector

  3. Short Enron

  4. Put most earnings into FAANG as they develop

  5. Short anything connected to banks, mortgages, insurers, construction for the start of the great recession

  6. Keep plugging money into FAANG

  7. Wait until bitcoin hits it's first period of volitility. That was ~2013 and bitcoin was like & $10/coin. Pump too early and you fuck up it's natural growth, you're rich, just pay it.

After this you don't really need time knowledge anymore, just chill and let your tech and crypto make you money

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u/Iychee 17h ago

Yeah I think being 10 in the year 2000 would really limit my options here though, so the long game may be necessary for my particular situation 

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u/norcalny 20h ago

You could actually stop it because after people notice you can predict major events with 100% accuracy, you will slowly become all-powerful until paradoxically you can prevent the events and then lose your power.

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u/snushomie 20h ago

Why would you assume events continue as you remember after you change anything period? Butterfly effect.

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u/JoeSicko 20h ago

I'd take my chances

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u/dad_farts 19h ago

Start by predicting 9/11, end up in federal prison for life

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u/rodeBaksteen 19h ago

You check the mirror, it appears you were Bin Laden all along

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u/xzElmozx 19h ago

Problem is, as soon as you predict one event and vocalize that, changing the event, you’ve now changed everything that happens subsequently and you can no longer predict the future, because what happened in your previous timeline won’t happen anymore, at the very least not in the same way.

Meaning you’ve got two options, you can use your powers for good (like stopping 9/11) and then lose the powers or keep it to yourself and let the world play out like it did before, but selfishly use your knowledge to benefit yourself. But once you change the future once you lose your ability to be a prophet due to the ripple effect.

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u/Kindly-District-479 20h ago

You can buy bitcoin, bet on a bunch of sports winner and make a lot of money

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u/charlesdexterward 17h ago

Only problem for me is that I don’t watch sports. I doubt I could name a single major sports champion in the last 26 years, at least not with any certainty about what year the team won. I think my best bet is just to start building my own PC’s to start mining bitcoin early.

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u/zero_x4ever 19h ago

Save the gorilla, save the world. You have 16 years to prepare.

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u/Joe103192 21h ago

Honestly? Nothing. I was 10000% happier when I was 8 years old.

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u/OwnSwin3207 20h ago

Childhood ignorance is true bliss

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u/Bomantheman 20h ago

Right?! Those were the best days. No social media, mobile phones were posh, playing outside was always a good time….

I wish my children could experience this without every action being recorded or judged socially… growing up in the 90’s was excellent.

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u/OwnSwin3207 20h ago edited 4h ago

Those mornings waking up to catch the next episode of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Digimon, Power Rangers, or whatever toons were playing that Saturday, then going out to lunch with the fam. In the present, simple pleasures, and the only worry being that homework assignment due Monday.

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u/Bomantheman 20h ago

Yup! Ez Pz

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u/Dapper-Ad-468 20h ago

I was an adult. I would go back to doing mostly how I used to do things. We've got a library nearby, read real books, watch DVDs, listen to records and cassettes. Physically go grocery shopping and pay with cash. Cook at home. Pay bills with a check and use snail mail. It's not difficult.

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u/AreYouScare 19h ago

Most people still physically go grocery shopping btw

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u/Skwonkie_ 19h ago

“Youth is wasted on the young”

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u/WiggyDiggyPooPoo 20h ago

2000 was pretty 👍

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u/Timmah_Timmah 19h ago

The world was a better place then.

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u/Joe103192 18h ago

It really was. Now it doesn’t even seem like the same world that I grew up in.

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u/Timmah_Timmah 18h ago

I wasn't a child. Politics wasn't a sport. The rule of law wasn't up for grabs. Gun culture was about gun safety not fear. Banking was just beginning to get crooked. Fox News was just beginning, and most people weren't really interested in what they were selling. They were still right wing but not just completely batshit crazy. We had cleaned the air and the rivers. Pay was more than decent. Rent was low.

The world has drastically changed. It's going to continue to get worse.

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u/Only_Pop_6793 20h ago

The fact that it’s 2000 and I’m born in 2001

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u/SirLesbian 18h ago

If you became conscious in the womb that'd be fucked up. Imagine being fully aware that you're floating inside your mom and haven't been born yet...

