30 Folks Speculate What They’d Do If Given Immortality, But Also Sent Back 3,000 Years Back
Even though death has been around as long as human existence has, it’s one of the most mysterious and unknown things out there. As such, it sparks quite a bit of talk and philosophy in hopes of becoming more identifiable as an inevitability. And maybe we can find a way around it.
And if we do, we can only hope to be thrown back 3,000 years and then we’d be set because folks are already speculating what they’d do under such niche circumstances.
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I’d totally appear in random moments throughout history and make sure I’m photographed (or painted)
jfk? I’m there. fall of the Roman Empire? I’m there. Boston tea party? I’m there. Standing about 300 feet away from the White House on Jan 6th 2021? I’m there. Just be some weird enigma of history.
This! It's a guilty fantasy of mine to have my portrait painted by Rembrandt or similar and sneak in a piece of modern tech, like a wrist watch (nothing too extreme like an iPhone), and see what would be thought of it.
It's a trap, you would end up in space because the earth was a a different spot back then, malicious genie detected
I always disliked this argument because there are no absolute coordinates in space. We use our most powerful telescopes and we can't find any center to the universe. Without an origin point, position is meaningless. This was a major conundrum for Einstein. Anywhere you look is space, galaxies show the same redshift. It makes it look like we are at the center of the universe, but the general conclusion is that everyplace is the center of the universe. Inflation theory is really weird but that's the best we have right now.
I might accept this but I would need more information. 3000 years ago would be like 976 BC. Would I show up where I live now, or some where else? Could I take anything with me. Is immortality just not aging and disease or does it include not being violently k***ed.
AskReddit has decided to be a bit less serious this time around. Now, everyone’s talking about the idea of being given immortality, but the caveat is that you’d have to travel 3,000 years back in time, to 976 B.C., a time when King David supposedly passed and King Solomon took over. At least you’d know for sure what had actually happened in that court.
Hell yeah would write my own bible and start a bonkers religion just for the fun😅
I might be immortal but I'd still be a woman. So no, I don't think I could hack those 3000 years.
Potentially, that's a lot of periods to have before the sanitary options and painkillers have been invented!
I've done 37 years and already feel about done lol
edit: this isn't a cry for help, just sayin a lot more time sounds like a nightmare.
Immortality is a relatively simple concept that has led to not-so-relatively-simple discussions and speculations across human history.
In simple terms, it’s eternal life without death. But it can also be speculated as life during life as well as life plus the afterlife. No matter the case, it has pretty much always been one of the biggest headaches for humanity.
No. Because I have kids who I love and if I'm immortal and they aren't....I mean...honest to goodness truth: I don't want to be alive if my children aren't.
Totally agree with this one. Immortality without them would be unbearable.
You really can’t do it. You’d need incredibly specific conditions.
If it’s just the “no aging” immortality, good luck surviving for thousands of years. You’re probably gonna be put in a forest next to a bear or some s**t and die right away anyways. Or you’ll trip over something trying to get out of the forest, cut your leg, and die of infection. Or you’ll starve to death because you don’t know where you are and aren’t a wilderness man.
If it’s the “invincible can’t die” immortality then hooooooooly s**t. Gonna be a fun run. Let’s say humanity gets off Earth and you don’t sit here until the sun expands and engulfs the planet. So you’re not burning inside of the sun for billions of years. Maybe you tour the galaxy, great time much fun. You’re galactic god emperor! Way to go! What an accomplishment I mean boy howdy. How could it go wrong from here?
Well after a few billion years the andromeda galaxy collides with the Milky Way and your empire is toast. Oh well, it’s been a fun run. So what’s next? Good question, well, it’s 10^100 years of suffering. Waiting for the heat death of the universe. Does that kill you? Probably not, because you are pure magic. Protons have decayed. There is no universe. Just you. In empty abandon. Forever. It’s the worst possible thing that can be imagined.
No. No, that sounds awful all the way around. First off I do not want to be immortal second off I do not want to go back to a time when there are no flushing toilets. Yuck!
