I would want to tell my past self that I'm trans and they should take HRT ASAP and that all my friends and family are accepting and that I don't need to wait until I'm 30 to come out.
Ask my future self. Telling my past self something is very likely to have no affect on my life (what if past actions only affect that "me" and not me-me), whereas asking my future self something will always end up with me gaining information - no guarantee its relevant, but it's more likely to be.
"Tell me the most important thing you can tell me"
My future self will know best about what I need to know. Winning lottery/investments can make me rich now, but maybe there's a nuclear war, climate apocalypse, or some other disaster in 5 years and my future self can tell me where to be and what to do before it starts.
Wouldn't the same logic apply from the perspective of future you? I.e. they would be a different future you if they were told something by themselves in the past.
Realistically I'm sure I'd end up using it for financial gain either way.
Future Self: What's the next Nvidia stock?
Past self has more monkey paw possibilities, but I think I'd go with something like, "Buy all the surplus compute you can to generate bitcoin in 2009 and hold it until $64,000."
That's too much work. Just buy $1000 worth of bitcoin in 2010 and sell it all at 50k, which means you can cash it in 2 years earlier and still make WAY more than you'll ever be able to spend.
At that point you will be affecting the entire market though. So things might become unpredictable.
The one thing I would want to tell past me is something I already knew, but still couldn't convince my dad to invest in Google and Apple back in 2002. We played a game in economics class where, using the real stock market, we started with like 50k to invest in and at the end of the month, whoever made the most money won a big jar of candy.
I won by just putting half in Google and the other in Apple and then never touching it. But I couldn't convince my dad to invest even a little bit and I had no money of my own to do so myself. 😮💨
What happens to me after I tell my past self the thing? Do I cease to exist? Do I quantum leap into a version of myself from the universe where my future self told me that one thing? Do I just go on with my life but I know that there is a parallel universe out there where my past self got my message? Or does the time stream correct itself such that my life follows the same exact course except I remember my future self sending me a message?
unless you have some specific trauma in your past that's worth avoiding it's silly to be rich later in life than earlier in life. I can't see any scenario where talking to your future self is better than your past self. Even giving world shattering options you'll weather it better as a rich capitalist than a prole.
Of course telling past me a thing makes more sense. I have a basic understanding of the past and what I say has a good chance of improving past me's life.
I cant even imagine what my biggest decision in the next few years is going to be, there's a good chance whatever I ask will be a waste of time. The wiser of me should dictate what we talk about.
This is the real answer. You can't change your past, or the current version of you would not exist. You might still exist but not this version of you. It might be better or it might be worse but most things in your life would be completely different. And you definitely wouldn't remember the change.
We don't realize how intertwined different parts of our life are. If you just pause a second in your daily life and do nothing, you have literally changed your future and that of the entire world. It's not some woo-woo vibes thing, you are literally slightly adjusting everything around you by existing and acting. It's impossible to tell exactly how until much later.
Tell my past self not to trust guidance counselors and go to the tech highschool instead. If they say anything is a kind, caring voice along the lines of "we think you would be better in an easier class...", shut them down. Don't settle, don't negotiate, don't think you can wait it out.
It's kind of dumb that knowing she was unable to stop him, he still sent her the same message, instead of sending information like "I am you. Do not go."
Tell my past self that actually you have to do everything yourself. Like EVERYTHING. No is waiting to pull you up into the life where you belong. Life is demanding, without understanding, but I saw the sign.
Telling my younger self something is better, but riskier. Can't guarantee my young self will take action. What would 17 year old me really do with the knowledge that Bitcoin would hit 20k? Setting.io the wallet was harder back then and I may just give up.
Everyone here is trying to make a quick buck, without thinking about whether it will work.
If they change the past, they will cease to exist, unless time is looped, which means nothing would have changed.
So the past is a dead end, and the future you should know this too, answering you will either make them vanish from existence, or answering you will not change anything.
If they vanish, there's no guarantee you'll be better off, even if you do become rich.
This seems like a completely pointless comment. If moneymaking efforts won't work because of the paradox of changing the future, then nothing else will work, since anything will change the future. In that situation, if given the opportunity, why not try?
Also, this can be resolved if your relative future self is smart enough to remember what they heard in the past, and say the same thing they heard when the time comes (unless it doesn't work, in which case arguably they'd say something else, which leads to an unstable configuration where the theoretical future will change until you reach a stable configuration where future you does repeat what you heard)