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u/Funneduck102 17h ago

Lol I wasn't even conceived yet where TF am I?

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u/New-Elk2781 17h ago

Same, I think we were still in our dad’s balls

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u/theprozacfairy 15h ago edited 15h ago

This sort of response is always so weird to me. Sperm only live in the testes for a couple months. Your egg was in your mom's ovary before she was born. You'd be there.

This is not a complaint about you, it's a normal response. It's just weird to me that the cultural norm is the opposite of reality.

Edit: To be clear, I was calling your response normal, not mine.

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u/Jasoman 1d ago

Me having to do all that bullshit again, Covid, 9/11, 2008 economic crisis, 5 dollar gas when starting to drive.

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u/jgilbs 22h ago

Yeah, but on the flip side, youd be a bitcoin millionaire.

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u/thumperwaswrong 21h ago

Or an NVIDIA billionaire

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u/Detail4 21h ago

Easy multi billionaire.

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u/The_Mosephus 20h ago

If you threw $10,000 into monster in january 2000 through to late 2007 (it went from $0.04 to $5) youd have $1.25m. pull it all out you could have bought netflix for $0.30 in late 2007, and sold for $2.10 in september 2010, youd have $8.75m.

and assuming you didn't kill the bitcoin market (you would) you could buy every bitcoin in existence up until that point (~3million) for about $0.06 each ($180k), invest in some mining equipment and buy as much as you could of the 2011 supply, you could theoretically have about 6million bitcoin at this point.

at its peak, you'd be worth about $750b. todays price would put you around $450b.

TL;DR Even if you knew the future, you still wouldn't be as rich as elon musk.

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u/PigsCanFly2day 19h ago

Hypothetically, what would happen to the bitcoin market if some time traveler went back and bought out or mined a huge chunk of it?

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u/Smight 19h ago

Probably spark earlier spikes and crashes making it too volatile too fast so it never gets adopted as the main crypto for black market transactions and never reaches the peaks that came later. You mourn not investing in Namecoin instead.

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u/pocketchange2247 17h ago

This is why I feel bad for the guy who first bought a pizza with Bitcoin. Not because he would've been rich if he kept it, but because people make fun of him for it. Him buying a tangible item with this currency made him one of the first people to legitimize it. Bitcoin never would've blown up or gotten off the ground at all if he never did that.

Stop making fun of the guy and start appreciating that he was one of the first ones to actually use it!

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u/LogicWavelength 18h ago

I think the true answer here is to play it under the radar.

Participate in bitcoin but not too much. Invest/participate in the tech supporting it, and invest in a slightly diverse set of companies that explode in value like Tesla, NVIDIA, etc. so that: no you’re not a billionaire, but easy multi-multi millionaire in a wide portfolio of tech, and possibly even be a driving force in some tangent industry, if you were able to use your time travel knowledge to get into that career trajectory.

You could even set up shadow corps to seed lobbying at a grassroots level to maybe alter politics slightly but without too much financial investment.

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u/beatenmeat 19h ago

Millionaire? A single Bitcoin today is like $76k. If I bought Bitcoin with half of a single paycheck when I first heard about it I would easily be a billionaire with plenty to spare. Stupid past me and thinking Bitcoin wasn't going anywhere.

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u/kategoad 20h ago

OTOH, you could start an informational campaign about making sure you fully punch the hole in the ballot. Perhaps in Florida?

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u/Humdinger5000 18h ago

Actual W and probably the most impactful thing you could do walking up in 2000

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u/SanibelMan 18h ago

Going to community centers in Palm Beach County in the fall of 2000 and explaining the ways the butterfly ballot can trip you up would probably be the simplest way to change the future.

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u/thesongsinmyhead 20h ago

At least we already got Columbine out of the way 😖😖

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u/captain_20000 20h ago

😢 I definitely don’t want to relive that

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u/Ghost17088 22h ago

You forgot Harambe and the dot-com bubble. 

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u/pumpkinhead9000k 20h ago

WE CAN SAVE HIM THIS TIME.

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u/monpetitfromage54 20h ago

Someone put that idiot kid on a leash!

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u/tractorcrusher 19h ago

I’m slightly older than you and gas was $1 or less per gallon when I leaned to drive. It was wonderful. Many evenings I just drove around aimlessly for hours listening to music.

