# If you can go back in Time,which political "Event" would you prevent/avert ?



## Alexander1970 (Oct 20, 2021)

_*No Time Limits (how far you go back) - but only for ONE Event.*_


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Oct 20, 2021)

Perhaps sinking the Santa Maria. White people have a superiority complex. Little has changed since colonialism. Just the terms.


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## djpannda (Oct 20, 2021)

kill baby hitler.....(YES THE BABY FORM)


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## CORE (Oct 20, 2021)

None because it would drastically change if you were even Born. However if you could then I would prevent the creation of any form of Political Government Institution at all.

People Live how they want as long as not harm others Fuck Governance.

Your Life Now...

Mr President , Prime Minister Whatever Whoever Bastard it is. 

(YOU)    'MAY I USE THE BATHROOM PLEASE'

(BASTARD)   'NO YOU CANT'

(YOU)  'BUT I WILL PISS/SHIT MYSELF'

(BASTARD)  'IF YOU DO THAT YOU WILL BE FINED PENDING FURTHER PROSECUTION)

REMEMBER BE HAPPY


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Oct 20, 2021)

djpannda said:


> kill baby hitler.....(YES THE BABY FORM)


No need to do it yourself. Just convince his mother of feminism.


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## Alexander1970 (Oct 20, 2021)

djpannda said:


> kill baby hitler.....(YES THE BABY FORM)



I think,that could get the most popular one.......


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## Xzi (Oct 20, 2021)

I've always been kinda curious how things might have played out if native American tribes were left to their own devices and had eventually united to form nation-states across the country.  What kind of butterfly effect that might have had on other historical events, how they would've dealt with industrialization, etc.

For the more direct approach/sure thing, yeah I'd kill baby Hitler lol.  But one does have to wonder if that would prevent World War 2, or simply delay the start of it and change the reasons for which it was fought.


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Oct 20, 2021)

You are incredibly cruel. Why kill Baby Hitler? Just give him an N64.


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## Xzi (Oct 20, 2021)

UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> You are incredibly cruel. Why kill Baby Hitler? Just give him an N64.


That would just result in unstoppable, technologically-advanced Nazis.


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## gamesquest1 (Oct 20, 2021)

given most political events are merely manifestations of underlying public sentiment or the will of shady powers behind the scenes, sure you could just kill baby hitler for your own gratification, but i'm sure there were plenty of people with similar thoughts in that era, I mean he did have an army of people ready and willing to follow his direction, to prevent the atrocities of that era you would need to do a lot more than kill 1 person

sad fact is I don't think there is too many events that could be stopped by just doing one thing, you might delay the inevitable i.e stop hitler, but then you just create a new stand-in sadolf bitler and now what's worse is once you return to the new present perhaps the stand-in took slightly different steps and won the war and millions more were killed and its all on you now and you only had 1 chance so you have to live knowing you created that mess and all the pain and torture you witness around you is all your fault, unfortunately to solve many of the worlds darkest time you would basically have to go around and fix millions of issues and problems to change the outcomes

the prudent thing would be to stop whoever creates the ability to go back and rewrite history, that power is something man I don't think will ever be qualified to handle and if it ends up in the hands of the wrong person they could make things a thousand times worse than they already are


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## KingVamp (Oct 20, 2021)

CORE said:


> None because it would drastically change if you were even Born. However if you could then I would prevent the creation of any form of Political Government Institution at all.
> 
> People Live how they want as long as not harm others Fuck Governance.
> 
> ...


Putting aside counting "Political Government Institution" as one event, I guess you prefer Corporate Overlords instead?



Xzi said:


> That would just result in unstoppable, technologically-advanced Nazis.


So, we are Doomed.


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## Kraken_X (Oct 20, 2021)

My first thought would be to prevent 9/11, but actually it would be even better to prevent George W. Bush from winning the 2000 election.  His presidency bankrupted the USA and turned the world against us.  He created two pointless, expensive and poorly executed wars and the worse financial collapse of the last 50 years.  

Al Gore might have prevented 9/11 by acting on the intel that Bush didn't, but even if he didn't stop 9/11, he wouldn't have started the Iraq war, which was completely unrelated and was all about the Bush family grudge and Halliburton's profits.  Gore would have either not invaded Afghanistan or would have worked with the locals to make it a winnable war.  Maybe he would have just went after Bin Laden directly like Obama did.  If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq hadn't happened, the trillions of dollars could have been spent on our crumbling country, and a massive and pointless loss of life could have been prevented.

Plus, Al Gore would have delayed or maybe even stopped climate change since that was his big thing at the time.


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Oct 20, 2021)

Kraken_X said:


> Plus, Al Gore would have delayed or maybe even stopped climate change since that was his big thing at the time.


Has the climate ever not changed in the history of this planet? Al Gore must have been a god-like chap. Let´s not de-rail this thread. I cannot assess the impact of these policies. I just couldn´t resist.


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## Guggimon (Oct 20, 2021)

Trump being a president


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## djpannda (Oct 20, 2021)

Xzi said:


> That would just result in unstoppable, technologically-advanced Nazis.





UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> You are incredibly cruel. Why kill Baby Hitler? Just give him an N64.


Give NAZI advance tech??
DO you want IRON SKY... cause thats how you get IRON SKY


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## djpannda (Oct 20, 2021)

UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> Has the climate ever not changed in the history of this planet? Al Gore must have been a god-like chap. Let´s not de-rail this thread. I cannot assess the impact of these policies. I just couldn´t resist.


yea but have millions tons of Man-made and/or cultivated gases did not help the process. it created a record speed-run of Humanity's destruction with game breaking Glitches


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## FAST6191 (Oct 20, 2021)

Xzi said:


> I've always been kinda curious how things might have played out if native American tribes were left to their own devices and had eventually united to form nation-states across the country.  What kind of butterfly effect that might have had on other historical events, how they would've dealt with industrialization, etc.
> 
> For the more direct approach/sure thing, yeah I'd kill baby Hitler lol.  But one does have to wonder if that would prevent World War 2, or simply delay the start of it and change the reasons for which it was fought.


Would they have formed nation states? Without modern communications (and bearing in mind they did not even have horses or a real equivalent) and farming methods (again no horses to drag ploughs around, few crops really worth considering either and geography to grow them dubious at that with the whole north-south thing) you do find a natural limit on the size of empires/countries, populations and the like. There is also the geography question of is it plausible for some kind of industrialised society to have formed even if that is handwaved in some way? Following discovery of it (pretty much inevitable) then you are never going to stop "ooh free land" (or "ooh free converts") and the mass kill off by disease short of dropping modern technology on it as far as medicine, vaccinations and weaponry, which then means probably them expanding out and taking over the rest of the world. That or go really far back and do basic bluewater navigation (open sea navigation and seafaring is hard, most things throughout history splashed around in nice costal waters rarely losing sight of land, also why those which bordered on the north sea tend to make the best seafarers) enough for trade (and horses/wheat/sheep/...) for say Carthage or maybe one of the west African states and that is several thousand years difference at this point. That or going back even further and hoping whatever horse analogue was both useful as a farm animal and not wiped out by the ancestors of the nowadays American Indians and its worth realised which is probably going to be 10000 years difference in history (not to mention probably still no contact with the rest of the world so likely disease issues, maybe with some reverse exchange).