Immortality is most commonly seen through a religious or faith-focused perspective. Virtually all cultures have some sort of take on it, either as a survival of the astral body that resembles the physical body, the immortality of the soul, i.e. an incorporeal existence, or a resurrection of the body or re-embodiment. And a lot of it touches upon the idea of whether souls exist?
I wouldn't want to do that. I'm scared of the person I would end up becoming by outliving everyone I ever care about, and having to do it over and over again with each person I meet. I feel like I would stop valuing human life and I would become a monster who views people as toys to amuse myself. My concept of time would also be warped due to it no longer being something I care about either.
I'm happy with the life that I have now, and I'd rather make the most of the time I have, rather than be immortal and have all the time in the world.
That’s a really good point. If you lose everyone over and over and over, and also if you tried to make the world a better place and failed over and over and over (because there will always greedy, power hungry humans who start wars etc.), how would you not develop a "F**k this, I don’t care" mentality?
Immortal without health issues, being a perfectly healthy man with current skills and knowledge, then I am all okay to go all the way 3000 years back!
I can manage to build a better world!!!
I used to think the same thing about all my skills and knowledge then started to ask myself whether I actually understand the science behind the things we take for granted now enough to be able to explain it to someone 3000 years ago. Turns out the best I can hope for as an immortal living 3000 years ago is perhaps knowing the people in history that I need to suck up to who are actually going to make a difference with their inventions/discoveries!
On top of that, throw in the concept of immortality being related to personal identity because can a dead person be the same as the original person that once lived? The discussion essentially revolves around the soul, the body, and the psychology of it all.
Whatever the case, science offers quite little at this point, though it isn't idle.
Hang on 3000 years, you are either gonna be famous to live long, get caught by government and be used as a lab rat forever because youre never die, or living anonymously for the rest of your live.
I need another superpower other than being immortal tbh
You have another superpower, and its running the f**k away from the government
Can you choose too die at any point? If not the 3000 years is irrelevant, I'm more concerned about being stuck alone in the void 900 quadrillion years from now.
Lazarus Long by Heinlein. Yes you can choose to die. But people around you will try to talk you out of it.
No pads, no antibiotics for UTI, slavery, and no Beyoncé. Double it and give it to the next person please.
Parapsychology has shown attempts to justify an afterlife. Apparently, secular futurists see tech allowing people to suspend death indefinitely with things like uploading your mind onto an electrical husk to house you, providing bodily immortality. At least for long enough for your mind to be able to be transferred back into a body so you can rinse and repeat life.
No, for 2 reasons.
1. The thought of living forever would be a nightmare for me.
2. I'm a woman, so...yeah, no way.
Well in the Cavemen times, apparently women had a higher position in the social hierarchy because they were able to get more food (berries and crops) then men (small animals), but that's just it.
I'm honestly not sure I'm strong enough to deal with everyone around me dying, over and over. I am a pretty empathetic person, and I imagine at some point, you lose the ability to form that sort of emotional bond. I find the movie "The Man from Earth" (and its sequel) to be fascinating, but one of the things that struck me is that the main character, who has been alive since cave men were a thing, has a very hard time forming love bonds - he's seen everyone he cared about die so many times over that he's just moved past that emotional experience. I don't know if I could handle that, to be honest.
Also not sure I'd want to live through millennia of being oppressed and confined to the kitchen before being able to live as an equal to men. I really like my life, and would intellectually love to see society develop over time like that (am currently an academic), but it's a lot harder to do academic study in early universities if you're female, as I am. Pretty sure I'd be burned as a witch fairly quickly, so I hope immortality includes being able to heal quickly after injury or something.
Hell nah. Word will definitely get around about my immortality and then I'll just be subjected all sorts of s**t (torture, experimentation, etc). There's a show about a similar concept called Ajin.
There‘s also a show called "Forever". Ended much too soon unfortunately, but it did address this topic among other interesting aspects. (It‘s a crime series, not some deep drama, but it did have some heavy moments.)