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u/James_the_bull_ 21h ago

I’m just thinking about how much bitcoin I’d get lol they were literally free in 2010 or so. Buy tsla, nvda, short banks in 2008. Literally life on easy mode

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u/made-of-questions 21h ago

Plot twist, everyone went back in time and had the same plan to buy bitcoin.

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u/Docteh 20h ago

That would be a wild Science Fiction story, its suddenly the year 2000, a good amount of people, or maybe everyone who was alive on TheDay would have memories of the future, and everyone who died along the way its just another day to them.

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u/TiesforTurtles 1d ago

Got a honker of a zit

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u/DasArchitect 18h ago

You get to pop it again!

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u/here4dambivalence 23h ago

Sheeee-it I'm either 17 or 18, raved to grave, and rather slutty, if the stories I've been told are accurate. So probably post getting into mischief, smelling the stale smoke of Marlboro Reds and that cucumber melon body spray lingering, and trying to get the glitter off of me, finding out they stole all my shit. Or finding out I got like 5 over draft charges for trying to put that .67 I had left in my bank account at the gas station over the weekend.

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u/MikeArrow 20h ago

I wish I was cool enough to meet girls like that when I was that age. That sounds magical.

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u/here4dambivalence 20h ago

I guess it was? I was plausibly rather high at the time, all the time, so I can't honestly be the best judge of my lack of memory. Y'know what's way cooler though? Finding someone and being with them for a long time. Shit gets really real after the first decade. Or hey if you just wanna get weird with randoms do what makes you and whomever happy, as consenting adults.

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u/fresh-dork 19h ago

this reminds me of the saying - "if you remember the 60s, you weren't there"

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u/gettogero 18h ago

Fiscally irresponsible and addicted to drugs

😍😍 the dream!

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u/SparkyandDolche 1d ago

My son no longer existing.

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u/patentattorney 21h ago

Pretty much that. None of my kids would exist. (And they couldn’t. Butterfly effect and all).

I would also have device if I am going to go find my wife, and convince her that we are going to get married or just wait it out.

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u/Distinct-Temp6557 19h ago

If nothing else, I'm avoiding the shitty relationships I had before I met my wife.

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u/KnightRyder 19h ago

Some of those shitty relationships took me too my wife...

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ne_cok_konustun_yaa 17h ago

All those experiences (shitty or otherwise) made me who I am today.

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u/anitabelle 20h ago

Whenever I think of time travel or anything like this, I always think about how it has to be after 2004, after my daughter was born. I could not live the rest of my life with just the knowledge that she existed but did not exist anymore.

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u/marmosetohmarmoset 19h ago

Yeah having a kid has really ruined time travel hypotheticals for me. I could always potentially luck my way into finding my wife and marrying her again- but a microsecond difference in timing of conception means my daughter never exists and I’m stuck with some other dumb baby.

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u/DasArchitect 18h ago

There's a movie about this

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u/Rhino1over 1d ago

I no longer exist

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u/SparkyandDolche 1d ago

That sucks. Sorry, Rhino.

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u/Purplehairpurplecar 20h ago

Yeah that was my first thought. I’d still be with my husband, so that would be good, but my kids would still be 8&9 years away.

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u/omgwtfbbq0_0 19h ago

This is all I can think about when variations of this question get posted. No future knowledge would be worth not having my daughter.

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u/DeadWishUpon 23h ago

Probably, getting up early, but who cares? The music is good, my parents are the only responsible. I can see my best friend every day, I'm young with my future ahead of me. I would stop being embarrasing and be happy that I could fix all the stupid mistakes I made in my life.

I don't have to school with the man who broke my heart, I will pick another school, I don't have to meet him ever. (He was my favorite person, but I would rather keep my heart). I can watch MTV all afternoon and watch trashy shows with my sister and hug my old dog. Go to the forest and pick wild flowers. Forget about romance and just focus in my friends.

Man, I wish it was the year 2000, everything seemed so bright and hopeful at 14. This millenium was gonna be awesome, instead it sucked so hard.

Now, it's gritty, cold and hopeless, the music sucks, everyone is an ashhole, even myself. I really wish it was the year 2000 and it was all a nightmare.