Also yeah I would +1 a Hitler was not really one of those great men of history that did have actions pivot solely around them and would not have come to pass. Some would say the conditions of surrender for world war 1 pretty much ensured world war 2 -- still would have seen hyperinflation, political polarisation, secret army building (it was happening way before Nazis came to power, not to mention the Treaty of Versailles was an awful way of neutering an army), hyper nationalism and whatever else. Sykes-Picot Agreement also ensures the middle east is a hole to this day, granted that did not need much convincing.
Even if it was the case I would have the Hitler vs Stalin question if I am purely about preventing evils of the 20th century (though do I do Stalin or go back further and make it so the white army in Russia wins), and just in Europe (plenty of arseholes in Africa and Asia to consider in this, several others in Europe too  -- Franco, Mussolini). 20th century arseholes are also in some ways not even with the high score there -- do I go for Genghis Khan (if you want to talk about ripples then... world changing beyond most others here), Napoleon, king of Belgium (see Belgian congo), Chinese emperors, Chinese communists (not that what was there otherwise was too much better), Japanese warlords, Mughals in India, Shaka Zulu (ripple effects of him are crazy), Bantu expansion (even more ripple effects), Spanish inquisition, ascendancy of the Habsburg dynasty, Attaturk, Muhammed (and he was something of an anomaly as these things go, though it was also considerable work on the part of those after him that turned him from random desert cult leader into something that lasted)... some of those are quite questionable if doing the "unquestionably bad" thing as well.
World war 1 might be easier to stop as that was arguably a series of very unfortunate events. However we then have the concert of Europe thing to consider (world war 1 as it stands was a series of unfortunate events but modern warfare, arguably first seen in a little backwater called the US during its civil war, was a possibility) as it was a well known risk long before then, not to mention Austria-Hungary was pretty much cooked at this point and that was never going to end pretty. The butterflies of that are also considerable and may not make for something those today might like; world war 2 might have brought about the end of empires but 1 put a bullet in the knee of them and changed society quite radically (to say nothing of all those war dead did rather stop the Malthusian Trap problem for a few more decades).
What would stopping world war 2 also do for me? European empires would continue, Americans would probably be isolated (rarely the path to the land of milk and honey if you like modern freedoms and fun there), I don't know what Russia/USSR would have done here and things might have instead not been two fronts and invaded in winter.


For my money. Would probably find a point in history wherein scientific advancement was held back and sort that, and there are a fair few. Depending upon what goes then humans could be centuries ahead of what we have today (though there are some that might argue that is required those centuries to advance the human animal to the point of taking it).
Not sure where and when though, and how to seed it such that further random chance or elites holding onto their power would not snuff it out as they get displaced by said advancements*.

*"You must allow my poor hauliers to earn their bread" seemingly attributed to Roman Emperor Vespasian who died in about 89CE in response to automation of some things there, the concept of technological unemployment going back further still.


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## ElSasori69 (Oct 20, 2021)

Simple, eliminate certain president before he becomes one. Alan García, he ended up killing himself but he did it too many years later.


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## CORE (Oct 20, 2021)

KingVamp said:


> Putting aside counting "Political Government Institution" as one event, I guess you prefer Corporate Overlords instead?


FUCK EM ALL! They All Owned by Corporate Overlords!


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Oct 21, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> Also yeah I would +1 a Hitler was not really one of those great men of history that did have actions pivot solely around them and would not have come to pass.


The night of the long knives (1934) did steer the party in his direction. Maybe the war between the USSR and the German Empire could have been avoided if e.g. Ernst Röhm had lead the NSDAP.


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## Davycrockof (Oct 21, 2021)

i would stop America from entering ww2


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Oct 21, 2021)

Davycrockof said:


> i would stop America from entering ww2


I.e. troops or support?
The German Empire could not have recovered from Stalingrad. But perhaps they would not have lost at Stalingrad if America had not supported the USSR. China and most of South and North East Asia would be ruled by the Japanese emperor though, I guess.


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## Alexander1970 (Oct 21, 2021)

Davycrockof said:


> i would stop America from entering ww2


That would be interesting....maybe.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(1994_film)

(Withdrawing....not completely "No participation")


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## Exidous (Oct 21, 2021)

ElSasori69 said:


> Simple, eliminate certain president.


I completely agree. That arrogant, egomanical blowhard put his own aggrandizement before party and country. He didn't give a whit for what either of the latter stood for and was instrumental in setting the stage for his purported political enemies to win the following election and attempt to transform the country against the wishes of the majority of voters, whose vote was split - all because of President Dumbass and his insurmountable ego.



Kill Teddy Roosevelt. Save the future. 

Prevent the election of Woodrow Wilson - the first Progressive (racist socialist asshole) President of the United States, who won the Presidency with a plurality because Teddy Roosevelt went third party and split the Republican opposition. In keeping out His Progressiveness, we also keep out his obsession with helping Britain in the Great War, which averts the comprehensive defeat of the Central Powers in WWI. If the sides were suing for peace on more even footing (which they were on prior to the intervention of America), there very likely would have been no supposedly "unequal" Treaty of Versailles for a certain more-popular time travel murder target to use to rise to power (with only a plurality of his own) in Germany. No crazy Germans, no (or at least a very different) WWII. In addition to the lives saved during the war, without that distraction (and the absence of the communism-lite Progressives in the U.S. government), we might have been able to strangle international communism in its crib and save the 100 million+ souls those regimes went on to murder in the 20th Century.



ElSasori69 said:


> before he becomes one


Oh, I don't know. Teddy Roosevelt's first term was bad but I'm not sure we have to kill him before he clearly made it all about himself.



ElSasori69 said:


> Alan García, he ended up killing himself but he did it too many years later.


Oh, ok, him too


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## RAHelllord (Oct 21, 2021)

The big bang. This entire shit show was a mistake.


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## UltraDolphinRevolution (Oct 21, 2021)

notimp said:


> The creation of the gbatemp forum, where racist posters are allowed to farm young men for their cause - and moderation (ha!) is deleting posts aimed at upending them.


So you ask for censorship of others and get censored instead. Taste your own medicine.