This is by no means foreign for any of us as you quite likely have your own reasons for why you’d probably want to forego death.
First off, death entails pain and suffering. Possibly excruciating levels of them, in cases of terminal illnesses. But it can also be the pain others have to go through once you’re gone.
People who say they'd get bored with immortality have no imagination.
Most people who like the idea of immortality don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon (mangled Douglas Adams)
Get early shares in apple, back then it’s just the fruit
Wait 3000 years to see my boyfriend get born, and then try to make his childhood happier somehow.
And if it’s not corporeal fear, then it’s fear of the unknown, of the non-existence that death brings and of the possible eternal punishment that your faith might suggest death to be about.
It is not yet known what it means to not be living, and even if we do start to get it, it feels like that’s all that there is to it, without the pleasures of life.
F**k yes I would accept this.
But I'd research where not to be first. Like not getting buried in an Earthquake or in Pompeii in 79 AD
Probably lament wiping out the human species due to latent diseases that my immune system keeps in check, but ancient humans wouldn't survive.
Nah. You may cause a pandemic or two but we carry nothing (disease wise) so extreme that can wipe humanity.
3000 years?
I'd get my hands on as much iron, charcoal & copper as possible.
I'd build a rudimentary lathe.
I'd be the first man to invent mathematics.
I'd be the first man to invent magnetism & electricity.
I'd be the first to construct a battery (lead & sulphuric acid like a car battery)
Before the birth of Christ I'd have given my countrymen the equivalent of 1920's technology.
Before the birth of Alexander the great, we'd have reddit.
Hmmm. I got excellent grades in high-school level maths, but only studied stats at a tertiary level. I'm pretty sure there would be little I could teach the expert mathematicians of Mesopotamia and Egypt (assuming they would listen to me); and non-numerate societies would probably have little interest in the sort of maths that I could pass on without access to reference material. In 1000 BCE, at _best_ iron was only available in Anatolia, and was hideously expensive there: you aren't a member of royalty, no?
Ultimately, death is one of those things that folks might say you can cheat, but, as it stands now, not forever. Death means loss of control. Heck, age means loss of control in some regards as your body starts to fade away and you start taking less risks. We can generally control a lot of the situations we’re in, but death has no control over. And it always happens.
If I can take my wife with me, yes.
Oh God... I would try to divert the catalyst for the Crusades thing. I would be one of those opinionated "witches" who would be burned for coordinating with Devils because I like to read.
But do you read Hebrew, arameic, semitic languages of any kind? Because it's gonna take a couple of years before other languages turns into books. And then you'd have to read religious books in Greek, and then Latin, all the way up to the 1500s before it gets fun... 😅
Well, I'd probably spend the rest of my life apologizing for causing the Bronze Age collapse.
And while it is healthy to fear death—so much so as to seek immortality, or at least talk about it on Reddit—it’s necessary for it to not take over us. The stress and distress it might cause us is anything but constructive and productive.
Instead, focus that energy and motivate yourself to do something about it. For some, death is the single most important push to get something world-changing done.
3000 years back as An Australian would get pretty s****y. There wasn’t a land bridge back then to meander up towards more interesting lands (like Europe, Asia and the Middle East).
Id be stuck with the (not megafauna they were extinct but there were cool endemic species that aren’t around today) and indigenous Australians. As a white dude I’m not sure how that would go…
But if I could get sent back to somewhere in Europe, maybe… if this is the (can’t die at all) immortality and not the (just won’t age) immortality
Bold of you to assume Australia would be boring and the Native would have nothing interesting to teach you. Yeah they would find you look weird, but I see no reason why they should reject you. You could easily spend some centuries walking around from tribe to tribe, sharing stories and learning things, before you actually decide to build a boat and go to Indonesia and further.
It's not a cost, why do you say it is. It's a bonus. With all my present day knowledge i would become a king and rule the globe.
Humanity would advance 2-3 times faster, if not even more.
