Living 81 years with the prospect of annihilation if one rocks the boat too much will change a man. Likewise honing the kind of duplicitous skills required to simply survive the attention of the world.

So, would my moral compass stay intact? If I don’t work at it, no - I’m under no illusion that it would. What I expect to happen is that I would continue to avoid the public eye. But once the shackles are off, there’s no telling where this goes.

Stepping out of this role for a bit, if I had that kind of wealth today, what would I invest in? Education and science. Press freedom. Rule of law. Anti-poverty programs (part of education). Probably others too, but those are the essentials.

As I was reading this, I disappeared in a flash of light and landed in 1945. But I have a plan.

• Learn acoounting, get a job, grind for 10 or so years
• Start investing in Ford, GE etc. and wait for the compound interest to kick in
• Buy a farm, continue to invest. Retire “early”
• Grow a beard, get some white hair paint
• Travel to “relatives” in Australia for 6 months every year
• While in Australia, get rid of beard, set up alternative identity as my own nephew, get involved in fledgling computer domain, invest
• Back home, take up fishing, end up disappearing at sea one day, nephew inherits everything
• I am nephew. Got enough money now to stop working, buy a vineyard in NZ, spend 6 months in the year abroad
• Invest in IBM, I should be filthy rich by now
• Hire professionals to set up a dozen or so alternate identities in English speaking countries. Kill nephew, avoid Australia for the next 20 years
• Numbered Swiss accounts, different looks, pro theatre makeup, the works. By now my 10+ offshore companies own 10% of Berkshire Hathaway between them
• Rotate identities as needed. Invest in the dot com bubble from 100+ offshore shell companies. Cash in and buy tech stocks after the crash. I am now richer than God, but still not intervene in not-yet-current affairs
• No posh events, no media, no socials ffs. My ghosts come and go. I own a few law firms that take care of business and identity management. When suspicions arise, I change countries. Ireland works for a while. I now own 10-20% of all major tech companies, because I bought them before it was cool
• I get into crypto early. Money has no meaning anymore. I mark the days and months remaining to May 19, 2026, when all of this began. I need to insert myself into my old life right as past me begins the journey, will probably feign a nasty flu afterwards to get back on track. Small price to pay for total freedom

And here we are. Money wise, I own about half the world and now I can finally act. Where should I start?

Talk to friends, compare lists, get back to this comment a week from now…

Here are my last 2 discoveries:

• Fall of Civilisations
• Damn Interesting

Nobody saying it, so I will: this poster is fucking lit 🔥

You have to admit, the resemblance is uncanny.

Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) is pretty good.

Of course, if you are self hosting, have a look at Unbound - also works nicely in combination with PiHole.

-1

Haha, best case scenario right here.

… although if you’re not doing that for a living, I would count it as brave.

If you’re just minding your own business, I’m afraid you’re right.

This sounds like personal experience, if that’s the case, I’m sorry it happened to you, mate. Sime people can be real dicks.

Funnily enough (pardon the pun) I thought about putting the option in, but my personal perception is that people being filmed doing funny stuff are not usually filmed by strangers. Slapstick doesn’t count, or rather, I tend to file that under “stupid”.

Are you sure that contradicts my statement? 😈