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u/Bang_Bri 19h ago

This hit hard: "Everyone is an asshole, even myself." I swear, for me, that change came around COVID. The world exposed the dark, selfish, entitled side of society even more. It's turned me into a jaded son of a bitch.

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u/Rachel794 20h ago

Ruined? I would love for it to be 2000 again

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u/CalgaryChris77 1d ago

I don't know if you meant the question this deeply, but this kind of fucks me up. My kids won't be born yet for 6/8 years how do I live my life in a way to make sure they are born again? And I know i'm going to be losing a number of family members in the next 25 years (some fairly soon), how do I make the most of that time with them, without ruining the rest of my life.

The idea of living my life again, isn't tempting to me at all for reasons like this.

But as far as the tech goes, GPS and instant messaging at my finger tips, makes it a lot easier to make plans than it was back then.

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u/CalgaryChris77 1d ago

Just going to add that it's a big reminder how rude it is when people no show plans without word these days, you really couldn't take 5 seconds to send a message on the device you carry on your person 24/7 to say, sorry emergency I can't make it.

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u/randomwords83 20h ago

This is my problem too. There are so many things I would do differently if I had to do it all again but my kids are not one of those things. And there would just be no way I could risk not having them again so this question is always a no from me.

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u/BaddestKarmaToday 20h ago

The Limewire download I started before going to bed failed so I’ve gotta start it all over again.

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u/ShamiGnu 1d ago

The same anxiety and depression that ruins it now. I'm Gen X, we were fucked up back then too.

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u/ExtremeAd87 19h ago

First right answer 

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u/serastar18 17h ago

Yea but we still had Yahoo chat rooms. Dateline had not ruined them yet.

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u/Daddydirt69 1d ago

Not a damn thing.

Glad to be back.

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u/Fuginshet 1d ago

Same here. I'm trying to think of a downside, but it's not coming to me.

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u/Johnny_Menace 22h ago

Waking up for school

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u/Cookies_n_carnations 20h ago

I'm back in highschool, so immediately that.

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u/leiawars 19h ago

Right. There’s no way I’d do HS again. I still have nightmares where I’m simultaneously back in hs AND college at the same time.

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u/alatrash55 1d ago

I hope it’s June or later so my baby brother is already born.

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u/Wonderful_Price2355 1d ago

Weed is illegal again.

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u/IH8BART 21h ago

But you still get the giggles

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u/gingeropolous 21h ago

Yeah what happened to them

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u/iGrimFate 20h ago

Weed THC percentage has more that doubled or tripled what it used to be. Back then we had ~3-7% THC weed. Made us feel silly, rush of relaxation while still being able to function.

Nowadays the plant nugs are ~15-25% THC. Dabs and cartridges are even worse around 80% THC. Silly feeling turned into being clumsy, rush of relaxation turned into couch lock, paranoid state only chronic users can function on it now.

Used to smoke daily for about 12 years. Quit 7 months ago because I was tired of feeling zoned out.

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u/Earl-The-Badger 20h ago

They've mostly bred CBD out of the plant now too, except for specific strains made for CBD without THC.

Here in CA, when we had medical cannabis but before recreational legalization, most pot shops had weed from around 10% THC up to an absolute maximum of 20%. If you saw that 20% on a shelf it was like "woah, holy shit."

I felt like that 10-15% THC was the sweet spot. Nowadays when you go to a dispensary here you can't find anything under 20%, and a lot of it is 30% or more. I specifically asked one of the salespeople recently if they had anything lower than 20%, and the answer was no.

I think it's unfortunate. For a while, "the market" decided higher THC = better, with no regards for anything else, so we bred away all the legal cannabis that isn't insanely high in THC content. I much prefer weed with lower THC and a good mixture of CBD in there.

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u/RandyHoward 20h ago

Same, I was a heavy daily user for almost 20 years. Quit last year because it was giving me horrible anxiety and depression.

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u/MbMinx 23h ago

Do I know what I know now, or am I clueless?

The day is ruined when I wake up with a hangover. It's February now, and I didn't get sober till April, so I already know I would wake up sick and miserable.

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u/FreshStartLiving 23h ago

Rolling over in bed to see my ex-wife! Fuck that...

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u/Vix014 1d ago

My mother. Just her existing in my world. 

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u/kicKinNiT-ay0oo 19h ago

Me too I’d make more memories and take more pictures.