The question is, would it really help though? I know antibiotics exist and what they do. I know cars exist and have a basic understanding of how they function. Do I know enough to explain to someone how to make antibiotics, how to build a car? No.
So, what are your thoughts on any of this? What would you do with immortality in the 10th century BC and why is it ahead of all the things that people admire today? Share your takes and stories in the comment section below!
And if you like time travel, you might also like another thing we did.
Yes, I'd accept. I'd use the knowledge from the future to help advance societies, promote peace, and maybe sneak in some "inventions" of my own.
Sure: let's all treat the weird-looking guy who can't speak an understandable language and can't produce his own means of sustenance like he's a reliable source of knowledge on anything. (That's assuming my "knowledge from the future" means anything when I can't access the books/internet that make up 95% of how I store that knowledge for when I want to retrieve it.)
Like immortality and Im still young? Yeah why not, I would travel with my knowledge to every major event, or at least try.
If I was going to be immortal, my body would have to be what it was in my 20s and then stop ageing. I don't want these aches and pains for eternity!
Not sure it would be all that fun as you’d be roughing it comparatively to what we’re used to for a good 2,950 of those years.
I’ll never understand people who don’t want immortality lol.
I’d do anything to live forever. Time is the greatest b***h of them all.
Freddy Mercury belting out "Who wants to live forever?" Me jumping up and down waving my arms & shouting "Me! Me!"
Only if I'm also invulnerable and don't have to worry about starving or freezing to death or being stabbed
Holy c**p, so you get to not only be immortal but you get to start this immortality in antiquity? You go back with all your knowledge of past events, able to build wealth and surf the flow of time? Use your knowledge to maximize the potential of your family tree as you build your way into the future and then when you meet the present you finally can bring your original family into the wealth and prosperity you’ve built for 3,000 years?
Hm. Let me think. 🤔
What the f**k no? Immortality itself is already bad enough, like I'd want to be floating in space for several Septillion years after the sun expands. Living thru 3000 years of s****y society with less advanced technology and no way to communicate does not help the case here
Everyone here talking about Apple and Amazon.
Nobody talking about reuiniting earth and purging the universe from the mutant, the heretic, the alien.
The answers here are as boring as in that thread about being giftet 100 billion. "I'd buy a house and sleep on it so I don't accidentaly blow it all", like noone had any clue that they were handed an economic atom bomb.
Some.people can't chill and enjoy their imagination for a moment.
I'm not sure the 3000 years is significant. If you were made immortal today, eventually, this date would be 3000 years in the past. Does time have any importance to an immortal?
And this is ignoring the usual questions regarding invulnerability, aging vs non-aging, etc.
This is basically one of my fall asleep fast fantasies. Altho i usually get to pick one other superpower besides immortallity.
Anyways, id force the netherlands into existance 2 millenia early.
Yes, definitely. Go back to ancient times, see Christ, watch the Roman Empire fall, witness the French Revolution, opening of Brooklyn bridge, do what I can to help the allies in WWII and help save as many people that I can.
I think WW2 would be completely preventable. Just proof that you're from the future and prevent France and Great Britain from making ridiculous claims for reparations payments - although maybe that wouldn't be the best option, besides all the the death it brought there were also huge break throughs in technology and medicine born out of it
I always loved the idea of being immortal unfathomably old and revealing it to someone in a very cold way. One of my favorite Show scenes of all time was in Supernatural where they met the Alpha Vampire, the father of all vampires and to explain just how old he was he told them “When your kind was first huddled around the fire, I was the thing in the dark.” Or when Dean meets Death and asks him how old is he compared to God and he says “It’s been so long, neither of us can remember but in the end, I’ll take him too.”
I would.
Learn EVERYTHING.
Create the world in my image.
Wait. You could learn 31,000 languages? I have enough trouble with one.
In the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman - which is really good by the way - Dream grants a dude the wish to be immortal. The guy lives hundreds of lives, some good, some bad, some awful, but in the end doesn't regret his decision because life moves on.