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## FAST6191 (Oct 21, 2021)

Davycrockof said:


> i would stop America from entering ww2


Complete isolation, still continuing lend lease (if not the covert stuff beforehand), shipping things to all parties concerned rather than just the allies?
Canada was also still very closely tied to the the UK at this point so in the spirit of "you're no with us so you're against us" is a possibility you get to consider -- having an enemy world power (naval and military) with a land border for several of your biggest cities a hop, skip and jump away... not a great look, and while I doubt the UK would have been in a position to mount an offensive any time soon (expedition force having been lost already and that kind of massing for deployment would have been difficult on so many levels)
What would Japan have done in this timeframe as well?
That said it is one of the more plausible things on this list. Isolationist sentiment was pretty high.



UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> The night of the long knives (1934) did steer the party in his direction. Maybe the war between the USSR and the German Empire could have been avoided if e.g. Ernst Röhm had lead the NSDAP.


Yeah I neglected to mention that last time.
If he dies there is a risk someone more competent, with greater military support (if not outright support) and possibly better financials gets into power.

As far as war with the USSR... most communist countries (and the German communists massively disliked the national socialists so that gets to be a fun one, especially as support between the two was more or less equal) tended not to get along -- Sino Soviet, North Korea being appeased, China-Vietnam, all the fun and games with eastern Europe during the USSR which started in the 50s (Hungarian uprising probably being the most known but east German, Poland and later Prague Spring would be in this).
Now if they had actually managed some kind of continued ally status that they had before (see a lot of the dodging of arms embargoes done with them*)... that could be more interesting, and they might actually get some oil (going for the Caucuses being the driving, or indeed not because they had ran out of oil, reasons for the eastern front).

*one of many interesting videos on the matter for those unaware


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## Deleted member 514389 (Oct 21, 2021)

There is no point.

Happenings take their course no matter how hard you wish to prevent them.
The sooner you accept this, the better.


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## FAST6191 (Oct 21, 2021)

notrea11y said:


> There is no point.
> 
> Happenings take their course no matter how hard you wish to prevent them.
> The sooner you accept this, the better.


Possibly a bit fatalistic but I would say incorrect, and even if not (going way off topic but see "The Copenhagen Interpretation" of alternate universes for a starting point there) then whether you go for history repeats itself or history rhymes then knowing why something happened one time can lead to you preventing it from happening again, or at least predicting and acting accordingly for yourself.

As far as the incorrect thing. While it is a somewhat maligned view of looking at history these days then the great man theory view of history (see Thomas Carlyle for the main originator of that, and a very interesting series of political and history books) is one that has its perks. There are times when someone of such great skill, cunning, strength, insight, sociopathy... appears that will likely not be matched by anybody else alive at the time. There are also times where pure random chance causes something to happen that would not have otherwise happened, or would have taken decades/centuries more to happen and at that point things have changed (whether for positive or negative might be debatable).
Certainly I would still continue to spend considerable amounts of time looking into economics*, biology, geography**, human psychology, group psychology, scientific advancement at the time, social structures (granted that might be more economics, biology and geography), philosophies at the time.

*nobody likes being poor, get a population poor and suffering and they tend to revolt. Get one with excess wealth and provided food is there they tend to grow and also have excess such that you can do art, science and more besides.

**I already mentioned the north sea being the precursor to bluewater navigation and most formidable navies compared to the far more predictable and calmer waters basically everywhere else on the planet where people live. Or perhaps more succinctly there is a reason no landlocked nation has ever become a maritime power.
North-south geography of North America is another -- compared to the giant strips of land you can farm on in Europe and Asia with basically the same crops you will find them freezing or burning up in North America with the south not much better. Also no decent work animals survived there which does rather trouble technological development until you get steam engines/coal.

I could continue the list of asterisks but I won't. Videos instead


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## DJPlace (Oct 21, 2021)

i'm shocked no one said 9/11


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## Super.Nova (Oct 21, 2021)

I love how futile conversations about changing the past get...
If you go back to change something in the past, you won't be going back to change it and thus nothing would happen.
And even if an alternate universe was created, that'd mean you merely visited this universe yourself and yours is still the same.


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## DinohScene (Oct 21, 2021)

RAHelllord said:


> The big bang. This entire shit show was a mistake.



I fully agree with you mate, let's go back together and prevent that little pop from expanding!


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## FAST6191 (Oct 21, 2021)

DJPlace said:


> i'm shocked no one said 9/11


I would wonder if that is a function of age (it might have been a thing that happened before many here were born at this point), trickiness of doing it, or "there are more interesting things to contemplate".

There is also the question of how would you do it. Radical Islam was a thing long before this (1993 World Trade Center bombing if you want to go there) and I don't see a particular way to have stopped that -- population, inefficiencies of government, Sykes-Picot, modernisation efforts (rates of atheism in Islamic countries being rather on the rise, usually in direct proportion to external sources of information), Wahhabism/Salafism/some other fun ism from take your pick of various middle east sponsored places, Chechnya, Pakistan (even ignoring the Bangladesh split then it has been in basically a civil war for decades, and regions are basically lines on an map and almost autonomous), pick of a few places in sub Saharan Africa, might even get something from Indonesia (Aceh is mostly internally focused at this point but still, and I do generally note Indonesia as having the largest Muslim population in the world)...
Or if you prefer
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
So that was 2002 in the letter to the west. The building blocks however were clearly in place long before then.

So you stop it happening somehow (maybe your call they actually take seriously, maybe your black ops team wipes out the pilots a few months ahead of time). A few thousand Americans don't die that day, do we presume they don't have a "real" basis for invasion of places, the US maybe continues thinking itself invincible, you still get a nice housing collapse (the seeds of it sown long before)...
Last of the Neocons vs 90s democrats... political polarisation in the US was already a thing by then so both have equal chances of being elected. Both have enough investment from the then declining military investment ( https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget - flat line + inflation = declining investment) sector that I still see them sticking their beak in somewhere as the sector will seek to preserve itself, not sure if Asia, Africa or middle east though. South America might be an option that could result in something more fun. Probably pointless either way you swing it, though whether a forever war (winning war is easy enough, winning peace is rather harder as basically everything give or take maybe Bosnia has shown). Or if you prefer not like the US has not gone and done stuff basically every year for well over a century at this point regardless of politicos in nominal control (again landslides seem few and far between which means compromise).

Also even if they take your call or said black ops team does their thing... do you want to bet on the whole security vs convenience struggle without a bunch of pain in the first place?



Super.Nova said:


> I love how futile conversations about changing the past get...
> If you go back to change something in the past, you won't be going back to change it and thus nothing would happen.
> And even if an alternate universe was created, that'd mean you merely visited this universe yourself and yours is still the same.


