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science-fiction style, to change history at some point of your choosing, what would you choose? Assume that you can bring, say, a carload of equipment, books, and whatever.
For myself, I think I should go back to Victorian England and try to avoid the Great War and all that followed, while at the same time speaking to all the great scientists of classical physics : Maxwell, Hertz, Planck, etc. I would bring my textbooks, of course, and a computer with its own generator to convince people I wasn't a madman.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I wouldn't try to change anything out of fear of preventing my own creation and therefore creating a paradox.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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But if you create paradox, you can then patch that paradox, and get an extra card in your hand. That's a good thing!
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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The great war didn't start in Victorian England.
I would go back to ancient Europe, especially concentrating my efforts on Holland, and improve the (extremely short, miserable and muddy) lives of thousand of people by teaching them how to make Wellington boots.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Well, duh, I know it didn't start there, but it could easily have been prevented by British intervention in the Franco-Prussian war, on the French side.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Haven't you ever read The Man Who Folded Himself , by David Gerrold? You wouldn't change anything, you'd just create a new time-stream. Sheesh. Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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This is something I used to think about quite a lot. There have been quite a few pivotal times in my life when I think I made the wrong decision, and wondering "what if" is one of the prices.
But even though I've dreamed of changing all of those choices, I wouldn't touch a one. Too big a chance I'd come back and be missing a kid, or not have the relationship with my wife I have now.
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I would go back in time, find my arch-nemesis' parents and make sure they never meet.
Also, while there, I would purchase stock in various companies and put $1,000 on deposit at the bank of my choice; interest to be compounded daily.
And I'd buy an Austin Healy MK 3000 new and store it in a garage under climate-controlled conditions.
I'd also make sure that Ronald Reagan's acting career was so spectacularly successful that he couldn't afford to leave it for politics.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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I think I'd go back and see if I could get the founders to put a guaranteed deadline to end slavery into the Constitution. I'm thinking blackmail and a little technology to look like an all-powerful ghost might do the trick.
Edit: or better yet, stop it in Virginia when the first slaves were brought there.
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That would be a good trick. How are you going to get anyone to move there if they can't rely on slave labour to clear the forest primeval?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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KoM: People moved West without slaves...when "west" meant out of the coastal areas and into the forested areas of New England.
It would not have been impossible to make the south profitable if they'd chosen differently from the start.
But, once the slave-based economy took hold, no-one growing cotton or tobacco (or other "southern" crops) could ever survive financially while paying a fair wage for labor.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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1982.... If the coach would have put me in, we could have made it to state. I could have gone pro. Things would be a lot different.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I would go back in time, write Ender's Game and create Hatrack the instant the Internet existed.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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I would shoot Aaron Burr in the back of the head before he could kill Alexander Hamilton.....don't know why....but I would
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:That would be a good trick. How are you going to get anyone to move there if they can't rely on slave labour to clear the forest primeval?
Most settlers didn't have slaves. It was never economically feasible in the places it didn't take hold. Kansas had a mini-civil war over whether settlers could bring slaves. And there was some issue w/ Missouri, if I recall correctly.
Slaves were used mostly on established farmland, not on pioneer farms, although of course they were used there, too.
But without the warping of economics accomplished by slavery, I think we would have developed much differently. Also, I think the existence of slavery and its toleration have tainted this country from the beginning, in ways far beyond racism.
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I don't think I would have enough confidence in my ability to change minds to try and convince someone to avoid certain mistakes, not to mention, the repercussions would be totally unknown. I think I'd rather just go back to about 1600 and plant a thousand new ideas about science into the European air.
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I would have joined Hatrack earlier, and become like, the queen of Hatrack that everyone worshipped, like AK or a female version of Hobbes.
But all joking aside, I would probably go back to when I was very young and expose myself to a foreign language. Preferrably something romantic or asian. Then, I would be having a lot easier of a time of learning languages now. (Not that it's that TERRIBLY hard.)