Assuming 'immortal' includes being impervious to injury/ sickness/ etc then... yeah? Going that far back you'd be considered a deity for surviving fatal occurances. In the modern day you wouldn't but you could have a sick YT channel.
Why would anyone want to be immortal?
When you turn past 200 you're probably gonna be bored out of your life
Immortality is a curse. If you think about it, maybe a psychopath/sociopath might be the only ones who'll get to enjoy it in the long run.
Immortality is the name of the baby given to you so I’ll pass !
Well, if I could manage it, the Bible would be different.
Won't you be surprised when you realise that the Bible was never a religious document in the first place, just a collection of cautionary tales.
Definitely. Immortal going forward has no appeal to me, but to potentially right the wrongs of history would be pretty awesome.
I'll knock the s**t out of the Vikings and Irish. Build up the borders around the coasts of England, create the long bow sooner to protect from further invasions. Possibly make good relations with Iceland and get some ice on the go to bring up fishing trade and what not.
Then after that, avoid America but take Canada. Make them all nice but stabby and build up defenses once again.
Or do I scrap England completely. Start with Russia, got all the natural resources you could want from a land. Hmmm choices, choices.
This doesn’t sound like 'righting the wrongs of history' but like a powertrip.
Yep. Then I could snuff out Christianity and Islamic religions.
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The "can't be killed" -type of immortality leaves open the possibility of fates far worse than death. What if you get trapped somehow, far away from help. Maybe a boulder rolls on your leg, or you fall in a pit, or get buried alive like that guy in the Florida sinkhole. Then you just exist like that for eternity. That's so horrifying, I can hardly let my brain imagine it before I get too creeped out and have to think of something else.
I would move to ancient Egypt, the only country at that time where I could make decisions about my life as a woman and with sufficiently advanced hygiene. There are countries that have not reached those levels to this day.
3000 years ago is around 1000 BCE. You'd be in the iron age. World population of around 50 million people. You would not be speaking english because it doesn't exist yet. You would have to live through countless wars, the middle ages, historical slavery in many civilisations, child slavery, periods of devout religious belief, the plague, no women's rights at all, watching the people around you die at an early age, from minor ailments etc. And then you eventually arrive back to modern day due to the passage of time, and have to go through covid again, and certain world leaders, then onwards into the future because you are immortal, so you will see the results of climate change, mass extinctions, future ice ages, the possible extinction of humanity (except for you because you are immortal) and then eventually in around 8 billion years, because you are immortal and still alive, you will experience the sun engulfing the earth and you will burn for eternity. Yep. I think I will pass ty lol
If it comes with the benefit of not being able to be killed I'd basically pull an "Emperor of Mankind" thing from 40k. Take over some tribe, teach them about strong alloys, introduce black powder, some other stuff like modern agriculture techniques etc. and then expand the empire like the romans did - everybody can keep their traditions and stuff as long as they're loyal to the throne
I'd do it. I'd like to assume this is complete invincibility, regenerative nature immortality. As the only languages I know are modern English, and a very small amount of modern German, I'd be unable to interact with humans, unless I want to learn a new language. So, the start of my immortal life won't involve them. I'll spend several decades in the oceans, and uninhabited forests and mountains, interacting with megafauna. When I get bored with that, things can get a little more interesting. I could show up for major world events. However, that would require walking, sailing, or riding horses anywhere I want to go. This is a slow process. No. Instead, I pick a town, ideally small, with plenty of hiding places along the outskirts. Every so often I show up in this town, walk through it, talk to people. It's unlikely that they understand me, so they'll see a stranger speaking an unknown language. Then I disappear. I keep this up for generations, I'm their cryptid.
There is a wonderful story from Philipp J Farmer, Time‘s last gift“ about exactly this topic. It’s is one of these haunting and moving tales that follows you for a lifetime.