For the most part in this sort of thing we generally suspend the time travel paradoxes and alternate universe physics debates, possibly even handwave the "your friends and family would not exist" thing as well.
Can also be read as "What pivotal moment in world history sent us down a lesser path?" if you prefer.


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## subcon959 (Oct 21, 2021)

Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.


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## FAST6191 (Oct 21, 2021)

subcon959 said:


> Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.


You may or may not want to expand on what you expect to happen there.
He was 78 at this point and this was 1940s India at that (not that anywhere in the world would have done too much, none of his kids lived particularly long lives either, way shorter than that actually but I don't know if this is sudden rich kid syndrome at this point, and his wife was already gone).

Jawaharlal Nehru then got to take over (him dying in 1964 from bad health so how much he could have done also gets questioned). Being as a Hindu nationalist did the deed it became a pretty decent casus belli to go after them and in turn it became decidedly unfashionable. Without it then that would have probably lingered with some force for a bit longer.

So if we say give him another 10 years of reasonable health (no dementia, no slip and fall in the shower) and no real concerns for political stability or scandal (a decided possibility, or if you prefer see many modern histories on him and questions raised, might have been even worse had things come to light back then). What would have realistically changed?
India and Pakistan were things by this point, and already splitting fairly violently (to say nothing of the formation of Bangladesh afterwards). Some might even say his assassination ultimately led to a bit more peace than had he slipped in the shower (again 78 in the 1940s). I don't particularly see scope for a united India either (see provincial lines to this day and going back centuries here), doubt he would have been able to do much against the caste system.
Sino-Indian splits were pretty much inevitable from where I sit and doubt he would have been able to do much there.
Industrialisation... don't particularly see a better timeline there, indeed I reckon it would have been worse on the farming/green revolution as I doubt Lal Bahadur Shastri would have been able to do his work as well (equally mechanisation of farming and matching chemical tweaks in India in the 1940s-1950s... tricky).
Export market and world player. Doubt it would have been more than primary goods which never get you rich and with the internal conflicts and immediate neighbours I don't see much in the way of world grade statesman.

Political stability in general. I am not really sure how that would have played out. Him doddering on through politics, maybe being the wise old man to consult if he stepped back. Even without his assassination I can't really see anybody but those from his main circles taking over for a while (Vishwanath Pratap Singh in the late 80s being the first without links to him and his inner circle), and maybe without the whip to crack to get things done either if there was not as much unity caused by his assassination.

Now the assassination of Indira Gandhi. That could pose some interesting questions.


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## VzUh (Oct 21, 2021)

way too much hitler here. it is not that hard to find singular persons trough history that have been responsible for way more deaths than hitler


i personally would remove the uk existence from history, even if i have to go all the way back to pangea and sink the whole thing with a manual showel. bonus points because it also prevents burgerland from being born


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## stanna (Oct 21, 2021)

The coronavirus scamdemic.


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## brickmii82 (Oct 21, 2021)

Take it back 3 billion and piss in the primordial goo. Fuck this disaster. No more Kardashians or robocallers.


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## subcon959 (Oct 21, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> You may or may not want to expand on what you expect to happen there.
> He was 78 at this point and this was 1940s India at that (not that anywhere in the world would have done too much, none of his kids lived particularly long lives either, way shorter than that actually but I don't know if this is sudden rich kid syndrome at this point, and his wife was already gone).
> 
> Jawaharlal Nehru then got to take over (him dying in 1964 from bad health so how much he could have done also gets questioned). Being as a Hindu nationalist did the deed it became a pretty decent casus belli to go after them and in turn it became decidedly unfashionable. Without it then that would have probably lingered with some force for a bit longer.
> ...



Not because I thought it would change anything, I just thought it was senseless and he probably deserved better at that point. I'm also about as convinced that Godse acted solely as I am that Oswald did.


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## FAST6191 (Oct 21, 2021)

VzUh said:


> i personally would remove the uk existence from history, even if i have to go all the way back to pangea and sink the whole thing with a manual showel. bonus points because it also prevents burgerland from being born



Are we taking Ireland with that? No real reason it would not become the UK without it, give or take maybe the lack of land compared to the rest of it that could sustain enough of a population to matter (even in current space year with modern tech and a rich scientifically focused country and it is some 6 million on the island of Ireland, compared to the 60 something million in the UK), and variously it was part of it until relatively modern times (can probably just about find someone that remembers it being part of it). Or if you prefer see the religious schisms that formed with Ireland being isolated and doing its own thing, no reason all other politics would not roll that way. If Ireland did carry on then whoever gets their act together on the continent as far as boats gets to use it as a training level instead of the UK, and then a nice place to go cool off when it gets too hot, few more resources and resupply for their wars, then probably a staging ground.

So anyway no big island off the coast of Europe (maybe it went with the rest of doggerland).
I would wonder at geographical concerns here -- Ireland and the UK being on the end of the gulfstream do act as a bit of a sink, Scandinavia might be a bit warmer and I don't know what goes for the North Sea either. Alternate geography is probably out of the question though as it makes things way too complicated so I will handwave that.

Islands in prehistoric (and even to this day) makes things really hard to invade*; there is a reason longbows were often considered a favoured weapon in the things that would become the UK and part of that was lack of worthwhile opponents on land borders (see the rest of Europe and history thereof) where you get to worry about that as well as peasant uprising.

*D-day landings in the 1940s barely worked and with the industrial might of the US and UK, Russian distraction, bad intel/setup on the part of Germany and practice in Italy (and maybe North Africa) beforehand to work out the kinks. Before that you have what the couple of technical Dutch invasions (the last of which was basically an invite), 1066 (which was also somewhat lucky), a few raids, Danelaw, Hengist and Horsa in the fifth century... 

Would the Celts have survived or been a forgotten thing in Northern France, Basques and what goes there, would the Roman empire have stretched itself to that degree or gone another way (England there was not particularly lucrative for them and took a fair bit of resources that could have gone for Germany, Russia, east, south...)?

Europe without the UK playing mediator at various points means it is probably going to be the Germany (I will assume they unite rather than being the source of princes and proxy wars) vs France show, maybe with some fun from the Spanish, Italy is fine for the early game in civilisations but sucks for the later one, Austria-Hungary... hahahaha. Also France without the UK... that is 1000 years change there, if not more if the Saxons decide not to go for the UK (the Normans that did 1066 themselves being vikings that settled there after all) and instead focus other directions. France, England, Scotland, Ireland all pulling all sorts of focus in all sorts of ways here, including the US (war of independence there being influenced by a war with France considerably on various fronts).
Vikings in Asia is also a potentially different story here if there is more reason to make more of a dent there.

No UK for time of empires other than the US (more on that shortly). India would probably have been a French dominion (it was in the early days) as the others were more about trading empires, though maybe the Germans would have got it together to get something. Mughals would likely not have been able to hang on in there.

