If you had a time machine....

[cgymike]

I would go forward 10 billion years to watch the earth get burned to a crisp by the Sun. That would be awesome to see!

 

[Kulindahr]

I would go forward 10 billion years to watch the earth get burned to a crisp by the Sun. That would be awesome to see!

Sorry; this time machine only goes backwards.

Let's see, ten billion years ago....

 

[CowboyBob]

Back to 1991 and drag my companion Dan to the doctor for regular yearly checkups. They would have caught his prostate cancer early and he would still be with me. By the time they discovered the cancer in 2000 it had metastasized. He would never go to the doctor for anything until I forced him to go then.

Then back to 1958 to the Chicago Auto Show and see the all new Edsel!

Further back to 1905 and visit the Everard Spa Turkish Bathhouse in New York. I've read a lot about it and would have liked to experience it.

Everard Baths - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[wilbur33]

I'd go back 10 minutes and not bother reading this thread.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'd go back 10 minutes and not bother reading this thread.

Somehow I hoped people would consider serious changes to history -- like throwing the newborn Hitler into a river.

 

[Callum]

There are too many temporal paradoxes associated with time travel to make it a reality. Unless of course time can rejuvenate itself. Then you'd be fucked wherever you planned on traveling to.

But to humour the idea, I'd travel back to the early 15th century (Italy) and invent microscopes, electricity and an investment bank for relatives alive in the future.

 

[bw92116]

Back to the beginning of my life and do it all over again correctly.

 

[HunterM]

I'd go back to 1982 to slap Sylvester Stallone to stop him from making more Rocky sequels after Rocky III just came out. "Why u do that, fool!?"

 

[HunterM]

I would go back to the turn of the century to set up social media internet sites such as Facebook and Tweeter. After seeing how Arab Spring brought about regime change (through grass root social media related informational revolutions), perhaps it would topple dictators around the world a lot sooner and minimize slaughters under their rulings.

 

[zoltanspawn]

I wanted to go 200,000 years back to Africa, but then I learned that there isn't at present a reliable technology I could use to sterilize a large population.

 

[Latimer]

Re the leading post: the Spanish would never have been able to take Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, if they hadn't been joined and helped by other Mexican nations who used the Spanish to help defeat their common enemy--certainly one of the greatest examples of "be careful what you wish for", or "more tears are shed of answered prayers than unanswered ones". Human sacrifice is not incompatible with monotheism. Witness the Inquisitian's contemporaneous autos da fe in Europe.

Perhaps we should all be baha'i, although I've long thought that looking at all of the conflicts and contradictions that abound in the world, polytheism corresponds better to the reality around us than monotheism.

 

[Latimer]

Didn't Ray Bradbury write a short story about this, where a dinosaur gets shot and it results in a changed presidential election millenia later? Or does it have something to do with a butterfly? The point is, if you change anything, there's a chance you won't exist.

It's too bad we don't have many parallel worlds, where we can see the different scenarios play out. For example, what if Gore had been elected instead of Bush II? 9-11 probably wouldn't have happened (see the recent NYT article re the intelligence that wasn't acted upon). We certainly wouldn't have invaded Iraq. We might even have a budget surplus.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Our genus was reduced to a few thousand individuals about 70,000 years ago. We almost went extinct.

What happened?

(But perhaps more importantly, am I now being monitored for multiple searches like "how to sterilize humans"?)

 

[TheFireGod]

Prevent Wu Sangui from opening the gates of Shanhai Pass in 1644. This will at least turn China into a bunch of warring states (again) or a new native dynasty, not a Manchu rule that lasted until 1911. Oh and no ugly clothes (like most characters wore in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) and hairstyles (those braids).

Warn the Eastern Romans and Sassanid Persians about a threat to their south, also give a warning of eastern invaders to the Berbers and Kahina/Dihya,it would really be cool to see Arab invaders get beaten by a group led by a woman!

Make Tengrism into an actual religion, which means the Mongols invasions would also resemble Islam's spread but being waaaayyy more tolerant. Same cant be said about their other methods though.

Reduce the power of the Yangban class, they were one of the largest roadblock to modernizing the Kingdom of Korea, well Heungseon Daewongun also, but the Yangban were in power longer.

 

[Kulindahr]

Make Tengrism into an actual religion, which means the Mongols invasions would also resemble Islam's spread but being waaaayyy more tolerant. Same cant be said about their other methods though.

You gonna do that,maybe we should get the Mongol invasion of Japan to succeed....