Immortality and time travel are two different things. One you start at a spot and go forward. Learning. Living. Existing and getting bored but things don't change instantly. Immortality? You have to live the decades. You watch people come and go. If you're able to reproduce you watch children and generations pass but see your genes move on. Sometimes good sometimes bad. Prob best to become a teacher. Pass on dead languages. Be an archeologist and dig up past homes. Sit for portraits and point out details. Master every instrument. But don't become famous because a government will capture and dissect you as your tissue continues to exist. Time travel? Its only ability is going back and not interacting with events. You can't go forward. You don't know what's there. Where you will emerge. Into a wall? Into another person? In front of a speeding car? In the ocean if the climate change changes the planet? Going back you can look for areas that are empty to pop out and take a look. Cont
This would only work for me if three things were a given. 1 I would have control over where I was dropped off at. 2 I would have sufficient time to prepare and plan before I went. And 3 I would have only 90-95% immortality not 100% (I don't want to out live the human race or worse have to wait until the end of time to blink out of existence). With those conditions I would like to be dropped off in some place like North America . I would endeavor to convert the local various nomadic tribes into a unified nation of extremely advanced technology. Through the application of basic math, the printing press, , and metallurgy. I make sure to have a strong foundation of logic and critical thinking in order to allow them to advance on their own while providing basic key knowledge at critical moments to allow for rapid advancement. So when people like Columbus and Cortez show up they will have their rear ends handed to them.
Hmm. I think I'd try my best to make it so the worst parts of history never happened. Maybe, by first influencing those in power to keep pagan. So many awful things can be laid at the feet of the big, monotheistic religions. Killing people to convert them, deliberately destroying medical and historical knowledge, deliberately destroying whole cultures, persecuting women and gays, killing people for believing in different gods, killing people for believing in the same god, but in a slightly different way. The believers in the old gods just seem like they were a lot more tolerant, and open minded. As more modern times started happening, I would have to figure out some way to discourage industrialization. Promote wind and water, vilify coal right off the bat. That, again would be easier, if the people's religion was more nature based.
I didn't read all of them, but for me it would be a no. Ask me if I'd like to go back to being a teenager and live the rest of my life again, and know what I know now, probably yes. I made a lot of mistakes that I wouldn't mind going back and correcting, or at least see them coming and not repeat them.
I would call up Mel Brooks, ask him to put the 2000 Year Old Man on the line, and then ask for pointers.
Firstly I'd want to know if I get sent back with ALL of my current knowledge or be limited to the knowledge of 3000 years ago. Of course, the biggest issue would be the temptation to alter history. The problem with doing that is you might change something that causes you not to be born, in which case it would be impossible for you to be sent back. Basically the grandfather paradox.
My spouse’s character in a Call of Cthulhu campaign sort of had this happen to her…except she started with immortality in approximately 2300 BC (it’s complicated, but it involves being chosen by a god to be an instrument to prevent the success of another god’s plans). She lived straight through into the 1920s, then because of another character’s mistake (okay, *my* character’s mistake), she got sent back to about 2500 BC. And had to live through the same 4000+ years *again*. Had some interesting experiences both times through, though. The character was finally permitted to die at the conclusion of the campaign because we had successfully defeated the rival god. (It helps that we won in an “everybody dies” scenario.)
Imagine having two immortals and the other one is just a total *ick and you hate them. What a bummer! Now... if we get some kind of Good Omens deal about it, and get some supernatural powers and someone we can be immortal together with? count me in. If I have to stay female and normally-human, I think I'll pass. Well... that, or spend a lot of time exploring the world without interacting with men.
I would show them some (now totally normal things) magic, that would every possibility for any religion to grow. When people learn (slowly, bc I wont tell them) how those things work, they would figure, that I can't work magic and there would be no religion. So thats way less war already. Next step would be finding a way, to avoid wars about useless borders. No one really needs borders, they are just made up by humankind.
I think we are not meant to live that long. Not unless the wisdom that comes with age increases exponentially from what it is now.
imagine how people will think you are basically a god when you show them a basic floating lantern and explain that making it bigger isn't that hard and get celebrated as the guy who invented flight.