Would the industrial revolution have kicked off without the UK or would it have been delayed by decades/centuries? Sources of coal and metals are a thing still, a lot of stuff appeared in Germany (de re metallica, something you could happily do quite well with for mining and basic metallurgy, being the 1500s in Germany).

As far as the US appearing. Given it was varyingly vikings, Spanish (who sent an Italian) and more that would have discovered it, with most of the rest of northern Europe in good stead to give it a go (not like Portugal and the Netherlands did not have maritime empires crossing further distances) and go off in search of India. Outside chance of Chinese look into things (see existing US history for timelines here, though I doubt they would have it together to do westward manifest destiny), or maybe Polynesian, Japan was still being isolationist and rarely had a good navy, don't know what goes for Russia here (Alaska was a thing but eh...), Korea potentially an option but again navy a bit lacking and also lack of the north sea to train up on.
Now it adopted UK common law along with some interesting enlightenment/classical liberal concepts rather than French law (which in turn was basically Roman law and similar stories for most of the other possibilities for Europe here) which is a bit of a change. That might be interesting -- whether it would be large Quebec or large New Orleans I don't know, the Spanish and Portuguese might even stick around (doubt the Dutch could have). With the possible exception of the Polynesians then the natives would have been steamrolled by disease either way and then we get massive land grabs, probably followed by a fracture as a 4 months to send ships and weapons means independence probably always going to happen pre steamships and telegraphs. That or it all looks like south America does today (debatable from where I sit as geography influences culture somewhat, especially in pre industrial times).



brickmii82 said:


> Take it back 3 billion and piss in the primordial goo. Fuck this disaster. No more Kardashians or robocallers.


Leaving aside questions of panspermia (life arrives on a comet) and likelihood of life evolving independently again or taking hold (the whole thermal vents thing).

The bacteria likely in that (they are the ones that clawed up nature's 3 billion year corpse pile) would potentially do some considerable boosting of evolution if they were able to survive at some level. Even without that the complex proteins there would probably have some fun.


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## Taleweaver (Oct 21, 2021)

It ain't going to be what you want to hear, but I'd try to convince my former self to stay single. Girlfriends are fun and all, but things just spiral out of control. You give in on little things to stop short term arguments, but then find yourself giving in on much larger things you never wanted...until you live a life you dislike.

...yeah, and I'm in a sad mood tonight. Feel free to comment, but I won't be giving further comments whatsoever.



Xzi said:


> For the more direct approach/sure thing, yeah I'd kill baby Hitler lol.  But one does have to wonder if that would prevent World War 2, or simply delay the start of it and change the reasons for which it was fought.


For what it's worth: that's a futile attempt. The Versailles treaty after world war I was, for all intents and purposes, unfair. It directly created a fertile ground of anger against the rest of the world. Hitler didn't create that anger, he only used it. Take him out, and someone else will be there in his place.

Preventing the murder on Frans Ferdinand (which caused geopolitical dominos to fall that lead to world war 1) MIGHT be a better way to ensure peace (which of course prevents world war 2 as well), but that's a big 'maybe' (it was a time of mighty empires distrusting one another at that time as well).


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## FAST6191 (Oct 21, 2021)

Taleweaver said:


> It ain't going to be what you want to hear, but I'd try to convince my former self to stay single. Girlfriends are fun and all, but things just spiral out of control. You give in on little things to stop short term arguments, but then find yourself giving in on much larger things you never wanted...until you live a life you dislike.
> 
> ...yeah, and I'm in a sad mood tonight. Feel free to comment, but I won't be giving further comments whatsoever.
> 
> ...


Is you/would you going red pill/mgtow/confirmed bachelor earlier be a political or notable historical event? For my own amusement I will imagine you as a sole prince of Belgium.

As far as treaty of Versailles I already went there but going again. I am not convinced however that stopping world war 1 would really do that much though -- concert of Europe means it was already known + Prussian wars + Napoleon + USSR expansionism (only way it was going to feed itself really)/Russian civil war + scramble for Africa (though that was in the past, maybe intervention in Egypt/Suez instead) + great game in Asia + independence movements gaining a bit of steam elsewhere + rising populations + end of industrial boom (valves, especially earlier ones, were never going to do that much and while semiconductors were known a while back then it was pretty much world wars that kicked that into gear), Fritz Haber arguably had world war 1 to play with and I am not entirely sure we would have got industrial ammonia (ammonia fertilizer, aka one of the reasons we did not starve this century, at least until the 1960s with serious genetics, which itself probably goes back to world war 2) without it... it was a powder keg loaded to the brim with 50 clumsy fools running around with lit torches.
That said delaying it a few years. The German plan during that was pretty much bound to fail when it was launched (might have worked if launched a few years before it was), so even 5 more years would have changed that somewhat and made it a complete crack smoker's idea instead. In which case maybe proxy wars in Asia, maybe the USSR gets a slap for trying to bother Poland, another borderline forgotten war like the Franco-Prussian War, or maybe Balkans round however many this is now) to just blow off some steam as the alternatives are too ghastly to contemplate (though how much people to learn by pain themselves I don't know). How much that would be for the better today I also don't know -- world war 1 wiping out something of a generation, voting rights accordingly, setting the groundwork for the end of empires (whether that is good or bad is up for debate), maybe not killing the class system in places but left it bleeding in the dirt), Austria-Hungary might wheeze along for a few more decades (possibly being smacked by Turkey, whose own reforms are potentially dubious in this timeline without the incompetence of the Young Turks/CUP being made so blatant -- they had already got in by this point), Sykes-picot also once more gets to be discussed, what goes with Spain I am not sure in this as far as civil war there, communism in this timeline I am less sure about as well (might not even take hold in Russia) which might be perk but there is bound to be something to fill the gap (appeals to fairness/laziness/wanting some of the good life are rarely far from history).


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## ChibiMofo (Oct 21, 2021)

If I could go back in time to stop one event from happening, I'd stop whomever invented time travel from ever being born. Travelling back in time (while absolutely impossible, so the question is moot) would be far too dangerous to everyone who has ever lived to allow it to happen. So I'd do what I could to prevent it.


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## Dr_Faustus (Oct 27, 2021)

I would go back and prevent the release of the iPhone, which in turn was the first of many next generation era of smart portable devices capable of ubiquitous internet access anywhere at anytime. 

Why you may ask?

Because the current degeneration of society is born from the mass dependence and misinformation created and fed to them on constant drip from the fact that anyone, at any age can now have instantaneous access to the internet and without context, or knowing what is and is not true have lead themselves into a new dark age of ignorance and embracing lies that they believe as true because someone shared it on Facebook or twitter. 