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Without slavery, none of the African-Americans alive today would not have been born because their great^X-grandparents would never have met. Further, if they WERE alive today, it would be in some god awful hell-hole in africa.
And if that's not enough to convence you, we wouldn't have peanut butter because George Washington Carver would never have been born.
Preventing slavery would improve the lives of millions who are already dead at the expense of millions alive today.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Unless of course we prevented imperialism altogether and then Africa wouldn't be the hellhole it is today.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Without slavery, none of the African-Americans alive today would not have been born because their great^X-grandparents would never have met. Further, if they WERE alive today, it would be in some god awful hell-hole in africa.
And if that's not enough to convence you, we wouldn't have peanut butter because George Washington Carver would never have been born.
Preventing slavery would improve the lives of millions who are already dead at the expense of millions alive today.
It's a nice theory to make us feel a little less bad about the 4-century enslavement of millions of people, but it doesn't hold water, especially when you consider how many people don't exist today because their would-be ancestors were forcibly kept apart, or were flat out killed in the middle passage or later.
It's easy to look at Africa and decide it's a mess, but much of that mess was caused by the systematic exploitation of Africa, of which the slave trade was the first big step.
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Or I would go back in time and fix the the ruling of the 2000 election and make the House of Representatives decide(not the Supreme Court) because that is the way it is supposed to be....and maybe if we got lucky it would prevent this war we are in.............. Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Um, the House would have been HEAVILY Republican by the standards used - each state delegation votes together, and the state gets one total vote based on the majority of reps from that state. Ties get no vote. Under that standard, the tilt in the house was much more in favor of Bush than otherwise.
If you wanted to stop the war, why not go back and kill Sadaam before he took power?
quote: Preventing slavery would improve the lives of millions who are already dead at the expense of millions alive today.
If you'd actually have this power I think preventing anything would be at the expense of some people today, don't you?
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Yes, I'm not actually sure I'd take the opportunity to go back in time and change something for that reason.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Why should the House of Reps decide legal matters anyways? If you ignore Michael Moore's twisting of the facts, Bush would have won any further recounts anyways.
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By the way, do you know "A Sound of Thunder", the movie, is coming out this year? See it, then think again before going back to change something! Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I would go back to yesterday and kill myself, if I was brave enough.
Otherwise it would be a tossup between the Victorian era and the fifties and sixties. Absinthe, opium, and Vin Mariani while admiring Van Gogh, or taking legal LSD at the first Doors concert, and drinking with Kerouac?
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I'm with Chris on this one. Every change you make will have one immediate, foreseeable consequence, and a zillion unforeseeable ones. On a selfish level, that could mean the loss of a loved one. On a broader scale, that could mean accidentally creating a massively horrific future.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Like the opposite of Pastwatch Unless you consider a peaceful union between the great societies of the eastern and western hemispheres, and the end of slavery and human sacrifice to be "horrific" Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Well, not really. But the whole consequences thing, and how they had to be really careful.. And the Interveners, as well.
Posts: 459 | Registered: Dec 2004
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My mother told me a story once. One of her favorite nephews, her big sister's little boy, she promised she'd take him and his sister to this big light garden one Christmas. On her way home from work the set night, she was really tired. Before leaving work, she called her sister about it. My aunt told her that the little sister was already asleep and they could probably skip it.
When she went to my aunt's house the next morning, she found out her nephew had been crying a lot about it, disappointed. She promised she would take him the next year.
That summer he died in a car wreck. My mom says this is one of her deepest regrets and most painful memories. This was long before I was born, when my mother was fresh from high school.
If I could, I would go back to sit with her on that car ride home. I would tell her that she most definitely should do it, and treasure the memory, asking her to trust me. I would not overly change history, though really, who knows?
That's what I'd like to do. Go back and heal all the little hurts. Not the great pains, but the inflamed scratches and bruises that are ignored.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Actually, I like Joldo's idea better. I would ahve a hard time if I could only use it once, though... and if I was not certain I would be successful, I might stick to my first plan.
Posts: 281 | Registered: Aug 2004
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