Depends on what goes with the immortality. If its just can't die of old age, I'll pass. I don't want to spend 2500+ years with a broken leg before anesthesia is invented. If its immunity to disease and injury immortality, I'd go the Leto II route from God Emperor of Dune. With my ability to see the big events of the now future, I'd become a despot to direct humanity until that future no longer exists. Hopefully it will take less than 3000 years of pushing the group over the individual and artificial selection to install a modified 3 laws of robotics and weed out our base selfishness. It worked for ants, why not people? My goal would be humanity uniting to overthrow me as I've now become the biggest threat to their continued existence. I'd then disappear into the universe.
The "can't be killed" -type of immortality leaves open the possibility of fates far worse than death. What if you get trapped somehow, far away from help. Maybe a boulder rolls on your leg, or you fall in a pit, or get buried alive like that guy in the Florida sinkhole. Then you just exist like that for eternity. That's so horrifying, I can hardly let my brain imagine it before I get too creeped out and have to think of something else.
I would move to ancient Egypt, the only country at that time where I could make decisions about my life as a woman and with sufficiently advanced hygiene. There are countries that have not reached those levels to this day.
3000 years ago is around 1000 BCE. You'd be in the iron age. World population of around 50 million people. You would not be speaking english because it doesn't exist yet. You would have to live through countless wars, the middle ages, historical slavery in many civilisations, child slavery, periods of devout religious belief, the plague, no women's rights at all, watching the people around you die at an early age, from minor ailments etc. And then you eventually arrive back to modern day due to the passage of time, and have to go through covid again, and certain world leaders, then onwards into the future because you are immortal, so you will see the results of climate change, mass extinctions, future ice ages, the possible extinction of humanity (except for you because you are immortal) and then eventually in around 8 billion years, because you are immortal and still alive, you will experience the sun engulfing the earth and you will burn for eternity. Yep. I think I will pass ty lol
If it comes with the benefit of not being able to be killed I'd basically pull an "Emperor of Mankind" thing from 40k. Take over some tribe, teach them about strong alloys, introduce black powder, some other stuff like modern agriculture techniques etc. and then expand the empire like the romans did - everybody can keep their traditions and stuff as long as they're loyal to the throne
I'd do it. I'd like to assume this is complete invincibility, regenerative nature immortality. As the only languages I know are modern English, and a very small amount of modern German, I'd be unable to interact with humans, unless I want to learn a new language. So, the start of my immortal life won't involve them. I'll spend several decades in the oceans, and uninhabited forests and mountains, interacting with megafauna. When I get bored with that, things can get a little more interesting. I could show up for major world events. However, that would require walking, sailing, or riding horses anywhere I want to go. This is a slow process. No. Instead, I pick a town, ideally small, with plenty of hiding places along the outskirts. Every so often I show up in this town, walk through it, talk to people. It's unlikely that they understand me, so they'll see a stranger speaking an unknown language. Then I disappear. I keep this up for generations, I'm their cryptid.
There is a wonderful story from Philipp J Farmer, Time‘s last gift“ about exactly this topic. It’s is one of these haunting and moving tales that follows you for a lifetime.
Immortality and time travel are two different things. One you start at a spot and go forward. Learning. Living. Existing and getting bored but things don't change instantly. Immortality? You have to live the decades. You watch people come and go. If you're able to reproduce you watch children and generations pass but see your genes move on. Sometimes good sometimes bad. Prob best to become a teacher. Pass on dead languages. Be an archeologist and dig up past homes. Sit for portraits and point out details. Master every instrument. But don't become famous because a government will capture and dissect you as your tissue continues to exist. Time travel? Its only ability is going back and not interacting with events. You can't go forward. You don't know what's there. Where you will emerge. Into a wall? Into another person? In front of a speeding car? In the ocean if the climate change changes the planet? Going back you can look for areas that are empty to pop out and take a look. Cont
This would only work for me if three things were a given. 1 I would have control over where I was dropped off at. 2 I would have sufficient time to prepare and plan before I went. And 3 I would have only 90-95% immortality not 100% (I don't want to out live the human race or worse have to wait until the end of time to blink out of existence). With those conditions I would like to be dropped off in some place like North America . I would endeavor to convert the local various nomadic tribes into a unified nation of extremely advanced technology. Through the application of basic math, the printing press, , and metallurgy. I make sure to have a strong foundation of logic and critical thinking in order to allow them to advance on their own while providing basic key knowledge at critical moments to allow for rapid advancement. So when people like Columbus and Cortez show up they will have their rear ends handed to them.