Of course you might just ask, why not get rid of FB or twitter instead? And the answer is that its simply not that simple, the concept of social media was always in the plans since the early days of the internet, and while the current iteration is literal cancer of the brain, unmaking it from reality would not get rid of it as someone would have come up with something similar to it anyways, if not already existing in the first place. FB was not the first nor the last of these sites. Its just the most popular currently. Same with twitter. What prevents this poison from spreading rapidly is limiting the use of access to every single person with a pulse. Smart Phones made the transmission of this shit too easy, fast and too susceptible for anyone glancing at something without putting much thought in. 

Everything that is wrong in society today is born from the combination of social media and ubiquitous internet everywhere. If we limited how it was spread then the shit would die before it had a chance to get into people's heads.


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## FAST6191 (Oct 27, 2021)

Dr_Faustus said:


> I would go back and prevent the release of the iPhone, which in turn was the first of many next generation era of smart portable devices capable of ubiquitous internet access anywhere at anytime.
> 
> Why you may ask?
> 
> ...



Sony, Microsoft and HP had little palm computers for decades before then (see clie, windows CE with 2002 seeing IE 5.5 more or less complete cross compatibility though IE6 was the contemporary desktop version, HP palmtop and ipaq respectively). Bolting on a mobile phone transmitter, especially when they were getting smaller and less power hungry/batteries were rising to meet the occasion, would be the same might as well try to stop the tide thing you were on about for sites. Several of those had modems as well, and at the same time laptops were racing to be smaller.
Outside the US then Blackberry started out as a businessman type deal for email on the phone but soon morphed into all the kids, Symbian OS was a thing too, various other companies supported things after a fashion.
WAP phones were a thing way before that and contemporary to some of the palmtop things.


With that approach then at best you would change the faces, however they all seem to turn censorious "we know what is best for you" in the end. Maybe you could convince one of the various companies that basically had things better than an iphone before the iphone to stick around and we could maybe still have headphone jacks, SD cards and things you stand a chance of finding repair parts for.
Now if you wanted to go back and make it such that all the networks were truly open and p2p/distributed (hard when you don't have Microsoft/google/tech investor money to burn and bandwidth/storage costs what it did) then you might end up in a better timeline.


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## Dr_Faustus (Oct 28, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> Sony, Microsoft and HP had little palm computers for decades before then (see clie, windows CE with 2002 seeing IE 5.5 more or less complete cross compatibility though IE6 was the contemporary desktop version, HP palmtop and ipaq respectively). Bolting on a mobile phone transmitter, especially when they were getting smaller and less power hungry/batteries were rising to meet the occasion, would be the same might as well try to stop the tide thing you were on about for sites. Several of those had modems as well, and at the same time laptops were racing to be smaller.
> Outside the US then Blackberry started out as a businessman type deal for email on the phone but soon morphed into all the kids, Symbian OS was a thing too, various other companies supported things after a fashion.
> WAP phones were a thing way before that and contemporary to some of the palmtop things.
> 
> ...


I had a feeling I would get a response like this if I left out some aspects on why I said iPhone over other devices. Basically in the same way the iMac made the internet more accessible to the masses in the early 00's due to its dead simple and attractive layout of design over the complicated and more expensive PC's of the time its what helped create a shift towards the concept of a computer in every home and other companies started to follow the trend trying to sell to the general consumer market and trying to undercut Apple in both price and usability for the time. The iPhone more or less did the same thing but in the mobile space. Yes the technology was always there, and it would have been only a matter of time before it would become a reality regardless. The difference here however is Apple has the means to make something of this nature desirable, not because of its function and form but because its generally a status symbol/fashion symbol. Its not meant to pull in the nerds, the geeks, the businessmen, the people who need a device or want a device that can do all of this, but a device that can appeal to the average person. The problem is that the average person really should not have access to that kind of technology if they cannot think for themselves critically or know how context works. 

In short, the tech was always there and would always be there. The difference here is Apple made it attractive for the average user to want this technology, and not because they need this technology. The shift in the mobile tech market accommodated this change and made it something that everyone could embrace, for better and most definitely for worse. As a society we were just not ready for this tech to be accessible to everyone everywhere, and as a result its caused a poisoning of the mind of countless people lead astray by lies and false information. Now we are at a point that we are clearly aware of it, but refuse to do anything about it either because its too late to change it or because it would work against their interests (thank you FB document leaks). 

You simply cannot ignore the fact that over the age of 20 years, the ease of access of the internet has caused culture to degrade as the line between truth and objective belief has been blurred beyond any recognition to any average person. The rare crazy conspiracy theorist that we would once laugh at or avoid on the street now has the means to broadcast their madness on the web and gain a following of believers that would echo said madness in a way that it could convince average people into it because they are a following of people or they cannot be bothered to dig beyond the surface. Shit like this and more is eroding the social consciousness and we don't really have the tools to fight it off anymore with any instance to sounding off the violation of free speech and whatnot. It's too late to change the trajectory for what shit we are in and heading deeper into now.


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## FAST6191 (Oct 28, 2021)

Dr_Faustus said:


> I had a feeling I would get a response like this if I left out some aspects on why I said iPhone over other devices. Basically in the same way the iMac made the internet more accessible to the masses in the early 00's due to its dead simple and attractive layout of design over the complicated and more expensive PC's of the time its what helped create a shift towards the concept of a computer in every home and other companies started to follow the trend trying to sell to the general consumer market and trying to undercut Apple in both price and usability for the time. The iPhone more or less did the same thing but in the mobile space. Yes the technology was always there, and it would have been only a matter of time before it would become a reality regardless. The difference here however is Apple has the means to make something of this nature desirable, not because of its function and form but because its generally a status symbol/fashion symbol. Its not meant to pull in the nerds, the geeks, the businessmen, the people who need a device or want a device that can do all of this, but a device that can appeal to the average person. The problem is that the average person really should not have access to that kind of technology if they cannot think for themselves critically or know how context works.
> 
> In short, the tech was always there and would always be there. The difference here is Apple made it attractive for the average user to want this technology, and not because they need this technology. The shift in the mobile tech market accommodated this change and made it something that everyone could embrace, for better and most definitely for worse. As a society we were just not ready for this tech to be accessible to everyone everywhere, and as a result its caused a poisoning of the mind of countless people lead astray by lies and false information. Now we are at a point that we are clearly aware of it, but refuse to do anything about it either because its too late to change it or because it would work against their interests (thank you FB document leaks).
> 
> You simply cannot ignore the fact that over the age of 20 years, the ease of access of the internet has caused culture to degrade as the line between truth and objective belief has been blurred beyond any recognition to any average person. The rare crazy conspiracy theorist that we would once laugh at or avoid on the street now has the means to broadcast their madness on the web and gain a following of believers that would echo said madness in a way that it could convince average people into it because they are a following of people or they cannot be bothered to dig beyond the surface. Shit like this and more is eroding the social consciousness and we don't really have the tools to fight it off anymore with any instance to sounding off the violation of free speech and whatnot. It's too late to change the trajectory for what shit we are in and heading deeper into now.


