Besides the obvious answer of making money, or rather, how would you do it as an 8 year old? What else would you do?
Be kinder to my younger brother.
I’d spend a lot of its mourning that I’d never be able to replicate my daughter as she is now. I could time it right to get the right egg, but how many wanks, exactly, and when did I have? How could I possibly even guarantee the right sperm even if I manage to secure the same payload?
Probably instead just ride the bitcoin wave hard as hell and start my own game dev company.
Also I’d be better equipped towards mad anxiety disorder. That shit absolutely ruined my life and it took about 3 years before I realised something was actually wrong.
Convince my parents to put all their money in some fruit company about apples.
Hug my mom
After that I’d probably start the process of establishing that I’m trans, and I’d actually study and put effort into applying to good schools as time goes on.
In 1976 give mom and dad a list of large corporations to buy stock in for for my Christmas and birthday gifts. Well into adulthood, buy Bitcoin. Tell my grandmother to go to her doctor and start cancer treatments.
1979 for me and that is exactly what I’m thinking.
Definitely get into programming at an earlier age. My mom’s work gave her one of those green monitor computers when I was around this age, but I didn’t know how to work it so it was useless. I bet I could find some books about how to use it at the library or something.
Write more, including the sci-fi ideas I have in my head now so it’s kinda future-predicting.
Don’t take my high school sweetheart back when they break up and want to get back together (or break up with them earlier than I did).
Start using my study skills I know now in Jr High so I can actually kill it in high school like I thought I would.
Get diagnosed for narcolepsy in high school so I can further my potential.
Oh, and not eat all that McDonalds and other fast food as a kid/teenager!!
Go to the library a lot. Learn and master the art of lock picking. Make more friends at school (networking). Wear crocs way before they’re cool.
there’s still time to get into crocs. they’re not going to be cool for a while.
LOL. Truer words have never been spoken.
Talk my mom into putting us into a better school. Cry because I have to be a kid again. Be an academic hyperachiever, then get ridiculously early onset Alzheimer’s at like 30 years old.
The real question, I guess, would be how to strike out on my own as a literal child. School was repetitive the first time, and my home life was pretty mid as well.
Funny story, I think I actually had enough savings at that point to live on for a month or two. I was a weird kid.
I would wanna see what all this IRC stuff is all about
Estrogen. If that plan fails (and it probably would) then DIY orchiectomy. And if that plan fails (and it might) or is otherwise counteracted then I would die by my own hand.
The situation of my eight-year-old self is antithetical to the being of my current mind. My knowledge and understanding would force me to take certain paths and many of them lead to situations beyond my make-it-stop threshold. Is it better to walk to one’s doom unknowingly, or to be dragged beaten ragged and screaming into the confinement of hell?
Let’s see so it’s '02, which means I’m powerless to try to stop 9/11. That’s pretty much my only time travel plan, it’s my “kill baby Hitler”, so that sucks.
keep head down, shut mouth, don’t draw attention, find allies
Play ragnarok online.
Play a bit less video games, focus harder on skateboarding and learn guitar earlier (started when I was 11).
Once I hit high school, I’d focus more so I could go to school at the end for electrical engineering. Once graduated, I’d start building amps and pedals for guitar and bass.