Hmm. I think I'd try my best to make it so the worst parts of history never happened. Maybe, by first influencing those in power to keep pagan. So many awful things can be laid at the feet of the big, monotheistic religions. Killing people to convert them, deliberately destroying medical and historical knowledge, deliberately destroying whole cultures, persecuting women and gays, killing people for believing in different gods, killing people for believing in the same god, but in a slightly different way. The believers in the old gods just seem like they were a lot more tolerant, and open minded. As more modern times started happening, I would have to figure out some way to discourage industrialization. Promote wind and water, vilify coal right off the bat. That, again would be easier, if the people's religion was more nature based.
I didn't read all of them, but for me it would be a no. Ask me if I'd like to go back to being a teenager and live the rest of my life again, and know what I know now, probably yes. I made a lot of mistakes that I wouldn't mind going back and correcting, or at least see them coming and not repeat them.
I would call up Mel Brooks, ask him to put the 2000 Year Old Man on the line, and then ask for pointers.
Firstly I'd want to know if I get sent back with ALL of my current knowledge or be limited to the knowledge of 3000 years ago. Of course, the biggest issue would be the temptation to alter history. The problem with doing that is you might change something that causes you not to be born, in which case it would be impossible for you to be sent back. Basically the grandfather paradox.
My spouse’s character in a Call of Cthulhu campaign sort of had this happen to her…except she started with immortality in approximately 2300 BC (it’s complicated, but it involves being chosen by a god to be an instrument to prevent the success of another god’s plans). She lived straight through into the 1920s, then because of another character’s mistake (okay, *my* character’s mistake), she got sent back to about 2500 BC. And had to live through the same 4000+ years *again*. Had some interesting experiences both times through, though. The character was finally permitted to die at the conclusion of the campaign because we had successfully defeated the rival god. (It helps that we won in an “everybody dies” scenario.)
Imagine having two immortals and the other one is just a total *ick and you hate them. What a bummer! Now... if we get some kind of Good Omens deal about it, and get some supernatural powers and someone we can be immortal together with? count me in. If I have to stay female and normally-human, I think I'll pass. Well... that, or spend a lot of time exploring the world without interacting with men.
I would show them some (now totally normal things) magic, that would every possibility for any religion to grow. When people learn (slowly, bc I wont tell them) how those things work, they would figure, that I can't work magic and there would be no religion. So thats way less war already. Next step would be finding a way, to avoid wars about useless borders. No one really needs borders, they are just made up by humankind.
I think we are not meant to live that long. Not unless the wisdom that comes with age increases exponentially from what it is now.
imagine how people will think you are basically a god when you show them a basic floating lantern and explain that making it bigger isn't that hard and get celebrated as the guy who invented flight.
Depends on what goes with the immortality. If its just can't die of old age, I'll pass. I don't want to spend 2500+ years with a broken leg before anesthesia is invented. If its immunity to disease and injury immortality, I'd go the Leto II route from God Emperor of Dune. With my ability to see the big events of the now future, I'd become a despot to direct humanity until that future no longer exists. Hopefully it will take less than 3000 years of pushing the group over the individual and artificial selection to install a modified 3 laws of robotics and weed out our base selfishness. It worked for ants, why not people? My goal would be humanity uniting to overthrow me as I've now become the biggest threat to their continued existence. I'd then disappear into the universe.