I have been there to witness things as far as the internet. It has also seen my already low opinion of humans in general sink lower still. That said I would probably go with worth the cost at some level. Serious remote working, cheap communications, ease of competition and (inter)national reach in things. Wonderful and not inclined to give that up even if I am otherwise capable of playing in that world. So a few people join cults... happens throughout history.

Are far as status symbols in phones. I saw that on school playgrounds and pubs from Nokia 3310 (others playing along think Snake, and that saw a throwback model a couple of years back), through Nokias with mapping software/GPS, through ones with keyboards, skipping around on blackberry (though keyboard was also there), motorolla razr featured in there (and had a throwback model last year... and not because it was an unsung classic), cameras appeared in the mix in there as well. Throughout it all you saw all sorts of fun colours, fancy shells sporting rhinestones/screen printed popular culture character be popular enough to be sold in street carts and cheap commercial buildings like they do cheap jewellery before and after that.
From where I sit then Apple's contribution to such things was being the one to be the most open first (even mobile java stuff was awful compared to the seriously limited options apple gave people, everybody else was pretty much concerned with making thousands to open it up, presumably going after that "my fortune 500 needs a custom VPN application" set). This was also years after developers developers developers developers so not like the idea would have been new in mainstream tech.

I would also not credit Apple with making the internet accessible to people; AOL and Compuserv for that one (possibly plus some other dial up providers in other countries), and after IE rode Netscape into the scene of the crash then IE. Yahoo probably gets to feature in there somewhere too.

On them and home computers. I will give that the imac g3 made companies go in for more than beige box for the cases (about as close as it got before then was I had a case with a purple swooped bezel, mainly because it was the cheapest one at the computer fayre that day). However as far as computer in every home then that was well in motion by Windows 95 and mainstream by 98SE. By ME I was sorting them when kids had their own. Sure the idea underpinning it during the earlier days was computer is the third most expensive item in a family after the house and car but yeah. Apple for me post apple II is "it's good for graphics" from people that probably would otherwise be eating crayons, ipod, maybe a few developers wanting a unix a like laptop and suddenly trend chasing people in universities for reasons I have never quite figured out.


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## Deleted member 514389 (Oct 28, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> Possibly a bit fatalistic but I would say incorrect, and even if not (going way off topic but see "The Copenhagen Interpretation" of alternate universes for a starting point there) then whether you go for history repeats itself or history rhymes then knowing why something happened one time can lead to you preventing it from happening again, or at least predicting and acting accordingly for yourself.
> 
> As far as the incorrect thing. While it is a somewhat maligned view of looking at history these days then the great man theory view of history (see Thomas Carlyle for the main originator of that, and a very interesting series of political and history books) is one that has its perks. There are times when someone of such great skill, cunning, strength, insight, sociopathy... appears that will likely not be matched by anybody else alive at the time. There are also times where pure random chance causes something to happen that would not have otherwise happened, or would have taken decades/centuries more to happen and at that point things have changed (whether for positive or negative might be debatable).
> Certainly I would still continue to spend considerable amounts of time looking into economics*, biology, geography**, human psychology, group psychology, scientific advancement at the time, social structures (granted that might be more economics, biology and geography), philosophies at the time.
> ...




The Copenhagen interpretation was first posed by physicist Niels Bohr in 1920. It says that a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another, but in all of its possible states at once.  https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/quantum-suicide4.htm

Okay Mister.
I'm ready for your - longest yet - post on the temp:
Particles <=> History
Feel free to use spoilers wherever neccessary...


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## Leen (Oct 28, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> Sony, Microsoft and HP had little palm computers for decades before then (see clie, windows CE with 2002 seeing IE 5.5 more or less complete cross compatibility though IE6 was the contemporary desktop version, HP palmtop and ipaq respectively). Bolting on a mobile phone transmitter, especially when they were getting smaller and less power hungry/batteries were rising to meet the occasion, would be the same might as well try to stop the tide thing you were on about for sites. Several of those had modems as well, and at the same time laptops were racing to be smaller.
> Outside the US then Blackberry started out as a businessman type deal for email on the phone but soon morphed into all the kids, Symbian OS was a thing too, various other companies supported things after a fashion.
> WAP phones were a thing way before that and contemporary to some of the palmtop things.
> 
> ...


at the same time the first Droid came out would it change anything on phones except that android would be more popular and apple would probably be dead


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## FAST6191 (Oct 28, 2021)

notrea11y said:


> The Copenhagen interpretation was first posed by physicist Niels Bohr in 1920. It says that a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another, but in all of its possible states at once.  https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/quantum-suicide4.htm
> 
> Okay Mister.
> I'm ready for your - longest yet - post on the temp:
> ...


As it was getting into serious asides I just wanted to give whatever people that cared a choice term to search for if they wanted. Many worlds vs copenhagen being the usual entry point to the debate if you want to do parallel universes (which would arguably encompass time travel owing to the whole changing history thing, neither preclude it either).

You said in as many words that whatever happens then everything remains the same. That is another view of things, rather out of fashion owing to said quantum mechanics (if you are sticking with that then it would be Newtonian physics -- that being with enough computing power and knowledge of the initial state you could predict the whole course of events of every particle created/interacting for the whole of time. Quantum stuff being random does appear rather to step all over that though, even more so as we appear to be able to make decisions based upon that* and butterfly effects, even more so over longer time scales).
It also ends up in a debate about free will as well.

However that gets all a bit navel gazing for the tastes of most, and even if it was the case that we are all automatons we appear to be able to hypothesise about free will in some form of illusion anyway. To that end we can handwave it all away and get onto the business of causation.
Economics, biological drives, geography, psychology (in as much as it is distinct from biology), philosophy, said quantum physics (we only have what was around when some earlier stars went supernova, and did not get blown off by solar wind)... all good stuff to contemplate in the study of history beyond "what, when and where something happened" that most leave school thinking it is (and frankly I would have been happy to even have that -- my main history teacher was atrocious, and even if it did not kill my desire to learn history, I did have some good teachers and sources otherwise, it put it into a coma for about a decade).

Similarly there is the phrase "those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it", which I am not entirely on board with but there is some truth to it, one that even sits nicely in your more physics centric approach of this last post (same start conditions the experiment should repeat). To that end "history rhymes" is perhaps a more agreeable one for me. Much like music you can also scale up and down quite happily to look at local policy and how it might do stuff for you, or (inter)national and how you hedge your bets to enjoy an easier life (or go the other way), this goes even if you figure you are a leaf in a stream if we are going to start mixing up history related metaphors.