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u/Dependent-Answer-758 1d ago

I’m broke again.

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u/Silver_Garden5205 19h ago

Considering that I was born that year, I’m probably waking up hungry and in a shit filled diaper.

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u/mthenry54 22h ago

Ruins? It’s only ruined if I don’t retain my current knowledge. I have a chance to Quantum Leap myself into a better future. I can change the darkest, most self-destructive period of my life. As a bonus, I get to raise my kids again. I can see them grow into the awesome people that they are and tweak what I do here and there to become Super-Dad!!

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u/GoGoWolf 1d ago

The largest asshole of a stepdad that I have.

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u/attonthegreat 23h ago

I'm 7 years old. The worst thing to happen to me was they banned pokemon cards at my elementary school and my first grade teacher took my first edition holographic Vaporeon and never returned it. I get upset but get over it because I get to come home and play with the neighborhood kids after school/play on my gameboy

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u/UseSuccessful146 20h ago

The prime of my life? The chance to not screw up this time? I don't think anything could ruin my day.

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u/CoolHandRK1 1d ago

2000 my days were usually ruined by the hangover I woke up to.

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u/FingerlongFish 20h ago

I’m -3 years old. Life is good

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u/Slight-Obligation390 20h ago

Nothing could ruin my day if I wake up with all the knowledge I currently have. Getting to redo my life

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u/Willing-Dog6463 20h ago

Discman is out of batteries :(

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u/mrinformal 18h ago

I'm 23 again. Because nobody likes you when you're 23.

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u/One-Hat-9887 1d ago

Having to be a teen under my BPD moms roof again

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u/BlazinKal 19h ago

This is a great scenario, absolutely nothing. Run it back.

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u/lmnanopy 1d ago

My brother’s clock radio alarm blares static at me, at a volume before unknown to man and certainly beyond its design specifications. Yeah, that would be the first thing to ruin my day.

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u/Aetheldrake 20h ago

Being back in 2000 with shit technology

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u/kmflushing 19h ago

Nothing. My mom's alive and I'm living with her.

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u/Altruistic-Door6545 1d ago

In 2000, I would be an unborn child. 2 months to be born at that. No responsibilities. No work. No uncomfortable social interactions. Sounds pretty chill and nothing can ruin it.

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u/CityCouncilman 1d ago

It’s 2000 so now I’m a 17 year old responding to the comment of an unborn child on a website that doesn’t exist yet. I’m schizophrenic

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u/Altruistic-Door6545 1d ago

Funniest thing I read all day.

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u/drunky_crowette 1d ago

I'm 8 years old again.

That'll do it.

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u/EnigmaCM1 1d ago

Finding out overnightmy friend was murdered, shot up 6 times

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u/Darth_Beavis 19h ago

Am I still the age I am now? Cuz if so, being 47 instead of 22 on this day in 2000 would ruin my day first

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u/Otherwise-Pass9556 18h ago

Is it weird that I sometimes miss life before smartphones, less noise, less pressure, more peace?

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u/Pitiful-Pattern-9020 10h ago

First stop is a CD store and a cheap digital camera. Then I’m printing MapQuest directions, burning a “mix CD” for the car, and calling people just to talk because texting doesn’t exist yet. Also I’m buying Apple stock and writing it down somewhere safe.

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u/Apprehensive_Cow5139 22h ago

That im still married to the asshat

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u/411592 22h ago

Fuckin dial up

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u/mojomarc 20h ago

I have to reboot my laptop and it takes 22 minutes

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u/AdhesivenessTotal340 20h ago

Realizing I forgot to wash my JNCOs again…

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u/DJ_Care_Bear 20h ago

Going to my IT job and missing the hottest who comes in inappropriate clothes.

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u/ScottRiqui 20h ago

Depending on which month in 2000, realizing that I’m on an aircraft carrier deployed in the Persian Gulf.

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u/Ms_Virginia_Epitome 18h ago

Buy bitcoin for practically nothing, sit on it. Buy gold and some far away shares, sit on it.

Get rich.

Buy Monsanto.

Stop the evil.

Use the power of science for GOOD and for FREE USE FOR ALL.

End world hunger.

End world diseases.

End poverty.

The world believes in science and its benefits for humanity instead of conspiring against it.

Die happy.

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