While you may figure you are but a leaf in the stream, one of many before and after that will be letters in an old book before the century is out, there is the idea that not everybody is. Some things in history appear to be discovered time and time again; after wheat a like is made someone will leave it around for a day or so and thus you get bread, leave that a bit more and you have booze (there is even some argument, with not inconsiderable archaeological evidence, that booze came before bread).
At the same time human genetics is incredibly variable with random aberrations popping up all the time. It might well be that the greatest mathematician (pre cybernetics and genetic enhancement anyway) was born centuries ago and just pondered things while sowing fields for some leader, or indeed the greatest general for ancient times was born thousands of years late. Sometimes though coincidence happens, brilliance happens to be in the right place (or wrong place, at least for your value system, to take it back to the thread's main premise). Inherent with the question of the thread is also the idea that you might be able to drop a modern encyclopaedia through the time portal (suitable translated of course), maybe just a note, and change things, or you might be able to go back with a small strike team and fire bullets various ways to change things (or maybe less violently if it was a random rock that led to the discovery of something then move that).

*if doing videos


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## Dr_Faustus (Oct 29, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> I have been there to witness things as far as the internet. It has also seen my already low opinion of humans in general sink lower still. That said I would probably go with worth the cost at some level. Serious remote working, cheap communications, ease of competition and (inter)national reach in things. Wonderful and not inclined to give that up even if I am otherwise capable of playing in that world. So a few people join cults... happens throughout history.


Theres a difference between a few people over the years and an outright attempt to overthrow the US government because of some crazy ass conspiracy theory fueled by disgruntled people with nothing better to do but get their information spoon-fed to them from their mobile devices allowing them to be strung along by bullshit enough to create a mob and then an actual threat to people. While there have been numerous examples in the past of people being strung along by bullshit, it has not gotten as bad as this and the blame can be put squarely on everyone having access to the web instantaneously allowing this shit to spread and for these crazy people to be organized enough to pose a threat among others. 

Also to drive the point further home, even the Heavens Gate Cult knew how the power of the web can be important to spread their message, witch is why one of the last things it had planned was the continued operation and upkeep of its website by two remaining cult members as it was instructed for them to be "left behind" to do so to continue spreading their information to anyone curious.


FAST6191 said:


> Are far as status symbols in phones. I saw that on school playgrounds and pubs from Nokia 3310 (others playing along think Snake, and that saw a throwback model a couple of years back), through Nokias with mapping software/GPS, through ones with keyboards, skipping around on blackberry (though keyboard was also there), motorolla razr featured in there (and had a throwback model last year... and not because it was an unsung classic), cameras appeared in the mix in there as well. Throughout it all you saw all sorts of fun colours, fancy shells sporting rhinestones/screen printed popular culture character be popular enough to be sold in street carts and cheap commercial buildings like they do cheap jewellery before and after that.
> From where I sit then Apple's contribution to such things was being the one to be the most open first (even mobile java stuff was awful compared to the seriously limited options apple gave people, everybody else was pretty much concerned with making thousands to open it up, presumably going after that "my fortune 500 needs a custom VPN application" set). This was also years after developers developers developers developers so not like the idea would have been new in mainstream tech.


It widely depends on cultures and territories as well. I know in a lot of eastern territories the Blackberry was considered the high end status symbol for a long while even after the iPhone dropped. It would not be until the early/mid 2010's that the perception shifted greatly towards Apple as a whole.


FAST6191 said:


> I would also not credit Apple with making the internet accessible to people; AOL and Compuserv for that one (possibly plus some other dial up providers in other countries), and after IE rode Netscape into the scene of the crash then IE. Yahoo probably gets to feature in there somewhere too.


The iMac was literally marketed as the "first Internet Ready computer" for the consumer market. Even if this was not true by any stretch of the imagination the marketing plus the simple design made it a magnet for the average person to jump on it compared to anything else on the market. 

Simply stating that something exists before Apple does not mean that it was the main contributor of what made the internet popular in the first place. AOL/Compuserv aside the mass adoption of the home computer and from that the internet in everyones home was heavily influenced by the existence of the iMac G3. Internet adoption rates skyrocketed from the release of this computer and its popularity in the market.



FAST6191 said:


> On them and home computers. I will give that the imac g3 made companies go in for more than beige box for the cases (about as close as it got before then was I had a case with a purple swooped bezel, mainly because it was the cheapest one at the computer fayre that day). However as far as computer in every home then that was well in motion by Windows 95 and mainstream by 98SE. By ME I was sorting them when kids had their own. Sure the idea underpinning it during the earlier days was computer is the third most expensive item in a family after the house and car but yeah. Apple for me post apple II is "it's good for graphics" from people that probably would otherwise be eating crayons, ipod, maybe a few developers wanting a unix a like laptop and suddenly trend chasing people in universities for reasons I have never quite figured out.


While it is true that Windows had the edge in most businesses and Schools by this point Apple was leading in hard in the home market adoption rate at the time as well. Its odd considering that Apple used to have this edge until around the early 90's when they were making bad calls left and right. Lets not forget that the company was almost at a point of bankruptcy before MS infused some cash into them to keep alive enough to pick up Jobs and merged with NeXT to help push the next generation of Apple computers forward. 




Leen said:


> at the same time the first Droid came out would it change anything on phones except that android would be more popular and apple would probably be dead



Except that is also not as true as you think it is. Android early on, before Google acquired the company making the OS was designed top to bottom a Blackberry competitor OS, so much so to the point the first actual prototypes were of Blackberry like devices until the first iPhone was announced, which caused a dramatic shift towards remaking the entire OS to compete against iOS/the iPhone. 

The original Android phone prototype can be seen here


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## FAST6191 (Nov 19, 2021)

Bit of light necromancy this evening, and videos as usual.

Library of Alexandria. Video details what was lost that we know of

So the black ops team and I get to do sigint/humint session instead of shooting a would be warmonger.

Serious thought to saving that one actually. Even if I came back to today with photos of everything with nothing else changing then that would be a win in my world. Only thing more likely (that we know of) would be dodging some of the Chinese book burnings way back when, which might be more but I am not sure how valuable they would be.

On the primordial ooze set then not technically related but something that could be of interest there


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## XDel (Dec 8, 2021)

All of them.


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## The Catboy (Dec 9, 2021)

I would prevent Lilith was entering this section


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## D34DL1N3R (Dec 9, 2021)

UltraDolphinRevolution said:


> Has the climate ever not changed in the history of this planet? Al Gore must have been a god-like chap. Let´s not de-rail this thread. I cannot assess the impact of these policies. I just couldn´t resist.



I don't think you understand climate change.


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